An experiment by Mari-Liis Ilover: planning your grocery list helps save money

I have to admit that I myself have not really been too consistent in my meal planning. But not completely hopeless, either. Surely, there are people who excel at planning meals long in advance and planning their shopping trips accordingly. I myself am rather one of those spontaneous scatterbrains who in the morning feels like having paella for dinner, for example, and then rushes to the nearest supermarket (or several) a few hours before dinner to get the groceries I need. And I would probably grab something off the shelves that I don’t really need at all.

To motivate myself and others similar to me and to see whether and how much planning actually helps you save, I carried out a comparative experiment in September.

So what did I get myself and my family into?

During the experiment, this is how my family and I ate:

• the first 2 weeks, we didn’t have a plan. We just ate what we felt like and wanted to and went grocery shopping when we ran out of or needed something, and went to the first grocery store that was on the way. I had to go to the store every day.
• the following 2 weeks, I made a plan: I took a sheet of paper at the beginning of both weeks, and drew up the weekly menu and the corresponding shopping list. I went to the store once a week, with the shopping list.

Two weeks of “free-roaming” at grocery stores – freedom or chaos?

Even though we did not have a fixed menu in place for this period, the meals did not really differ much from those of the planned weeks. But we decided on the meals on the go based on what we felt like. We did not really keep an eye on special offers and did our shopping at different stores that were just on our way or that we felt like visiting. As we summed up our expenses, it turned out that we spent 795.55 euros on groceries in the two weeks, which means 397.7 euros a week. That’s almost 400 euros a week!

Observations:

• When shopping without a list, you tend to sneak in impulse items that are actually unnecessary and add to the total of your invoice. If you are unsure what to cook over the following days, shopping is more time-consuming and you will end up buying more just in case – “I’ll decide later at home”. But this is wasteful and causes food waste.
• If you haven’t checked what’s in your cupboards before going to the store, you may buy too much and can end up having something you’re not going to use and this, again, leads to food waste and pointless spending.

All in all, not planning ahead seems convenient at first because you don’t have to think about making a menu or a shopping list, but you will end up spending significantly more on your food. Also, you will spend a lot of time going to the store for every little thing you need.

Two weeks of planned meals: it really does pay off to plan ahead?

For two weeks, I made shopping lists according to the eating habits of our family, by food categories: fruit and vegetables; meat, fish and eggs; dry ingredients, sandwich stuff, etc. If you have menus in place by categories like that, it will be easy to use, modify and supplement them in the future. In addition, dividing your shopping into categories helps you get it done faster at the store. For example, in the vegetable department, you can put all your fruit and vegetable category products in the basket at once.

In the first planned menu week, the weekly shopping cost me 164.67 euros, and in the second week, 121.60 euros. This makes a total of 286.27 euros, or about 143 euros a week. That's less than half of the unplanned and shopping-list-free week!

Observations:

• Needs-based shopping with a shopping list is definitely significantly more wallet-friendly than random and unplanned shopping. If you stick to the list, you will purchase what you need, and there will be no leftovers or food waste.
• Shopping in one store chain, especially if you check out the discount offers online beforehand, is cheaper. Also, it takes less time because you know where everything is.
• With a planned menu, you will have to go to the store less often, and can avoid impulse purchases. By planning the menu ahead, you can put more focus on fresh, seasonal and versatile ingredients, and will spend less money on random stuff.

When you go to the store with a shopping list you have made according to your weekly menu, you will spend much less on food. It will take you less time to shop, too. The prerequisite for this, however, is a thought-through weekly menu, a corresponding shopping list and, of course, sticking to the list while in the store.

Is planned shopping for everyone?

Even though the experiment clearly proved that if you plan your grocery shopping ahead, you will spend much less, it still does not always work. Why?

1. Because of spontaneity. Sometimes, you feel like having something that is not on the planned menu. And that can be very frustrating! For example, you feel like having a pizza night, but your menu says otherwise. Some people (like me, for example) can be very upset by “rules” like this, and I would be willing to spend a little more to still have that spontaneous pizza night. I believe that if you stick to the menu more or less, it is nice and even refreshing to sometimes deviate from your menu.
2. Celebrations or unexpected events: unexpected guests or a spontaneous movie night mess up the planned menu and need flexibility and unplanned snacks or other meals. And that is okay!
3. Time constraints. People who have unpredictable schedules or are simply very busy all the time can find it difficult to plan long ahead and prepare meals from scratch all the time.
4. A balance of structure and flexibility! Weekly menus and planned grocery shopping are valuable tools for saving, but it is only human and normal to also leave room for flexibility as life or your preferences change.

A few tips for successful planning:

1. Start out with a basic menu that lists the main meals with versatile ingredients that your family like and are accustomed to
2. Make a shopping list based on your menu
3. Stick to your list in the store
4. Seasonal vegetables and fruits are often cheap and in their best shape. Also, they add healthiness, variety and richness of taste to meals. Frozen vegetables are also a good choice in every way. As a bonus, you can always have them ready in the freezer.
5. Always keep some stocks at home: find space for basic ingredients such as pasta, rice, canned food (beans, tomatoes, tuna, etc.) and frozen vegetables. These will help you put food on the table, should you suddenly run out of something or should you happen to change your meals.
6. Adjust your planning according to the previous weeks. Each week gives you new experiences and shows you how to plan better. Pay attention to what remains unused and adapt the next list accordingly to avoid food waste and unnecessary purchases. Make your weekly menus diverse! For example, in my first week, we had quite a few meat dishes, and in the second, the focus was more on vegetable and fish dishes.
7. Plan your menu so that you can use up the food left over from a previous meal. For example, if you buy a larger package of spinach, plan several dishes with spinach to avoid it spoiling.
8. Stock up on snacks and seasonings. Sometimes, small snacks such as nuts or dried fruits can satisfy any sudden cravings and keep you from deviating from the planned menu. Herbs and seasonings also help make your routine dishes more exciting. Soy sauce, wine vinegar, teriyaki sauce, sriracha, dried spice mixes, chili flakes, etc. are all good flavour enhancers and can help you perk up boring foods and cook dishes with different flavouring levels.

So if you haven’t tried it yet, I definitely encourage you to plan a menu ahead and go shopping with a shopping list to save money. Also, do not think of it as a prison camp, but leave room for flexibility and see what suits you and your family best. Perhaps this is the middle ground between two extreme styles?

IMPORTANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

• I did not add quantities to the shopping list because I have a general idea of how much of any food we will consume and so I just grab the corresponding amount in the store. I made the shopping for the planned weeks at Prisma Peremarket. I checked out Prisma’s website beforehand to see which products are particularly affordable and kept that in mind when planning the menu and making the shopping list. This time, the goal was not to get food on the table at the lowest possible cost, but have a comparison of random and preplanned shopping, but keeping track of better prices certainly helped keep food costs lower.
• I usually cook from scratch and from fresh ingredients and we rarely have ready-made meals. This is definitely something that helps keep the costs down. I try to keep our meals healthy, seasonal and wholesome – I try to add in plenty of colourful vegetables, high-quality proteins and, of course, carbohydrates, without which my young ones would simply feel like they’re starving.
• As my daily work revolves around the world of food, creating recipes and writing about food, this is what largely dictates what we eat at home. After all, someone has to eat up all my experiments! In the month of the experiment, there was less food-related work to do with the recipes and the cooking, and more writing to do, so I was able to focus on the costs of ordinary home-made food.
• We have five people in our family, and the youngest one is 15 years old. Usually, we eat breakfast and dinner together at home (not always the five of us; after all, young people also have their own stuff do to and my husband is often abroad for work), and lunch is eaten either at school or at work. However, if someone happens to be home at lunchtime, lunch is more in the style of “find something and eat it”. I do make lunch some days, but the quantities are rather small because not everyone is there to eat anyway.
• We don't spend a lot on sweets. We try to make sure that our stomachs are full of good, diverse and healthy home-made food, so we don’t get many cravings. Still, we always have chocolate, ice-cream, nacho chips, nuts, etc. at home. You never know when you feel like having something sweet or snacking on something. And sometimes, our children like to drink something sweet – usually ice tea or juice. Most of the time, we drink homemade flavoured water (lime and mint, for example) or just plain cold fresh water with our food. As for wine, we always have some at home so that if the food or the situation requires, we can just take it out.
• Even though the experiment focused on how much we spend on groceries, we cannot say these are the family’s only expenses on food. Sometimes we eat lunch out, sometimes we order in, and an occasional visit to a restaurant is also an option.
• As the experiment took place in the autumn, we were able to get quite a few things from our own garden: tomatoes, apples, pumpkins, herbs, etc. I also make my own jams and juices.