Grocery Shopping Advice Plus a Weekly Meal Plan!
Are you looking for grocery shopping advice to help you save money? Interested in a meal plan that suggests what to make this week? Read on!
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Introduction
I’m sure you’ll agree that grocery shopping has gotten expensive! I’ve recently shared an article on how to deal with the rising prices of groceries in 2025 and beyond. Each time I go to the grocery store, I’m shocked by the cost of some items. Last week, I shared my tips on How to Create a Grocery List Based on Sales When You Meal Plan. This week, I have a few more suggestions for what you can do to save on groceries.
Here’s This Week’s Main Piece of Grocery Shopping Advice: Identify a Go-To Store for Key Ingredients
Do you tend to use certain key ingredients each week? If you do, pay close attention to this one!
What do you buy almost every week?
This one took me a while, especially when I was new to the area. I use certain items almost weekly: boneless chicken breasts, beef chuck stew meat or ground beef, pork tenderloins, and shrimp. I used to limit myself to shopping at the one main grocery store in the area, and here in Florida, that’s Publix. But as prices increased, I started changing how I shopped.
Grocery shopping tip: think about sales and let this drive when and where you shop
Boneless chicken is always something I buy, so I started looking for stores that either had a great weekly sale on it or that offered it at a decent price all the time. I found both! We have a small grocery store chain nearby called Fresh Market. They send out emails with their daily, weekend, and weekly specials. Each week on Tuesday, boneless chicken is $3.99 a pound. My regular grocery store charged between $6 – $8 a pound for the same item! At first, that was my solution – I’d go there for boneless chicken every Tuesday. It’s “Chuck and Chicken Day” on Tuesdays – ground beef was also $3.99 a pound. So I could get two of my frequently purchased proteins for a good price just by shopping on a Tuesday.
At first, I ran to Fresh Market each week for the Chuck and Chicken sales. Then, I realized these items could be frozen and pulled out whenever needed. That was a much better idea!
On a different day of the week, they offer buy one get one free on pork tenderloins. These freeze fine, so I usually buy a bunch when I’m there, and I do the same: keep them in my freezer when I need them. Two pork tenderloins are in each pack, so I unpackage and freeze them separately.
They’ve been having weekend sales on shrimp—a one-pound bag of frozen, cooked, peeled, and deveined shrimp (26-30 per pound) is $9.99. I bought six bags this weekend and put them in my freezer for easy meals, shrimp cocktails, shrimp salad, etc. We use a lot of shrimp!
Remember the website I shared last week, Flipp? Be sure to use it to find sales on the items you buy.
This may work fine for you, and you won’t need additional grocery shopping advice for getting your key ingredients. But what if you are looking for a better way and don’t want to rely on the things you need going on sale? Keep reading!
Try to find a go-to store for your key ingredients
I listen to the suggestions of others regarding where to shop. Someone told me about a smaller local grocery store chain with good deals all the time. She said they always have boneless, skinless chicken breasts for great prices. I went and was impressed! Without it being on sale, they sell regular-sized packages for $3.99 a pound and large-sized packages (with 6-8 per package) for $2.99 a pound. I can get many items on my weekly list without searching for sales. They cut up chuck roasts (around $10 – $11 a pound in my area) into beef chuck stew meat and sell it for $6.39 per pound.
While we’re talking about stew meat, let me tell you this! There is a huge difference between buying what many grocery stores call stew meat and beef chuck stew meat!
I talked with the butcher at our main supermarket and asked why their stew meat seemed so tiny (they cut it into small pieces). I also asked why, no matter what I did, it seemed to come out tough! It turns out it’s the cut of beef they use – top steak or top round. The butcher suggested I boil the meat before using it in a stew – yuck! I imagine you’d lose all flavor by precooking it as he suggested.
That got me on a quest to find beef chuck stew meat – problem solved! My beef chuck stew meat is $6.39 a pound at my go-to store, and I’m not paying $8 – $10 a pound for the tough stuff!
This Week’s Meal Plan Following the Grocery Shopping Advice I’ve Shared!
Now for the part you’ve been waiting for – a meal plan for the week! Here are my key ingredients: boneless chicken, beef chuck stew meat, pork tenderloin, and shrimp. Here’s the meal plan for the week using them!
- Monday: Crockpot Orange Chicken
- Tuesday: Beef & Guinness Stew: Instant Pot, Crockpot, and Stovetop Recipes
- Wednesday: Crockpot Orange Chicken (leftovers) served over Rice
- Thursday: Beef & Guinness Stew (leftovers), served over egg noodles (don’t use the potatoes)
- Friday: Grilled Huli Huli Pork Tenderloin, Baked Potato, Vegetable
- Saturday: Beef & Guinness Stew (leftovers) served with potatoes
- Sunday: Honey Garlic Shrimp & Broccoli over Rice
In all of my recipes, I include an easy-to-shop Instacart shopping list. It will take the item list, and when you click the link, it will show you all of the items you need in Instacart (I believe this service is available in most of the US and Canada). You can select the store you want to shop from and add the items you need to the shopping cart. Take some time looking at different nearby stores to find the best prices. If you place your order with Instacart, some stores will offer you two options: pick it up at the store when you specify or have it delivered to your home. Click this link to Instacart if you haven’t shopped with them before to save $10 on your first order.
Wrap Up
Let’s recap this week’s plan with the grocery shopping advice I’ve provided. Begin by identifying your key ingredients, the items you seem to buy weekly to use in meals. My key ingredients list includes boneless chicken, beef chuck stew meat or ground beef, pork tenderloins, and shrimp. Work at figuring out where to get your key ingredients. This may be determined by sales or finding a go-to store with great prices (like I did). Then, plan your meals around these items. It’s that simple!
I’ll continue to share tips for meal planning and how to save on your food expenses. I hope you’ll decide to follow along!
Just a suggestion: have you considered the benefits of purchasing used items rather than new ones for your kitchen? Vintage Kitchen Items are really popular among people looking to save money while buying quality kitchenware.
