“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.” – Benjamin Franklin
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According to the United States Department of Agriculture, between 30 and 40% of food is thrown out. “This added up to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010.” I’m sure that figure is much higher now. According to Recycling Track Systems (RTS), that is “325 pounds of waste per person” or the equivalent of “975 average-sized apples right into the garbage.”
Anna and I are certainly guilty of wasting food. We might as well pull out our phones and transfer a bunch of money to the trash can. Luckily, we don’t have credit card debt because we’d have to pay interest on those rubbish dollars.
Reducing Food Waste
For us, the first step was cutting down on food waste. We once threw away an entire chicken because it sat in the freezer for three years. An entire chicken!!! That could have been two amazingly delicious dinners. We make a great spatchcock chicken—where you cut the backbone out and lay it completely flat, skin-side down. We cook it in a cast-iron pan, so the skin gets nice and crispy. Yeah… we didn’t eat that one.
It all starts with our grocery list. During the week, we think about a special meal we want to make for the weekend. That usually involves checking what food we already have, especially the oldest items. In the freezer, we always stack the oldest foods on top. When it’s time to plan, we open the door, see what needs to be used, and figure out how to turn it into something delicious. Usually, there’s some Googling involved.
We’ve gotten into a solid routine of alternating weekends—Anna cooks a special double-sized meal one weekend (Saturday or Sunday), and I take the next. You might be wondering, what about lunches and dinners during the week? I’ll cover that in the second half of this post, but those meals are on autopilot. Some people might find that boring, but it makes grocery shopping consistent, allows us to bulk buy and bulk cook with little waste, and saves a ton of time.
Grocery Shopping Strategy
The day before we go grocery shopping, I finalize our shopping list. Anna reviews it and gives the final approval. We keep a shared Google Doc where we add items throughout the week, preventing unnecessary trips and impulse purchases. If it isn’t on the list, it isn’t in the cart.
Before heading to the store, I check our grocery store’s app for digital coupons. In 2024 we saved $478.51 from digital coupons. In 2025 we saved XYZ. I clip deals for items we were already planning to buy and use. The key is to avoid buying something just because it’s on sale—unless it’s an item we always need, like toothpaste. If there’s a $1-off deal on toothpaste, we buy the maximum allowed since we’ll use it all year. (I have a fun tip on making toothpaste last longer in a future post!)
If I’m doing the grocery run, I go at 6 AM on Fridays before work or 8 PM after work. If Anna is going, she usually goes midday on Fridays. We shop on Fridays because we earn 4X fuel points on purchases—saving us $307 in 2024 and XYZ in 2025. (More on that in the car savings post.)
Shopping at off-peak hours means we get in and out fast. We can grab everything we need for the week in under 20 minutes.
Online Ordering
Our primary grocery store offers free online pickup for orders over $35. This is a game-changer. We try to order everything online, eliminating impulse buys. We drive up, check in, grab our groceries, and leave. The whole process takes just two to three minutes.
Another perk? We use the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, which gives us 3X points on online grocery purchases. For example, spending $50 on groceries earns us 150 points. Since Sapphire points are worth at least 1 cent per point, that’s $1.50 off an airline ticket. It doesn’t sound like much, but over time, we’ve racked up 700,000+ points—worth $7,000 in free flights. In some cases, we’ve found flights where our points are worth 5 cents each, turning that 700,000 points into $35,000 of free airline travel.
We don’t order fruit online, though. The quality can be hit or miss, so I run in and pick out fresh fruit for the week. Even with that extra step, we still save time. Plus, our grocery store’s app lets us scan and pay through our phone, which codes the purchase as online, earning 3X points in-store too.
We also rotate our fruit based on what’s in season. In the summer, we eat a ton of watermelon—20 pounds for $4–$5, way cheaper than apples, which are available year-round but cost more.
Buying Meat in Bulk
Anna and I eat meat, and we buy it in bulk. We respect that not everyone does, but this approach works for us.
For red meat, we buy directly from local ranchers who raise grass-fed cows with no hormones, using regenerative farming practices. These ranchers also use local butchers for processing.
We purchase:
- Quarter cow (~150 lbs)
- Half cow (~300 lbs)
Breakdown:
✅ 25% steaks
✅ 35% roasts, ribs, stew meat
✅ 40% ground beef + other cuts (heart, liver, marrow bones, etc.)
We use the marrow bones, arm bones, and knuckles to make bone broth which tastes absolutely amazing. The cost ranges from $5.12 to $7.50 per pound, based on hanging weight (the meat before butchering).
We’ve bought both quarter and half cows—our last half cow yielded 327 lbs of cut and processed meat. Buying in bulk saves a ton of money compared to grocery store prices. Plus, since we order online, it qualifies for 3X points on our Sapphire card!
Buying that much meat might sound intimidating, but it’s surprisingly easy. The ranchers we buy from have websites where we place an order, and they let us know when the meat is ready for pickup or delivery. In the next post, I’d like to diver further into this topic because we had a lot of questions and were pretty intimidated.
Costco & Amazon Bulk Buys
We also have a Costco membership. We buy their grass-fed burgers and chicken year-round. We alternate between Costco burgers and bulk burgers from our local rancher.
On our last order to our local rancher, we bought $600 worth of ½ lb hamburgers (68 total). Sometimes, our local rancher sells “ugly packaged” burgers (with ice crystals inside) at $9.99 for four ½ lb patties, which means 240 burgers for $600—a huge savings.
For chicken, we haven’t found a great local source yet, but that’s a goal.
We also use Costco for essentials like paper towels, toilet paper, and frozen fruit.
Amazon is another great bulk-buy source. We love Frank’s Hot Sauce, so we buy it by the gallon on Amazon. It’s flavorful, low in calories, and we get 10–15% off with Subscribe & Save. Plus, we stack that with discounted gift cards for another 10% off—saving even more.
Cooking
The primary way we save money in the cooking department is by bulk cooking. If we’re going to turn the oven on to 400 degrees for 35 minutes, the amount of time and energy used is the same whether we cook one tray of food or two.
One thing to mention—we rarely eat processed or packaged meals. Maybe once every few months, we’ll have a prepackaged meal. That’s why bulk cooking is so key for us. When meals are 90% ready to eat, it makes it easy to stick to our plan.
Meals
We have a boring but consistent meal schedule, which helps us minimize cooking and food waste.
Breakfast
We start every day with an egg hash made of eggs, ground meat, onions, mushrooms, and hot sauce. Since we eat the same thing every morning, we know exactly how much to buy each week. We typically cook and season four pounds of ground meat at a time—three pounds go in the freezer, and one pound is used for breakfast throughout the week. Cooking in bulk saves time and reduces our natural gas usage since we have a gas stove.
Snacks
I have a smoothie every day, but I don’t make them one at a time. Instead, I blend two to three at once and freeze the extras. This means I only have to wash the blender once for three days’ worth of smoothies, saving money on hot water, soap, and time.
In the afternoon, I usually eat ground beef, rice, tallow, and Frank’s Hot Sauce. I use the same seasoned ground beef from breakfast. Tallow, also known as leaf fat, comes from the kidneys and heart. I render it down in a Crock-Pot, strain it, and freeze it. It works as a butter alternative and contains more vitamins. Plus, we know exactly where it came from.
Anna loves to snack on watermelon or fruit, along with sweet potatoes cooked in coconut oil and salt.
Lunch
We eat the same lunch every day. Each Sunday, I grill 14 hamburgers—eight from our local rancher and six from Costco. In under 30 minutes, I can preheat the grill, cook a week’s worth of food, and save propane and dishwashing time.
We pair our burgers with a homemade pink sauce (paleo mayo + a healthier version of Sriracha). For sides, Anna usually has fruit, and I have sweet potatoes cooked in coconut oil. I cook all the sweet potatoes for the week in one batch to minimize cooking, gas usage, and dishwashing.
Dinner
Dinner depends on whether we’re working out at night. If Anna is teaching, she doesn’t get home until 7:30 or 7:45 PM, so we keep it simple. Most nights, we eat pulled chicken mixed with paleo mayo and diced apples, paired with pork rinds seasoned with pink Himalayan salt.
Once a week (or every other week), I cook a big batch of chicken thighs in the Crock-Pot with about a cup and a half of organic chicken broth. After six hours, I pull the thighs out and shred them with a fork. It’s an easy meal to prep and lasts multiple days.
On weekends, we cook larger meals that become leftovers for the week—chili (beer chili, sweet potato chili, etc.), stews, roasts, steaks, fajitas, Venezuelan arepas, inside-out egg rolls, chicken wings, southwest creamy chicken, soups, etc. Most of these meals stretch into one or two extra dinners.
Our Secret Weapons: The Crock-Pot & Air Fryer
This week alone, I’ve cooked:
- Four pounds of pork shoulder from our local butcher
- Sweet potato chili
- Shredded chicken
Most of our Crock-Pot meals take under 30 minutes to prep and cook for six to eight hours. I usually start a batch before work or have Anna start it midday. If our weekends are packed, I’ll wake up 30 minutes early to get something cooking so we’re covered for dinner and the weekend.
Whenever possible, I double Crock-Pot recipes—either making a larger batch or cooking the same meal again within a few days. One of my biggest pet peeves is buying a bunch of a fresh herb and using only a small portion. So if I can make two or three meals using it in one weekend, I will. This reduces food waste and maximizes our grocery budget.
We store our prepped meals in glass containers in the freezer for quick, stress-free dinners. We also use reusable sandwich bags when we go hiking. Hiking and snowboarding are the only times we eat sandwiches, so we avoid one-time-use bags. That said, if we do use disposable bags, we hand wash and reuse them.
The air fryer is another game-changer. We mainly use it for bacon and chicken wings, but it can cook plenty of other foods too. We save the bacon fat and store it in a jar—since we primarily cook with cast iron skillets, we use the bacon fat to season them.
We switched from nonstick pans to cast iron because we were replacing nonstick pans multiple times a year as the coating wore off. Now, we waste less and save money while using a healthier alternative.
Final Thoughts
That’s how we manage our weekly food buying and cooking. By keeping meals simple and consistent, we minimize waste and maximize efficiency. Bulk cooking saves time, money, and energy.
If you have any tips or ideas, please share them below.
In the next post, I’ll go into detail about buying hundreds of pounds of beef!
