Shopping Strategies for the Grocery Store
First, do have a plan for the week. If you're really tight on funds for the week, figure out a few meals you can make from any pantry or freezer items you already have. Then look at the grocery ads. (You can find these online now if you don't subscribe to a newspaper and they aren't sent to you in the mail.) I find it easier to have a template of sorts, sort of a "fill in the blank" idea. I like serving a variety of foods and I like a bit of spontaneity in my menus. I also frequently cook one big cut one night and have plans for its leftover another night.
Look at what days you'll need to be gone right up until dinner and think of a slow cooker meal for that night so dinner is ready when everyone's home and hungry. On the nights when you have a bit more time, spend some of it preparing parts of later meals or cooking a big item that will be used for planned-overs in the week.
If you can, figure out how much you are spending on each dinner, now. How much per serving (total divided by how many people you feed plus leftover meals) are you typically spending? Set yourself a goal, a target, of slightly less than that. If you're spending $15 or $20 a day on food, set your goal to be 10% less than that. When you reach that goal, reduce it by 10% again!
Template Ideas
You can organize your menu template based on your own goals. For me, variety is important, as is seasonal cooking. Seasonal menus, by the way, tend to be cheaper naturally. When things are in season locally, there is a lot of it so the price comes down. You don't need to eat the same thing every week just because you can get it frozen. Branch out and explore your local food options if it feasible. Growing your own is a fun way to explore this, but is not necessarily cheaper in the beginning, as you might need to buy some supplies. For me, however, it's worth a bit of extra expense to know I can walk out in the yard and pick organic vegetables for dinner. You might explore your own local options by finding nearby farmers' markets or you-pick farms.
You can organize your own template by either food type or cooking style or some conglomeration. Here are some ideas to choose from...
Red Meat
Fish
Pasta or rice
Eggs
Cheese
Chicken
Beans
Vegetarian
Soup and Sandwiches
I like to save some of my menus from weeks that worked well and refer back to them for ideas. Make a list of various things you all like for each category and refer to it when you're planning the week. I like to note down the cookbook and page number of favorite recipes so I can easily find them again. If you don't have as many cookbooks as I do, this may not be an issue! I also have a binder I created with our "tried and true" favorites.
Red meats
If you're a meat eater, pick one red meat item that is on sale, unless you're using something from your freezer already. This might be a roast that can net you 2 or 3 meals or chops or ground beef that's on sale. Typically, red meat is the most expensive part of anyone's weekly grocery budget. If your family likes red meat, just cut down on the frequency of how often you serve it and you'll likely see an immediate reduction in your food bill. Use bits of leftover red meat for fried rice, hash, soup, or sandwiches.
Red meats include beef, pork, and lamb. Think pot roasts, stews, and the huge variety of ground beef dishes. If you serve ground beef (a bargain in some areas of the country and not in others!), don't assume you need to serve everyone a 1/4 pound of it. Stretch it out in casseroles, burritos, tacos, soups, and other dishes. If you're making burgers, cook up a pot of baked beans and make some oven fries to go with them. If you really need to conserve how much people eat, set aside what you're counting on for another meal before serving up tonight's dinner so you can be assured it won't get eaten. Let people fill up on vegetables, salads, and grains rather than meat.
Poultry
Chicken prices vary tremendously from one week to the next it seems. Learn what your lowest prices are and set those as your goal. When chicken parts go on sale, buy more than you can eat in one week. Put a meal's worth of chicken parts in a bag with some marinade and throw extras in the freezer. You can bake, barbecue, or slow-cook these later with very little effort. Save the bones to make broth, of course. Find some casseroles using leftover cooked chicken that you all like. When you have leftover chicken, pull it off the bone and freeze in portions that match your favorite recipes (typically 2 cups cooked chicken.)
Fish
Even living near the ocean, fish is not cheap where I live. Yet, I do still like to have it now and then. The frozen fish is often more reliable and affordable than the fresh, but your mileage may vary. You have to know what things cost where you live, not where I live. Pay attention to the total cost of a meal for your family. If you can buy some small pieces of expensive fish (or meat) and then feed your whole family some favorite meal at a total net cost of your target, go for it! Don't neglect some of the canned fish items either. Watch for them on sale and stock up. Mark the dates you bought them on the top of the cans and use up your oldest cans first.
Use Some General Shopping Strategies
Work the perimeter of the store first. Fresh produce, meats, and dairy are generally on the outside walls. Pick up what's freshest and cheapest and try not to buy more than you need. Picking up a bag of cheap apples or bananas isn't frugal if you end up throwing half of it away. However, picking up a cheap bag of bananas, making some muffins or banana bread and freezing what you cannot use right away is!
Coupons may or may not work for you, depending on how much time you have to spend on clipping, organizing, and tracking them. Pay attention to your bottom line budget for food. Ignore those clever tag lines of "You saved $x dollars today!" What you did was SPEND $Y and that's the important number. Buying something on sale for $5 that's regularly $8 is not cheaper than buying something that will feed the same number of people for $4! Some people can stay on track by noting down their expenditures and totaling them at the end of each month. Others need the physical reinforcement of counting out a set number of dollars each week and only having that to spend. If you don't spend it all one week, set it aside for stocking up on loss leaders another week.
Learn to use leftovers
Whatever you spend on food, throwing it away will break your budget! Try to have some planned leftovers in your menu each week. Whenever I cook a steak or chicken, we almost always have burritos one night that week. Sandwiches are another easy option. Make or buy some French rolls, lay out some sliced beef or chicken or pork, top with some sauteed onions and peppers, lay a slice a cheese on that, and then broil the whole concoction for a few minutes. Put a bit of effort into making the sandwiches special and it doesn't feel like leftovers at all! Serve these with some slaw or salad or beans.
Staying on track
If you're buying something that's not on your grocery list, stop and think a minute. Why did you just pick it up? Do you need it or want it? Do you have any extra money this week? If not, and it's just a want, put it back. Do not trust the grocery store to watch your budget for you. Just because it's marked as being on sale, does not mean it's a good price. When it's "Buy One Get One Free" sometimes the price is higher than it was the week before when you only had to buy one! Know your prices. Keep a price book if you cannot track it all in your head.
Try to go to the grocery store as seldom as possible. Once a week works well for most people and lets you pick up fresh milk and produce. Most people will walk into the grocery store for "one or two things" and walk out with 5 or 10 that caught your eye. If you just make do with what you have, modify your recipe if you're missing an ingredient, find a new recipe that uses only what you have, or just do without, you'll be way better off financially.