Advice #1: shop your pantry. This seems to be a "duh" piece of advice, but here is how I applied it. I did look through my pantry and took stock of what was there. Rice, beans, cans of diced tomatoes, salmon, anything that was overflowing got noticed. I would like to say that I wrote it down, but I didn't. I also took stock of what wasn't overflowing but that we liked to keep on hand. Some of this I did write down. I did not take a long time to do this. I did most of it while I was busy making dinner.
The next and biggest beneficiary of this was the freezer. I don't know about you, but our freezers always seem to be overflowing with food, but not what we want. Odd, since we bought it. So, one shelf at a time, I looked in the freezer and made a mental note about it. Maybe there was some soup or a package of meat I had forgotten. This became the basis of a meal for the week.
I also went to old stand-bys: meals I know the family will always eat and we keep the basics on hand - breakfast, hot dogs, spaghetti. We have a longer list than that, but you get the idea. As I wrote down the list of "this needs to be used" from the freezer and things we have, I noticed I had between 4 and 6 meals, and I didn't need to buy anything, or very little. If you haven't done this already, make yourself a list of "go-to" meals. These are things that you can make for dinner when life explodes and you just don't have the energy or time to make a huge meal. Meals like cereal, spaghetti, breakfast, sandwiches, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, are all viable options. Ramen counts too!
Advice #2: shop sales. Again, conventional wisdom here. But when I had a list of meals available at home, I checked the ads of local stores. Perhaps I had all the ingredients for a meal, but could use some fresh bread. Or I saw ham on sale and decided to use that with beans. When I found pork tenderloin on sale, I bought one to make Carolina Pork Barbeque. It was easy to add that into the menu plan. I used the weekly sales ad only to fill in meals that I couldn't from the pantry. I did not base the whole week on the sales, just one of two meals.
Advice #3: shop with a list. My list for "added items" became very small. We have some staples that get bought every month, but sometimes I get overzealous with what I see and I buy without a plan so things get shoved in the freezer. Hence the problem mentioned in #1. I add items that I need to replace, like a can of carrots that I used because I only have 1 left. If I have several left, I don't add those, until I am down to just a couple.
All this managed to keep our food expenses down. It doesn't always work, but it helps. Also, this does not always include extra things like sodas, birthdays, social events, etc. Sometimes I can manage to use what we have and make a special event special. Other times, it requires a little extra.
While advice you find online or from other people may be helpful, it has to be applied. Not everyone can apply it in the same fashion, but it can be applied. I can hear someone ask: what if you don't have a pantry to shop from? That definitely can be a problem. If you have a tendency to not keep some items on hand, it means your grocery bill will be higher. This is where the " stocking up" advice comes in. Maybe you don't keep certain things at home, but you notice that the store has that pork tenderloin on sale. Buy two. Cut them, wrap them in plastic wrap and foil, label them, and freeze them. Now you have a good 4-6 meals stashed. Perhaps the store also has cans of soup on sale. Buy a flat (about 24 cans). Now you can just grab a loaf of bread and have soup and grilled cheese on nights when you get home late.
