Shrink your grocery bill
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How can I calculate the per‑serving cost of a recipe to spot savings?
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You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey everybody, it's Marielle Saguerra. Take a moment and think about the last thing you cooked. How much do you think the carrot in that recipe cost? What about the three cups of vegetable broth? Beth Monsell could actually answer that question. She's the founder of budgetbytes.com, a recipe website for folks with small budgets. She studied nutritional science in college, and she learned this costing method in her classes.
So it's a technique that you will find a lot in food service operations like restaurants and cafeterias.
She says you figure out the price of that carrot, add it to the cost of all the other ingredients in the recipe, and then divide it by the number of servings so you know how much each of your meals is is costing. Beth says when you do this, you start to notice patterns. For instance, her recipe for lentil bologners costs $1.40 per serving. It's hard to get a meal that cheap at a restaurant. But some of the components are way cheaper than others. Like one carrot, 15 cents. One cup of red lentils, 67 cents. Half a cup of walnuts, a dollar and seven cents.
I suggest everyone try costing at least once because it's so eye-opening. It really does make you rethink the way you look at all of the ingredients that you're buying.
On this episode of Life Kit, Beth and I are gonna talk about what to do with the things you learn from this exercise and share a lot more tips for how to save money on groceries.
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Wayland, it seems like everything is being called a recession indicator these days.
Yeah, like the box of hamburger helper in my pantry.
Or the new Apple Neo book.
Or the resurgence of press on nails or lipstick or no lipstick, I've lost track.
There is only one way to know if these are actual economic warning signs though. Listen to the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Walk me through how you think about cost as you're coming up with a recipe.
Sure. So um like if I make a pot of chili, normally a recipe for chili will include a pound at least of ground beef. So something that I like to do is reduce that ground beef by half. So I'm still getting that beefy flavor and that satisfying mouthfeel of, you know, actually eating beef. But then I bulk up the recipe with extra beans, maybe some lentils, or maybe even some extra vegetables if I have them, sometimes pasta and rice. Those are all far less expensive per pound than beef is going to be. Even if you just adjust the ratios slightly in your recipes, it can make a really big difference.
What are some of the other ingredients that tend to be cheaper that you could use as the bulk of your recipes? My favorite is cabbage.
Cabbage is so versatile because it can go with so many different flavors, and there's a lot of different ways you can prepare it, and it's so filling.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How can I calculate the per‑serving cost of a recipe to spot savings?
0:00–5:20
2
Which grocery ingredients are the cheapest per unit and why?
5:20–7:27
3
What cheap staples can I bulk up recipes with to stretch my budget?
7:27–10:04
4
Which foods tend to be the most expensive and how can I use less of them?
10:04–12:46
5
How should I choose grocery stores and use circulars to lower costs?
12:46–15:58
6
What are the best strategies for efficient in‑store shopping and staying focused?
15:58–18:24
7
How can I save money with grocery delivery, bulk buying, and flexible services?
18:24–19:43
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