Are you on a tight monthly budget? Wish to minimize your overall expenses on grocery every month? Once you learn how to order grocery from Swiggy Instamart online, you should also aim at planning your monthly groceries to make the most of your set budget. Let us understand how!
If you observe that you are overspending on your food, it is important to maintain a proper track by effectively planning your monthly groceries. As food serves to be the third-highest expense in any household, right after housing and transportation, your food choices will always have a major impact on your monthly budget. In such a scenario, leading online grocery stores like Swiggy Instamart can come to your rescue by helping you streamline your monthly budget by planning your grocery shopping list beforehand.
What Should Be in the Basic Grocery List?
Your basic grocery list should contain everything you tend to purchase monthly from the local brick-and-mortar grocery store. As you learn how to order grocery from Swiggy Instamart, it is recommended to include all pantry must-haves, all the spices, essential ingredients to prepare day-to-day meals, condiments, your toiletry needs, and other miscellaneous items like soap, trash bags, foils, and so more.
How to Prepare the Monthly Grocery List
To ensure that you save significantly every month, you must prepare a proper grocery list. For instance, you can start by dividing the monthly grocery list into dedicated sections. Some more important tips are:
1. Track Current Spending
Before you go ahead with figuring out what you should spend on food, you must analyze what you actually are spending on food every month. It is advised to keep grocery shopping receipts to obtain a realistic picture of your ongoing spending habits, especially on groceries.
When you do so, it might help you in breaking down the overall spending category-wise (on paper or through a spreadsheet), including fresh produce, beverages, snacks, and so more. Once you have done this, you will receive a proper idea of where you are expected to lower your entire grocery bill.
2. Allocate a Specific Percentage of Your Income
The total amount every household spends on food and groceries will ultimately depend on the total number of members in your family. Therefore, you can make use of a dedicated budget calculator if you are unsure of where to start. For instance, it is recommended to allocate around 10 percent of the total income to your monthly grocery as the starting point. If you feel the need, you can increase this percentage over time.
3. Start with a Monthly Meal Plan
You can always consider advocating the preparation of a dedicated meal plan before online grocery shopping from Swiggy Instamart. Therefore, it is recommended to start over with a monthly meal plan before you shop for essential grocery items online.
Based on the total number of family members and the monthly requirements, you can plan out day-to-day meals for the entire month. Based on this, you can decide the monthly budget you are expected to spend on online grocery shopping.
Grocery planning and budgeting can be critically enhanced with meal kit services that offer both convenience and savings. For those looking to streamline their budget without compromising on quality food, exploring Green Chef special offers could be a smart move. These meal kits provide organic, sustainable ingredients directly to your doorstep, helping you save money while ensuring you eat well throughout the month.
4. Shop for Your Kitchen
It is advised to shop by keeping your kitchen in mind. It should be done before you plan out your meals for the month. You would indeed not want to buy an entire month’s worth of butter only to find that there are several packs existing in the pantry.
At the same time, you would not want to come across a pouch of wilted spinach in the back of your fridge at the month’s end when you could have used the same. Therefore, based on your kitchen requirements, you can shop for groceries properly.
5. Maintain a Grocery List of Your Fridge
Maintain a proper grocery list of your fridge’s inventory such that you can replace items as per the requirement. This will help you in buying food that your family will consume exactly. As you stick to a dedicated list of your fridge’s existing inventory, it will help you stay accountable while also not spending money mindlessly on expensive items.
6. Buy in Bulk
One of the most useful tips to plan your monthly grocery is by buying day-to-day items in bulk. When you buy groceries from Swiggy Instamart, you can also get access to lucrative discounts or coupons that will help you save significantly, especially while buying grocery items in bulk. Shopping for grocery items in bulk also helps you restock your inventory mindfully without losing out on important items while preparing meals.
7. Maintain a Proper Inventory
As you maintain a proper list of your inventory with respect to what you have on hand will help you avoid food waste while also getting creative with seamless meal planning. To top it all, it is one of the best ways to get the most out of your grocery items that are usually sold in bulk quantities than you might need for a single recipe.
Are you not sure of what you should do with the big box of cereals or spinach left from another recipe? You can look out for relevant recipe books specifying the exact ingredients you can buy online. With the proper concept of inventory management in mind, you can plan your monthly grocery effortlessly.
How to Buy Grocery for a Month
This might be difficult, especially if you have a large family. It mostly depends on the specific requirements of your family. A suggestion to achieve the same would be to run a trial run for one month initially. Moreover, you should aim to keep track of how much you are using of different items. In case you are opting for a mid-month run, you can always restock your essential items by buying groceries online from Swiggy Instamart. You can be assured of getting doorstep delivery in no time. You can also leverage special discounts or coupons that help you save significantly on your purchase.
