How I Finally Hit My Food Spending Goal

Hey y’all! I’m Meghan Splawn, a food writer and parent who is working to cut my family’s food spending in half this year. Even though I’ve written about meal planning and budget food for near 10 years, I let me own habits get sloppy and accidental spent $32k on food last year. In 2026, I am working to cut that number in half by meal planning and working on the habits that led to overspending. As a supporting subscriber you get access to a growing library of food budgeting resources like a spending tracker and goal setting work sheet.

May truly lived up to it’s reputation as “May-cember” — as in a month that is both as hectic and joyful as December. It was also bittersweet for my family as we buried my brother in-law on the first day of May. Mid-month, both kids wrapped up school for the year, moving them each onto their next school chapter (middle and high school!) We finished the month on our annual beach trip. Oh, and we celebrated Mother’s Day somewhere in there too. Somehow, my food budget held up against unexpected travel (and food spending) and I finally had a month of being at my goal of cutting our food spending in half.

As a reminder, here were my goals for May:

• Weekly grocery budget: $600

• Bulk grocery budget: $200

• Dining out budget: $400

• “Special shopping” budget: $200

• MAY’S TOTAL FOOD BUDGET: $1400

I credit a few things to keeping my spending in check, because I certainly wasn’t particularly fastidious. First, I’ve accepted that grocery and bulk spending are the areas that I can adjust the most easily because they aren’t dependent on anyone but me; My dining out and special spending categories have a lot more outside influence! Second, a combination of smart bulk shopping and the start of our CSA produce share have really kept me out of the grocery store in May — well those two things and just the slap, full busyness of the month.

Becoming a supporting subscriber and get access to all this below the paywall:

• A detailed breakdown of where all my food spending dollars went in May

• My June food spending budget and goals

• May’s High & Lows — including how much we spent on our unexpected trip to Atlanta for a funeral

• Favorite recipes and restaurant meals from the month

• Access to all the food budgeting tools that are already a part of this series as well as future tools too.

• Becoming a paying subscriber also contributes to the dollars I donate to the food community at large each month:

This month I’m donating 11% of my Substack income to a Feeding America to support their summer meal program for kids. As of publishing that’s about $75 but I’d love to add to it before June officially closes. Your subscription supports my work as well as supporting food communities in need each month.