Tips for Saving Money at Whole Foods
About a month or so ago, I received an email from Whole Foods asking me about partnering together to create a one-week meal plan for me and Ryan that included two meals each day for the two of us for $125. (Full disclosure: I was provided a $125 gift card.) Since getting a little creative in the kitchen is one of my favorite things, I was more than game and immediately started brainstorming ideas for a healthy and delicious meal plan.
The first step in my meal plan journey involved attending a value tour at my local Whole Foods led by Jennifer, the regional marketing specialist at Whole Foods in Charlotte. Jennifer and I walked around the store and chatted for about an hour while she pointed out lots of money-saving tips and tricks.
Some key takeaways:
- Check the bimonthly Whole Deal brochure which features more than $45 of savings per issue on average (you can also find these coupons at www.wholefoodsmarket.com/coupons) and check out weekly sales fliers, One Day Sales and sale items throughout the store.
- Sign up for your local store’s newsletter and follow them on Facebook and Twitter to receive bonus coupons, budget-friendly recipes, and notices of sales and more.
- Shop seasonally.
- Cut costs, literally. If you need only half a cabbage, sandwich, chunk of cheese, fish fillet, loaf of fresh bread, etc., simply ask a team member to help you get (and pay for) only the amount you need.
- Utilize the bulk bins to buy as much or as little as you need.
- Check out the 365 Everyday Value line for hundreds of affordable organics, including peanut butter, organic frozen veggies, pasta, sauce, canned tomatoes, soups and more.
- Consider purchasing Value Packs to help you get fish and meat at a better price, and allow you to use only what you need.
- Look for budget-friendly pricing on lesser-known cuts such as boneless sirloin, flat iron steak or skirt steak.
- Receive discounted pricing on most items when you buy a full case.
- Make the most of your leftovers with the Whole Foods Market recipes app, which allows you to save recipes, create meal plans and shopping lists, view sales items at your local store and more.
When it was time for me to create my two-meals-a-day meal plan, I opted for breakfast and dinner since breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and dinner is often the meal that requires the most planning in our house. When I set out to do shopping for our meals, there were a few hiccups in my plan. My father-in-law was in town, so our dinners needed to be able to feed three people and I knew we’d likely be going out to dinner once or twice. Whole Foods wanted the meal plan to include two meals each day, but food I bought did cover breakfast, lunch and dinner for me and breakfast and dinner for Ryan. (Ryan actually did bring his lunch to work using food from our grocery haul a couple of times, but he also ate at his workplace cafeteria or out with coworkers during the week as well, so I’m not counting his lunchtime meals.)
And a few important notes: We went out to dinner twice during the week because we wanted to take my father-in-law out to some of our favorite local hotspots, so we did not consume two of the planned dinners on the “correct” days (Tuesday and Friday) but we ate the “dinners” for lunch for two of the days during the week. I hope this makes sense! The meal plan is just a guideline for our breakfasts and dinners, but I wanted to be sure to actually make and eat everything, too, which we did!
As I shopped for our food, I did a lot of price comparisons (buying in bulk ended up being the cheapest every time!) and clipped coupons to save money, like I usually do each week.
I was truly surprised when I went through the checkout line and only spent $69.76! I ended up going through the line again and picking up more food to use to get closer to the $125 total.
Our total for the week ended up being $115.20, but it did not include the jar of peanut butter I also used in the meal plan that we already had at home. (I figured being $10 under budget made up for the peanut butter since that would be an easy purchase within the budget.)
Here is what our one-week meal plan looked like:
- Breakfast: Tortilla topped with banana, peanut butter and cinnamon
- Dinner: Fish tacos with (frozen) mahi mahi, black beans, chopped romaine lettuce and pico de gallo
- Breakfast: Overnight oats made with oatmeal, Greek yogurt, honey and raw almonds
- Dinner: Turkey and ham rollups with romaine, tomatoes and pumpkin seeds, served with apple slices
- Breakfast: Cottage cheese topped with a sliced apple, cinnamon, almonds and pumpkin seeds
- Dinner: 365 Everyday Value whole wheat linguine with steamed spinach and 365 Everyday Value marinara, served with roasted broccoli
- Breakfast: Two waffles topped with a dippy egg and tomato slices, served with a plum on the side
- Dinner: Chopped salad with romaine, ham, tomatoes, black beans, edamame, wheat berries and pumpkin seeds
- Breakfast: Two waffles served with a cup of Greek yogurt
- Dinner: Baked chicken breasts with sweet potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts
- Breakfast: Three-minute egg white oatmeal, topped with chopped almonds
- Dinner: Crockpot lentil wheat berry soup <—We loved this soup!!!
Crockpot Lentil Wheat Berry Soup
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups dry lentils
- 3/4 wheat berries
- 6 cups reduced sodium chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 sweet onion, roughly chopped
- 2 cups chopped carrots
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (depending on taste)
- 1/2 – 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (depending on taste)
Directions
- Combine all ingredients and cook on low for 8 hours. Serve and enjoy!
- Breakfast: Strawberry, mango and spinach smoothie
- Dinner: Leftover lentil and wheat berry soup
Giveaway
Now Whole Foods Market wants to give you guys a chance to shop at their store and create some healthy budget-friendly recipes.
FIVE readers will win a $25 gift card to Whole Foods!
To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post, telling me about some of your favorite Whole Foods finds!
I will randomly select five winners on Friday.
Good luck!
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I love that they are one of the only places near me to get nutritional yeast. I need it in my pantry always!
I love the bulk bin section at whole foods. Lately I’ve been buying dates, oatmeal, and popcorn from there.
I love looking and trying all the random nut butters! I almost always walk out with at least one squeezy sample pack.
Seriously just love eating lunch there! The Hot Bar is deeeeelightful!
I love the frozen falafel’s at whole foods. Their wines are my favorite too!
Love Whole Foods–especially the bulk section and the hot bar!
Love their hot bar!! And selection of cheeses… Yum!
I haven’t shopped there a lot but there bakery selection is to die for!
Love the gelato as a treat but I also love getting the hot bar for a delicious dinner with no prep!
I love Whole Foods! My favorite find so far is their cold press whole bean coffee beans! I love cold coffee when it’s warm outside. I also love getting salads at their salad bar!
The cookie bar, the hot food bar, the sushi and the chia in bulk are a few of my favorite things!
I love shopping at Whole Foods! I mainly go there because of the amazing produce selection (it seems to be fresher than at some of the other stores), kevitas, and goat’s milk kefir. I’m also obsessed with the 365 seaweed rice crackers.
This is amazing – I can’t leave WF without spending at least $30 every time. My favorite thing at WF is the food bar!
I always get kombucha and the 365 brand cereal bars. Those bars got me through the first trimester of both of my pregnancies when I couldn’t eat anything and my kids love them now (coincidence?!)! I also love to get my organic produce from WF-they always have a great selection and I swear it stays fresher longer at home than organic produce purchased elsewhere!
I’m addicted to the fresh ground honey roasted peanut butter!
I am in love with their bulk trail mix bins. They’re the best ever. AND the fresh ground nut butters. Seriously there’s nothing better.
The Whole Food’s salad bar is the best!
I love that they offer local meats!
I’m addicted to their selection of nut butters!
I cant help but being drawn to the salad bar every time I go. I also LOVE Ezekiel bread products!
I like the bulk section too! My current obsession is dried cranberries to add to tuna or chicken salad.
I drop around $400 a week at WholeFoods for my family of 4 to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, 7 days a week. It kills me to spend so much money on food but WholeFoods is the only store where I can find fresh, organic produce and organic grass-fed meat.
Obsessed with hot bar…but I love getting new healthy trail mixes, nut butters, breads and granola bars there
I LOVEEE whole foods- we don’t live near one but we make the hour drive to shop there! Love their avocado salad dressing- must try!
Nothing beats the Whole Foods salad bar!!! I also love their produce selection– can’t beat it!
I loved the honey roasted peanut butter!
I love their fresh ground peanut butter. or their already made multi-grain pizza dough.
Wow, that’s fantastic!! I always spend a lot when I’m there on their hot/salad bar. I love their peanut and almond butter and have also bought their 365 brand baking products.
Pickling salt! I looked all over town before finding it at Whole Foods.
I love getting seasonal fruits & veggies!
The salad bar is amazing! I would probably eat there everyday if i could!
We love their Naked rotisserie chickens, so tasty and convenient
I love their hot bar and 365 brand!
The juice bar at whole foods is my guilty pleasure and their cheese department is second to none.
I have only started shopping at Whole Foods because of some coupons I saw they had online, and am in love with the Zevia soft drinks. No fake sugar! I also grabbed some almond butter, and a couple of grain free flours to try baking some paleo recipes with. I guess I need to explore more, I don’t get much there but love the idea of healthier food and more natural food, but have always been wary that it would be too expensive here.
This is wonderful as we JUST got a Whole Foods in our area last week!!! I went and walked our Whole Foods last Thursday and fell in love with just about everything in there. The bins of chopped veggies for cooking was awesome as was the make your own peanut butter. They had coffee syrups which I had been looking for at places other than Starbucks and I was amazed at their three aisle salad bar. The place is amazing!
I love whole foods! We buy most of our groceries there so the gift card would be put to good use. My favorite thing to buy there is from prepared foods. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Garlicky Kale! It is amazing!
Just moved and now have a Whole Foods so close! SO excited!
I LOVE the whole foods peanut butter, so I would definitely stock up on that!
Dairy free chocolate chips! And soy milk free of carrageenan. Thank you whole foods!
I love the whole foods selection of nut butters!
I have lunch from their Hot Bar at least twice a week!!!
365 brand crunchy peanut butter…SO GOOD!
Loved this post! I love that they carry the organic valley French Vanilla half and half! I can’t find it anywhere else and it is perfect in coffee 🙂 I also love the hot bar and produce section!
I LOVE the Whole Foods guacamole! It’s better than any other grocery store brand!
I LOVE that Whole Foods carries some of the awesome snacks we were finding in Spain on a recent trip. My current fave is the giant cornnuts they sell.
My very favorite Whole Foods product is the fresh-ground peanut butter (you grind it in the store yourself) as well as their fresh honey that, again, you bottle on your own.
A couple other “savings” suggestions for Whole Foods:
– The shrimp they sell at the fish station has been previously frozen and they thaw it before selling it (at least this is the case at my Whole Foods in Washington, D.C.). It’s the same shrimp they sell frozen… but if you buy it frozen and defrost on your own, it’s much cheaper!
– Whole Foods has, far and away, the best grocery store sushi I’ve ever had. Even if sushi might be a little more expensive, it’s still a lot LESS expensive than a night out at a restaurant getting sushi or doing takeout… and it’s very, very good.
I love their sandwiches! They are huge!
I love the burrito bar there! It’s also the only place around me that has a great selection of gluten free bread.
I love the hot bar when I’m traveling for healthy options that taste almost homecooked! I have loved some of the dishes so much that I have recreated versions at home.