Grocery prices may no longer make daily headlines, but they’re still well above pre-pandemic levels. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for food at home rose 29.4% from March 2020 to December 2025. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Price Outlook projects a 2.3% increase in food-at-home prices in 2026, suggesting expensive groceries are here to stay.
And, oh boy, do we consumers feel it. It’s nearly impossible to enter a store and spend less than you had hoped. Surveys consistently show heightened stress around grocery spending, with many Americans citing supermarket bills as one of their most visible and frustrating financial pressures.
When everyday costs refuse to budge, you either absorb the hit—or you adapt. My parents would have chosen the latter. When I was young, my mother kept a running shopping list on the fridge; my dad rewrote it by hand on a yellow legal pad in the exact order of the store layout. Once at the supermarket, my father moved aisle by aisle with intention. No wandering. No backtracking. No impulse detours. At the time, my parents’ near-military approach to the weekly food shopping felt a little excessive. Now, it feels like a master class in disciplined spending.
The truth is, few of us shop like that. We drift. We grab. We toss in the artisanal cheese. We leave with three snacks we didn’t plan for … and still no clear idea what’s for dinner. Which is why any strategy that promises to cut spending—without extreme couponing or culinary sacrifice—is instantly appealing. Enter a deceptively simple idea that’s been quietly gaining traction: backwards shopping.
For a crash course on backwards shopping, how to do it and whether it actually delivers, I reached out to Phil Lempert, the Supermarket Guru, and consumer-savings expert Andrea Woroch. Before you grab your cart, let’s unpack what the term really means.
Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more food news, humor, travel, tech and fun facts all week long.
What is backwards shopping?
Backwards shopping flips the traditional grocery routine on its head. Instead of deciding what you want to cook and then buying ingredients, you build meals from the food you already have on hand. It starts, Lempert says, by “taking inventory of what you have in your house.”
Woroch describes it as an effective meal-planning trick that can help you save on groceries and even reduce food waste. “This strategy suggests you create a meal plan around the food you have at home—in your pantry, fridge and freezer—before buying all new foods at the store to create a meal plan,” she explains.
While the phrase backwards shopping has gained traction more recently, the concept itself “isn’t a new idea but rather a habit that has been used by families to save for decades,” Woroch notes. “It’s just becoming more popular through a reframe on social.”
At its core, backwards shopping is less of a rigid system and more of a mindset. The underlying idea draws from long-standing frugal culinary principles: pantry-first meal planning, clean-out-the-fridge cooking and even the improvisational spirit of shows like Chopped, where chefs create dishes from a basket of ingredients. As Lempert puts it, “backward shopping is really all about saving money, not wasting food.”
Or more simply: Shop your kitchen before you shop the store.
How does it work, exactly?
With three simple steps, you can backwards shop your house to create a grocery list that will help you avoid supermarket overspending. The mechanics are refreshingly low-tech—just follow the guidelines below.
Step 1: Take inventory
Scan your fridge, freezer and pantry. You don’t need a spreadsheet—a quick mental audit or phone note works, though you can even use a pen and paper. The goal is to identify which foods you have in the house, which need to be used soon and which can anchor meals.
Lempert says that since most people tend to buy the same items each week, a good starting point is last week’s supermarket receipt. Look at that and cross out the items you still have in the freezer, fridge and cupboard. Your new list is what remains.
If that sounds obvious, consider how often we duplicate purchases. “Very often, when we go into a supermarket, and we see something on sale, you know, we buy it, and we forget that we already had 10 cans of peas in the cupboard,” says Lempert.
Then comes the guardrail: “Draw three horizontal lines on the bottom of that cash register receipt,” he says. “Those are for impulse items. We all want to buy impulse items, but the key is to limit how many you buy.”
Step 2: Build meals around existing food
Stop asking, “What do I feel like eating?” Instead, ask yourself, “What can I make with what I have?”
Here’s how this might play out:
- A box of pasta + a can of cannellini beans + a packet of frozen spinach + garlic + olive oil + grated Parmesan cheese = pasta with garlicky beans and spinach
- Ground chicken + a bag of shredded cabbage + scallions + soy sauce + sesame oil = eggroll in a bowl
- Chicken breasts + jar of barbecue sauce = slow-cooker pulled chicken
Notably, Lempert isn’t rigid about formal meal plans. “I’m not big on meal planning,” he says. “Food is enjoyment. Food is life. Food is fun. And I think if we overthink it … we take some of the enjoyment out of it.” The goal isn’t to micromanage every bite—it’s to make smarter use of what’s already in your kitchen.
Step 3: Buy only to fill in the gaps
Once you’ve mapped out several meals, your grocery list becomes highly targeted: maybe fresh produce, milk or the missing ingredient or two for each planned recipe—not a full cart reset.
In the meal examples above, here’s how you might shop:
- Pasta with garlicky beans and spinach: Your dinner is already complete.
- Eggroll in a bowl: Pick up some crunchy wonton strips to add to the bowl.
- Slow-cooker pulled chicken: Grab a package of Hawaiian rolls to make sliders.
Limiting and refining your list, Lempert says, means “you’re not going to overbuy,” which means you’ll spend less money and help prevent perfectly good food from aging into science experiments.
What’s the best way to stay organized and on track while backwards shopping?
Backwards shopping works best when paired with a little discipline. Here’s what the experts suggest:
Keep an inventory
Maintaining a running list of ingredients is helpful, Woroch says, no matter how high- or low-tech your inventory is. The key is finding what works for you. Here are some ideas:
- Tape a piece of paper by your pantry or on your freezer door.
- Type it into the Notes app on your phone, listing items and their expiration dates.
- Download a grocery app like AnyList to create shared household lists, add items and cross off items as you shop.
Get organized
If you can quickly scan your pantry or fridge to see what you have, you’ll move through the backwards shopping steps even faster. Simply reorganizing your fridge so older items sit front and center can noticeably reduce waste. Out of sight truly does become out of mind.
Woroch also suggests practical pantry tweaks: “This could look like using a tiered spice rack, so it’s easy to see which herbs and spices you have, using clear storage containers for dry goods and ingredients, pushing items that will be expiring soon to the front of the fridge to remind you to use them.”
The key is consistency, not perfection. Backwards shopping collapses if you forget what you have.
Take advantage of digital tools
Meal-planning apps like SuperCook and AI tools can help translate random ingredients into workable recipes. They’re especially useful if you struggle with improvisational cooking.
How much can you save?
Backwards shopping targets two of the biggest grocery-budget busters: food waste and impulse purchases.
Food waste
Americans waste a whole lot of food. As Lempert points out, “40% of all our food in this country is wasted. So the best way to save money is to not waste food.”
Woroch echoes the scale of the problem: “The average family tosses over $1,000 in spoiled produce each year.” Every rotten banana or expired bag of arugula is effectively money thrown away.
Foods with short shelf lives are a danger zone, Woroch says: “If you miss the sour cream at the back of the fridge and buy/use a new one, then realize you had the other one, it may be time to toss it before you get to use it. This can lead to a lot of wasteful spending.”
In other words, the easiest way to save money at the grocery store isn’t always finding a lower price—it’s making sure you actually eat the food you buy. “Any steps you take to improve your grocery shopping habits can result in big savings,” Woroch says, adding that some of the biggest savings come from not letting “pricey proteins, such as meat, chicken, eggs and fish,” go to waste.
Impulse purchases
“Surveys have shown that about a third of our shopping list is impulse items,” says Lempert. So if you limit your impulse buys to no more than three items, “you can easily save 20% to 30%.” Even small impulse additions ($4 here, $7 there) compound quickly over weeks and months.
To curb that impulse, Lempert suggests being strategic about store layout. In many supermarkets, “you walk in through the produce department. You have great colors, you have great aromas. It puts you in a better mood.” And that sensory boost can encourage extra purchases.
Instead, he suggests starting in the center aisles with “those unemotional boxes and jars and cans,” where you’re less likely to be swayed by presentation.
What pitfalls should you watch out for with this method?
No strategy is foolproof. Common challenges of backwards shopping include:
Running out of fresh items
If you rely too heavily on pantry goods, you may find yourself short on produce or proteins. The fix: Plan a few flexible “fresh anchors” each week.
Increasing mental effort
For this strategy to work, you need to stay organized. If that’s not your strong suit, you might struggle with backwards shopping.
And improvising meals based on what you have on hand can feel more difficult than finding a recipe (and then getting the ingredients). Following a simple template—say, grain + protein + vegetable + sauce—makes it easier.
Overestimating what’s usable
Not everything lurking in a freezer is dinner-ready. Be realistic about quality and expiration dates. Regularly cleaning out your fridge, freezer and pantry can help you sidestep this issue and speed up the inventory step of the process.
Making too many small trips
Be mindful of how many times you’re heading to the supermarket. Even if you’re diligently taking inventory and backwards shopping each time, you could end up spending more simply by making frequent grocery store trips.
Lempert actually prefers the more European rhythm of shopping smaller and more often. “Europeans shop every day, because they love food,” he says. “The other thing is they have small refrigerators.” But with that approach, each visit becomes another opportunity to spend, which could end up costing you more money in the long run. You might go in for just one thing, but you’ll be exposed to endcap displays, seasonal specials and limited-time promotions designed to spark impulse buys.
So is the strategy worth trying?
It’s worth giving this trick a go. Backwards shopping isn’t about austerity or culinary deprivation. It’s about reclaiming control in a retail system built to separate you from your money. And in a world where grocery prices remain elevated, that small shift—starting in your own kitchen—can add up faster than you’d expect.
RELATED:
- Ouch! New Study Reveals the Top 10 Cities Where Residents Are Hardest Hit by Inflation
- Debate of the Week: Would You Prefer More Money or More Vacation Days?
- Want to Save Money on Gas? Fill Up Your Car on This Day of the Week
About the experts
|
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Phil Lempert, food industry analyst and founder of SupermarketGuru; phone interview, Feb. 25, 2026
- Andrea Woroch, consumer and money-saving expert; email interview, Feb. 26, 2026
- Trace One: “Grocery Items With the Biggest Price Increases Since COVID-19”
- Forbes: “Almost 90% of Americans Are Worried About the Cost of Groceries”
The post “Backwards Shopping” Could Save You a Lot of Money on Your Next Grocery Bill—Here’s How to Do It appeared first on Reader's Digest.
from Reader's Digest https://ift.tt/XZBTM4c
Comments
Post a Comment