My husband and I cook for almost every meal and also have protein with every meal. I’d describe my husband as someone who is very active, and he can definitely eat a lot. Our monthly budget is $500, but we always go under. We buy meats in bulk and portion it out, then freeze by portion. It is not necessarily at the beginning of the month because our buying schedule is staggered. But a bulk pack of chicken will last us a few weeks since we also have ground beef, pork chops, and other options in the freezer that we rotate for meals. I will also try to check the sales at my grocery store; sometimes I can get a good large steak that can be split and frozen into two separate meals for maybe $11-12 (when it is $3-4 discount per pound). In cases like this, I’ll use half for a meal and freeze the other for future.
It is much more cost effective to buy in bulk at low prices. I only buy meat when it’s on sale for cheap enough worth stocking up on, but I buy a bunch of it. For two of us, I freeze it in 8oz portions. This means I usually get 6-8 dinners from one value pack of ground beef, which is around $10-15 depending on the sale and the weight of the pack. Chicken breast usually gives me two dinners from one breast; I get anywhere from 4-6 breasts in a value pack or from the meat case, which amounts to 8-12 dinners. I find waiting for these sales generally gives lower prices than club store pricing, except for ground turkey.
Also, for produce, shop seasonally for fresh. Don’t buy strawberries in December; they’ll be astronomically expensive. Frozen fruits are great for anything that’ll be mixed, like smoothies or parfaits. Many veggies are cheaper frozen, but it depends on how you’re using them. Focus on fresh seasonal produce for anything you want to eat raw, but frozen is great for out of season and cooked items. Frozen is also generally just as nutritious as fresh, sometimes even more so, as some vitamins degrade with time/exposure, but freezing can halt that since they are frozen within hours of being picked. Just be sure to avoid anything with sauces or added seasonings, as they add cost as well as sodium.
You probably already know this, so forgive me if you do. It’s also specific to some states in the US, but when comparison shopping between frozen or fresh, canned goods, and packaged goods, there’s a unit cost listed with the price on the shelf tags. The unit cost gives you a cost breakdown—cost per ounce, per pound, per gallon, cost per sheet (toilet paper/paper towels)—so you can easily compare which purchase is the least expensive. With bulk foods, sometimes the family size can actually cost more than the smaller size packages of the same item. As food manufacturers shrink the quantities inside packages, it’s worth reading the shelf tags of items for the unit cost to ensure you are getting the best buy.