Last week, when I posted about how to budget when you don’t know your expenses, a reader asked me how I get my grocery costs so low.  I was able to maintain a 65 euro a month grocery budget for a year in Vitoria-Gasteiz of the Spanish Basque Country. Part of this was due to cost sharing with my partner. However, even when I shopped on my own in Huelva, Andalusia, I still averaged a budget of about 80 euros a month. How? The key here is in having a well stocked kitchen. Let’s build your starter kitchen.

What is a Starter Kitchen?

Cooking at home is one of the best ways to save money when you’re on a tight budget. But what do you do when you’re starting from scratch? Let’s say you’ve just moved to a new city. Your starter kitchen is all of the food products you will need to buy to have a functioning kitchen. Before we dive deeper into building your starter kitchen, let’s take a look at what some of my frequent purchases are and what they cost.

Inside my Kitchen

The following is a list of everything I tend to buy to stock my kitchen. These items are NOT purchased all at once. The prices listed reflect current prices at Mercadona.

Carbs

These items are going to be the bulk of your meals. When bought dry, they will fill you up for little cost.

• White Rice – 0.75 euros / kilo or 1.42 euros for a 2 kilo bag
• Chickpeas – 2.20 euros / kilo
• Black Beans – 1.10 euros / kilo
• Couscous – 1.55 euros / kilo
• Lentils – 1.30 euros / kilo
• Pasta – 0.75 euros / kilo
• 1 loaf of sliced bread – 0.95 euros
• Flour tortillas – 1.11 euros for 10

Meat

Be careful about having too many different types of meat at once. Check expiration dates to reduce waste.

• Chicken
  • Full Chicken – 2.18 euros / kilo. Click here to see how to prepare a full chicken.
  • Breasts – 4.95 euros / kilo
• Tuna – 3.50 euros / 6 cans
• Pork (lomo) – 5.80 euros / kilo
• Chorizo
  • Link – 1.99 euros
  • Lunch meat – 1.35 euros / pack

Dairy

• Milk – 0.59 euros / liter
• Shredded Cheese – 1.00 euro / 200 grams or 1.80 euros / 400 grams
• Sliced Cheese (like Kraft Singles, but white) – 1.80 euros per large pack
• Eggs – 1.19 euros / dozen medium eggs

Fresh Produce

Most fresh produce can be bought either individually or pre-packaged. Look for the cost per kilo to make sure you’re getting the best deal. Also, keep in mind that you do not have to buy a full kilo of any individual pieces of produce. Prices may vary by season.

• Carrots – 0.49 euros / kilo
• Onions – 1.05 euros / kilo
• Green peppers – 1.00-1.20 euros / kilo
• Lemons – 0.89 euros / kilo
• Arugula – 1.00 euro / 500 grams
• Potatoes – 1.10 euros / kilo
• Garlic – 1.25 euros / 250 grams
• Bananas – 1.29 euros / kilo
• “Fruit” – whatever is in season, closest to 1.00 euro / kilo as possible

Extras

Don’t let the heading fool you. These “Extras” shouldn’t be considered luxuries. They can make or break a meal. If you keep some of these things in stock, you’ll be able to toss something together no matter what else is left in your pantry.

• Olive oil – 3.00-4.00 euros / liter
• Flavor cubes – 0.65 euros for vegetable up to 1.25 euros for beef
• Salt – 0.21 euros / kilo
• Pepper – 1.32 euros for the kind with a grinding top. Refills are cheaper.
• Parsley – 0.62 euros
• Dried Cayenne Peppers – 0.95 euros
• Rosemary – 0.80 euros
• Curry Powder – 0.62 euros
• Cumin – 0.63 euros
• Paprika (picante) – 0.75 euros
• Garlic Powder – 0.55 euros
• Tomato Sauce – 1.00 for a pack of 3 (400 grams each)
• Light Cooking Cream – 1.05 euros / 500ml
• Pesto – 1.33-2.00 euros
• Strawberry Jam – 1.00 euro
• Coffee grains – 5.95 euros / Kilo
• Sugar – 0.65 euros / kilo

Building YOUR Starter Kitchen

If we’re going to base your starter kitchen off of a budget of 80 euros a month, there area couple of things we could do. We could divide the entire budget by 4 weeks, and spend 20 euros a week. This is a good plan if you do not have your entire food budget upfront at the start of the month. However, if you do have your entire budget available, you could spend a bit more the first week, stocking up on carbs and other products with a longer shelf life. Let’s say you spend 35 euros. You would then have 15 euros a week left to buy meats and fresh products and pull from your pantry stock for your carbs and extras. The latter is what I prefer to do.

However, assuming you do NOT have the extra funds to distribute your budget unevenly, let’s do an example of creating a starter kitchen with 20 euros for the first week.

First I would choose one or two carbs that you wouldn’t mind eating for a week. Let’s start with rice and pasta.

• 1 Kilo White Rice: 0.75
• 1 Kilo Pasta: 0.75

So far we have only spent 1.50 euros.

Now let’s add a meat. I like to start with Tuna, because it has a long shelf life. Then chicken, because it’s my favorite option. I’ll assume you have never cooked a whole chicken and don’t want to start with that for the first week, so we’ll select chicken breasts.

• 6 Cans of Tuna – 3.50 euros
• 1 Kilo of Chicken Breasts – 4.95 euros

So far we have spent 9.95 euros, or, nearly half our budget. That’s OK, as meat is the most expensive category.

Now let’s choose some dairy:

• 200 grams Shredded Cheese – 1.00 euro
• Eggs – 1.19 euros

We’ve got a running total of 12.14 euros, or about 8 euros left.

Before we move on to fresh produce, I’d like to add a few “Extras” that I use in almost every meal.

• 1 Liter of Olive Oil – 3.50 euros
• 1 Kilo of Salt – 0.21 euros
• Dried Cayenne Peppers – 0.95 euros
• 3 Packs of Tomato Sauce – 1.00 euro

Now we’re at 17.80 euros. That leaves us just 2.20 for fresh produce. But don’t panic. Remember, you don’t have to buy full kilos. Let’s look at half kilos:

• 1/2 Kilo of Onions – 0.53 euros
• 1/2 Kilo of Green Peppers – 0.50 euros
• 1/2 Kilo of Bananas – 0.64 euros

Now we’ve spent 19.47 euros. This is a pretty decent starter kitchen. One more thing I kind of want to add, though, is rosemary. If we add that, we’re 27 cents over budget, or we could take like one less banana.

The reason I want to add rosemary is because, not only does it go great with the chicken we bought, but it can also be added to pasta with just olive oil so that you’re not stuck eating tomato sauce all the time.

If I were to budget unevenly, with 35 euros the first week and 15 euros each week after that, I would add the following in week one:

• Lentils: 1.30
• Lunch Meat Chorizo: 1.35
• 1 Loaf of Sliced Bread: 0.95
• 1 Large pack of Sliced Cheese: 1.80
• 1 Jar of Strawberry Jam: 1.00
• 1 Bag of Carrots: 0.49
• 1 Kilo of Potatoes: 1.10
• Double my Previous Fresh Purchases: 1.67
• Pesto Sauce: 2.00
• Tortillas: 1.11
• Flavor Cubes: 0.65
• Pepper: 1.32

That leaves 0.26 euros, or about the same amount I went over by adding rosemary to the first round.

Building up from the Starter Kitchen

The only two categories that you should be replacing regularly are the Fresh Produce and the Meats. Everything else will last you quite a bit longer.

That’s the beauty of the starter kitchen: you will not use up everything in just one week. If you still have tuna, you will only need to buy one meat instead of two the second week. That’s 3.50 euros you can spend somewhere else.

If you still have either the rice or the pasta, you can take that 0.75 euros and put it towards some chickpeas. Eventually, you should have enough in your budget to take advantage of bulk discounts, like 1.42 euros for 2 kilos of rice instead of 0.75 euros for 1 kilo.

A Liter of olive oil lasts about 5 weeks for 2 people at my place, and we use a bit with almost every meal.

I would add in carrots and potatoes whenever you’re ready to start cooking full chickens. The 2.77 euro discount per kilo is worth the extra effort.

The carrots and potatoes can also be used with lentils.

When you start adding in more spices, you can use them with the chicken, and in sauces. I have two favorite spice combinations:

1. Rosemary, Garlic, Salt, Pepper, Lemon Juice, and Dried Cayenne Peppers (Break them open. It’s the seeds that are spicy.)
2. Garlic, Curry, Cumin, Paprika, Dried Cayenne Peppers

Additionally, Parsley, Salt, and Pepper can be combined to when making tomato soup from a box of tomato sauce (add a bit of water to thin, and some milk to make it creamy).

The combinations are infinite. How would you spend 20 euros for your first week starter kitchen?