We are proud to say that thousands of people have used this keto on a budget meal plan with great success! We’ve learned from the feedback we’ve received and would like to give guidance on how to make the most of this keto diet plan for beginners.
- Calculate your macros before starting the keto on a budget meal plan. It’s impossible to make a meal plan that’s suited for everyone, so make sure the macros delivered in this plan are well suited to you.
- This plan is for 1200 calories a day. That is on the low end of what most people are going to need. If you’re eating more than 1200 calories a day you can very easily scale this up!
- This plan delivers slightly more protein than most people starting keto will need. The easiest way to counteract this is by adding more fat to meals. Adding 2 tablespoons healthy fats each day will give you a 1450 calorie plan with a really solid fat:protein ratio.
Keto Budget Tips
Everyone wants to save money right? Well, this blog post will lay out a comprehensive plan for saving money while eating a healthy keto diet. Low carb on a budget is simple, it just takes some planning and flexibility to use whatever is on sale. Before we get too far into it I’d like to lay out the whole suite we have put together for anyone looking for more info on the specifics of this plan:
- Keto on a Budget: Grocery Haul Video
- Keto on a Budget: Meal Prep Video
- Keto on a Budget: Full Day of Eating Video
- Keto Budget Printable Shopping List(Located at the bottom of this post)
- Keto Budget Printable Meal Plan(Located at the bottom of this post)
When we devised this keto diet meal plan and shopping list we wanted to create something that was truly all-inclusive. Therefor we have things like butter and salad dressing included. Most people will have a lot of the basics already in their kitchen, so you could be pulling this plan off for well under $5 a day. Further down in this post we will talk about possible substitutions you could utilize to make this plan even healthier and cheaper with bulk purchases of a few items you’ll be using frequently on your keto journey!
Buy in Bulk
Buying in bulk is the easiest way to save money at the grocery store. Load up on whatever item is on sale that day and plan your meals around that. For example, a whole chicken will cost you less than $1 per pound, where a chicken breast will usually cost over $2 per pound. Check out this budget grocery shopping video we put together to give you some inspiration:
Be Flexible With Your Meals
If you go into the grocery store and choose the foods that are on sale, you’re going to save money compared to if you have a set grocery list before arriving. Sometimes we will want to make chicken for dinner, but there is a great deal on steaks so we switch up our keto diet menu to save money.
Cook At Home
Cooking at home is always going to be cheaper than eating out, getting fast food, and even buying precooked foods at the grocery store. After all, you’re paying someone to cook it for you. The same goes for processed foods. You can actually eat healthier for cheaper than it costs to eat junk food. The downside is you have to invest a little more time. Getting in the habit of cooking at home is a major component of better health and diet adherence.
Fall in Love With Healthy Budget Friendly Foods
This might be a tough one if you don’t enjoy these foods. A few of the best budget friendly keto foods in terms of nutrition and cost are going to be:
- Eggs
- Ground Beef
- Butter
Those are truly the big 3 of budget foods for a keto diet. The reason is they are high in fat, nutrient, and calorie dense, and are very cheap. A dozen eggs is always under $2. Ground beef can be found for under $4 per pound (often under $2 if you look hard enough). Butter is less than $1 for 800 calories!
Meal Prep!
This combines most of the previous money saving tips into one skill – Meal Prepping. This allows you to buy in bulk, cook at home, and focus on cost effective foods. If you’ve never meal prepped before it is a great skill to develop. It condenses all of your cooking for the week into a couple hours on the weekend. Meal prepping on keto sets you up for success because you always have food ready for you in the refrigerator. There has even been studies that show the positive effects of meal prepping!
Keto Meal Prep
Meal prepping is the secret to eating on a tight budget. It allows you to buy the items that are on sale, in bulk, and prepare them for quick access throughout the week. The meal prep detailed here took us about 2 hours of “active time” and another 3 hours of “passive time”. The passive time was mostly waiting for the chicken to cook/cool. The items we prepped for this meal plan are:
- 1 Whole Chicken – 9 lbs
- 12 Egg Cups – Sausage/Bacon/Egg Muffins
- 10 Slices of Bacon
- 12 Hard Boiled Eggs
Another benefit of meal prepping is that it greatly reduces your time spent in the kitchen. That’s right… you no longer have to work as a short order cook for 2 hours a day! This budget meal plan will make use of all the items we prep as well as the rest of the items on the shopping list. There is still some cooking required, but it will only be about 10-15 minutes a day, and is mostly just cooking broccoli/cauliflower. I would encourage you to check out this keto on a budget meal prep video we’ve put together as it was made specifically for this meal plan:
If you like this content and want to see more in the future, subscribe to our YouTube Channel! We put out 3 videos per week all relating to keto cooking and lifestlye.
Meal Ideas
Now we do have a full meal plan laid out for you below, but I would encourage you to experiment a bit with some meals that might better suit your tastes. We love all of these meals, that’s why we picked them! We know everyone is different though. If you want to sub something in, just check to make sure the nutrition is comparable. Keto on a budget can be pulled off all types of different ways. This is just one example using a lot of our favorite meals. For example, if you have a bunch of coconut oil sitting around feel free to sub it in for the butter. If you have olive oil, sub it in for the blue cheese dressing. Don’t let this meal plan feel restricting, it is best used as a reference point and not as a hard and fast rule book. We put together this full day of eating video to show you an example of how we ate on $5 a day:
Keto Cobb Salad Recipe Video
One of the meals you will see recurring frequently in the meal plan is a Cobb Salad. We are big advocates for the Cobb Salad! You know us… shills for Corporate Cobb Salad. Really though, we find Cobb Salads to be a great way to get a meal with perfect keto macros as well as pack in some much needed micro-nutrients. We love them so much we made a video to show everyone how we make them! For this meal plan you’ll be making a salad just like the one in this video minus the shredded cheese:
Stir Fry Dinners
The other meals we have listed in the meal plan mostly come from the meal prep items. We make 2 different types of simple stir fry dinners. One using some of the whole chicken we prepped and one using the extra ground beef. It’s pretty simple, but I’ll walk you through it really quick:
Chicken and Broccoli/Cauliflower
- 1. Heat a pan over medium heat.
- 2. Add broccoli/cauliflower mixture and butter
- 3. Cook until broccoli/cauliflower are soft, but still a bit al dente
- 4. Add precooked chicken in just to warm through.
Ground Beef and Broccoli/Cauliflower
- 1. Heat a pan over medium heat.
- 2. Add ground beef. Cook for 5 minutes.
- 3. Add broccoli/cauliflower and butter. Cook for about 10 more minutes.
- 4. Make sure broccoli/cauliflower is tender and enjoy.
That’s a quick primer on the essentials for creating meals tailored to this meal plan. See how easy eating keto on a budget can be? The “when” and “how much” are all shown in the printable plans at the bottom of this post!
Meal Plan Substitutions
This shopping list and meal plan can be heavily substituted to meet your needs. The first thing you’ll want to do is scan it over and make sure you like eating all of the foods listed here. Eating delicious foods is a big part of adhering to a diet long term! If there is a particular item you can’t stand just do a bit of research and find a substitution. Just make sure the item you decide to substitute in is similar in nutrition to the one you’re eliminating. This can be done with a quick google search or by using a website like My Fitness Pal.
Substitutions for the Meat: The whole chicken we got was $1 per pound, which is a great deal! You can sub in thighs or legs if you find those to be cheaper. Try to get it with the skin on so your meat comes with some fat! In the videos we got 2 pounds of sausage at $3 per pound. That’s a deal we couldn’t pass up! You can substitute any sausage in for that(check for sugar) or you can opt for ground beef. Make sure you get 80/20 fat/protein ratio or higher(it will be listed on the packaging).
Substitutions for the Vegetables: Avocado’s are a huge staple food for most keto dieters and we’re no different. You might be able to find a good deal on premade guacamole though. If that’s the case, feel free to go for that and sub out the avocado. If you don’t like broccoli or cauliflower you can try mushrooms or zucchini. If you don’t like any of those you should probably learn to like vegetables!!! But you could also just double down on the salad.
Other Substitutions: In this guide the only form of pure fat we use is butter. If possible, coconut oil would really be a nice upgrade. We couldn’t fit coconut oil into our $5 a day keto on a budget meal plan, but it’s cheap if you buy in bulk. Another good substitution would be olive oil or coconut oil and vinegar instead of the premade salad dressing. Most cheap premade dressings will use oils that are frowned upon on keto like canola or vegetable oil.
Keto on $5 a Day Quick Reference Infographic
Check out this quick reference Infographic! The perfect reference for eating low carb on a budget. This is really a stripped down, basic plan. It’s perfect if you want to take it as a reference and add your own twist to it!
Printable Shopping List and Meal Plan
We’ve included a printable shopping list and meal plan for your convenience! Again, use these tools as a reference and not as the be all end all. If you see something else on sale that you enjoy eating, go for that! This can be used as a framework for how to eat on keto. This isn’t the most ideal meal plan for optimal health, but it’s a pretty good one for cheap. I would recommend getting some coconut oil in this plan if possible, but we couldn’t fit it into our all-inclusive approach. If you buy in bulk on amazon coconut oil is cheap!
To get the printable shopping list and meal plan simply sign up below and we’ll email you a copy. Thanks for reading and we hope this meal plan helps you get on the path to achieving your goals. Our goal is to help you reach yours!
Get The FREE Meal Plan + Shopping List
If you want further guidance on coming up with a meal plan for you, feel free to reach out to us. We will do our best to help you devise a meal plan to match your specific goals. This is a cheap meal plan is geared towards weight loss. We will have different meal plans in the future that can be applied to different goals. Thanks for reading!
Written by
Matt Gaedke
Matt is a former college basketball player turned computer engineer who discovered his passion for health and nutrition after cutting sugar from his diet in 2016. That year he founded KetoConnect with Megha in order to share their ketogenic lifestyle through recipes, videos, and educational content. Matt is always seeking to grow and try new things, a passion he shares with his wife and two amazing sons.
Santana says
If I don’t use a whole chicken should I just bake chicken breast? Also can I drink black coffee…or can I use stevia?
Megha Barot says
Hi Santana,
You can bake chicken breast or thighs, or you can cook them in a skillet on the stove if you have time! We like things with the skin on due to higher fat content compared to the breast. Additionally, you can drink black coffee and you can use stevia! We drink coffee everyday and we use stevia in our baking quite often.
Santana says
Thank you so much this was helpful. I’m currently finishing up my meal prep for this week. I’ll have to consume more macros so I’ll have to figure that out once I log all my meals on Myfitness pal. I also subscribed to your YouTube page.
Brandy Bynum says
What’s a substitute for the chicken and avocado?
Matt Gaedke says
Brandy,
For the chicken the best substitute would be turkey, but really and fatty cut of meat will be ok. You could even get leaner cuts of meat and add coconut oil or butter to each meal. For the avocado there really is no 1 for 1 substitute. You can just add more broccoli/cauliflower and add in some oils.
Mary Bron says
Hey Matt, what makes your whole baked chicken taste so good. I see how to bake it 20 min per lb. what do I put on it? Thanks for sharing!
Matt Gaedke says
Hi Mary,
The real thing that makes it so good is putting some pats of butter under the skin! The seasoning is really up to you. I like to go with salt/pepper/rosemary/garlic powder. The butter is the key though!
Paula says
IT IS DELICIOUS! I did the wole chicken your way and seriously just want to eat it all in ione day, smaller bird then yours!
Michelle says
For people in Australia you can buy westgold butter $1.99 in Woolworth’s and that brand is grass fed,size-250 grams.The the green one is the unsalted butter,red one is added salt.What can I replace the almonds with as I do not eat nuts of any kind please?Also for anyone in Coffs Harbour area,for grass fed eggs ,and sometime you can also get grass fed meat you can buy at the markets on Thursdays near the St George bank/behind woolworths car park.
Matt Gaedke says
Thanks for the tip for the Aussies! You could just omit the almonds all together. Or you could go for string cheese or beef jerky instead!
Perry says
Hi guys! I am starting keto tomorrow and am trying to find meals to fit my macros. Im doing this to lose a lot of weight and change my lifestyle. The biggest problem im having is I see all your videos and they have been extremely helpful, but my macros are higher than most videos I can find and I dont know if I should just eat an extra meal or sub in snacks. Any ideas would be helpful.
Matt Gaedke says
The real answer is it doesn’t matter too much how you do it. I would do whatever is easier to stick to for you. We like to eat larger meals, but less of them(usually 2 per day). It’s totally valid to eat 4 or 5 meals a day too though, just hit your macros and your good. Snacks can be a slippery slope sometimes, but if you think you’ve got that under control then go for it! Maybe a smoothie added in would be good?
Paula says
Loved your videos so I am now checking out your blog! As a senior citizen living on a small budet who has health issues I believe this way of eating will be cost effective, safe , and healthy! Thanks for the ideas and recipes.
Megha Barot says
Hi Paula! Glad you are able to check out our videos and blogs 🙂 The cost of a keto lifestyle is extremely manageable which is something we love about it! Happy to be of any help – feel free to reach out whenever! Thanks for stopping by.
Paula says
I shopped today for the ingredients I did not have on hand, and my cost was $22.40 for the ingredients I bought. I have a lot of eggs as locally I can buy them from between $.59 to $.50 per dozen for extra large eggs. I did not get avocados as cost was prohibitive and I do have a dressing made with avocado and cilantro, so will use that in place of dressing and avocado on salad. I will look for some wholesome guacamole in the future.
Theo says
Generally I do not read post on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up very forced me to try and do so! Your writing style has been surprised me. Thanks, quite nice article.
Matt Gaedke says
Hi Theo! We totally understand not reading through blog posts so thank you for taking the time to do so! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
denise says
Awesome video! Can you guys make meal plan that doesn’t require oven? 🙁
Matt Gaedke says
We’ve been thinking of doing something like that. We have a lot of stuff on our to-do list right now. We can probably get to that in a couple months!
Joan Wokefield says
Fabulous post! Although I’m UK based (Kerrygold seems to be a lot cheaper here!), it’s great to see some keto on a budget info. The perceived expense of the keto diet was one of the things that put me off starting for quite a while, but actually there are a lot of ways you can make it work without breaking the bank. 🙂
Megha Barot says
Hi Joan! Hope all is well in the UK 🙂 Kerrygold is cheaper?! That is so lucky! We actually got a lot on sale last week which was a nice change. And, Keto is absolutely doable within a budget… it has changed the way we spend money on groceries altogether! Thanks for reaching out!
eebest8 fiverr says
“Enjoyed every bit of your article post.Much thanks again. Really Great.”
Megha Barot says
Hi! Thank you o much for reading and reaching out 🙂 Hope it was as helpful for you as it has been for us.
Anita Riv says
You guys are so cute and fun too watch! Not mention inspiring! Thanks for all the recipe ideas!
Megha Barot says
Hi Anita! Thank you 🙂 It’s so nice to hear that from viewers – thanks for watching and reaching out!!
Daniel says
Hey Dan again,
Loving the meal plan. The amount of food is pretty perfect. I have deviated a little, but nothing too major: Avos were literally $1 each this week so FUCK YEAH AVOS ERRRYDAY, and also, I’m a big guy a dozen eggs is so not enough. I spent the extra $2.5 for another dozen. So worth it. And not that it matters but I also swapped the almonds for Mission Pork Rinds (aka chicarrones), but that’s just **peeks out the window to make sure Trump’s goons aren’t listening** the Mexican in me. Great snack, also able to easily become an entree.. just sauté it with some oil and salsa. Boom!
Anyway, thanks again for the cool meal plan.
Megha Barot says
Hey Dan! Avocados for a $1?!? Lucky you! We would kill for that deal. We also just discovered the best pork rinds yesterday at a random gas station in VA (on our way down to TN) and they were BBQ flavored. I felt like I was eating BBQ chips!! Definitely shooting for that flavor at all times now! And, we will absolutely be sauteing them – great call on that. We’ve actually been going through eggs like crazy the past couple weeks so we usually have to get two 18 packs. Cheers to eggs, pork rinds and cheap avocados!! Have a wonderful holiday 🙂
Megha Barot says
Also, we weighed out each 90 calorie slice to 25 grams each. So if you have a food scale you can weigh out your slices for exact measurement and macros!
daniel says
Ha! I’ve done exactly that. Put my 25g in individual ziplock bags. Very cool on the BBQ flavored ones. I assume carbs aren’t too bad on then?
Happy thanksgiving!
Matt Gaedke says
Definitely check the nutrition. The ones we got were 0 carbs! We’ve seen BBQ one’s with quite a few carbs in them though. Apparently gas stations in the south have 15 varieties of pork rinds each!
Pam Vines says
They even serve them with pimento cheese as an appetizer at upscale restaurants in North Carolina. We northeners just don’t know how to live. Lol
Sandy says
90 cal slices of what??
shannon says
Dude your an idiot – this site has noting to do with trump or any other president for that matter.
lisa tamalantes says
Thanks for your contribution. He was making a topical joke about his heritage employing current events as a reference. Humor employing popular events is a fairly common social convention in any setting, so I wonder why you felt the need to comment and call him an idiot.
Raquel says
Yes!
Kim says
Love this comment!!
Angela says
I love this response!
SeanO says
Bullshit. He’s a divisive little cunt!
Taco says
you got a serious orange man bad syndrom
Jason Land says
How much salad dressing is meant to be used? It says (1) next to the portion size but is that a serving? A tablespoon? An ounce?
Matt Gaedke says
1 Serving! It will vary per dressing, but the blue cheese / ranch types should be about 120-180 calories for 1 serving.
Shelley says
I’m just starting out, I’m going to grocery store soon, I need a meal plan please I really need to lose weight for my heart and back. Thank you!
Cass (KetoConnect) says
Please put your email in the space provided near the bottom of the blog post. 🙂
daniel says
Great videos and infographic! (Fuck, do I love a good infographic.) You’ve inspired me. I’m giving this a try after a 12 month break from keto. I just got back from the grocery store. My 1 person haul was $32 (I live in Hawaii, so ~$6.40/day is really incredible for the area.)
Excited to get this going!
Matt Gaedke says
Hah, we’re big fans of the mystical infographic as well! This is the 2nd one we’ve made so still working out the kinks. $6.40 is definitely not bad for Hawaii. Glad to heard you’re hopping back on board after a break. Let us know if we can help!
Lil says
Thank you, I’m trying to do keto. I work 2 jobs it’s so hard to know what to eat.
Matt Gaedke says
No problem, we’re happy to help!
Mammie says
Hey! This is kind of off topic but I need some guidance from an established blog. Is it difficult to set up your own blog? I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about creating my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any ideas or suggestions? Cheers
Matt Gaedke says
Hi Mammie. It takes a bit of time and figuring stuff out, but you can definitely do it without being technical. Neither of us have web design/development experience or anything and we were able to create a relatively nice web site just by following some tutorials online. We use wordpress and would highly recommend it! This is the main tutorial we used: http://www.tyler.com/
Matt says
Start this on Monday (in 2 days), total local price in Australia for everything was $64.00, not bad for 5 days of food for 2 people! WIll let you know how I go 🙂
Matt Gaedke says
Awesome! You’re the first person we’ve heard back from that’s doing the meal plan. Let us know how it goes and if you run into any problems with it. $64’s not bad! That’s around what our prices came out to without any sales.
lisa says
I’ve been looking for something like this for months! Easy, inexpensive, perfect for my lifestyle! Love it!
Matt Gaedke says
We’re glad we could help Lisa!
Jeremy says
Just wanted to say what a great job you guys are doing with this site and your videos. I’m really impressed with the graphics, design, and user experience on the site.
And dammit you guys are a pretty cute keto couple.
Matt Gaedke says
Thanks! Feedback like this is great as we have no prior experience with any sort of web design or photo/video editing. This is all “learn as we go”. Definitely great to hear that we’re doing ok design wise. Thanks for checking us out!!
Liv says
I was just looking at ideas like this. Great job.
Megha Barot says
Thanks! It’s been helpful for us to get back on track with our caloric intake and spending!