12 Top Items To Buy at Walmart With a $50 Grocery Budget

A $50 grocery budget has the power to go the distance at a big-box retailer — if you’re savvy enough to know which purchases won’t drain it fast.

For this roundup, GOBankingRates shopped Walmart’s in-house grocery brand Great Value to keep costs down and utilized the Walmart website to source each item’s prices. Our total spend for 12 groceries came out to $35.83. This keeps spending under the limit with extra wiggle room for taxes. Our choices in this roundup also tried to eliminate areas of food waste whenever possible and highlight groceries with the greatest versatility in meals.

Ready to shop? Here’s what should be on your Walmart grocery list if you’re on a $50 budget.

• Price: $1.98

Pancakes are not only an inexpensive breakfast food, but they’re quite filling for stomachs.

At just under $2 a box, Great Value’s pancake and waffle mix should be added to your Walmart shopping cart. If your household isn’t big on pancakes, it can be used to make waffles.

• Price: $4.36

Get in your Vitamin C without spending a fortune when you shop for Great Value country style orange juice. 

This was one of the least expensive, healthiest Great Value beverage options — and cheaper than shopping the Tropicana brand, which retails for around $6.64 at Walmart.

• Price: $4.47

Whether you’re cooking pasta for dinner or have baking plans, don’t begin until you’re stocked up on butter.

Great Value sweet cream unsalted butter, at $4.47 for the package, costs $1.70 less than what you’d pay for the Land O’Lakes butter brand sold at Walmart.

• Price: $2.00

Why do we recommend buying a block of Great Value sharp cheddar cheese at Walmart? Aside from its versatility and affordable price, this cheddar cheese comes in a block, so you can slice and shred as per your preference.

• Price: $4.66

For all your breakfast, baking and breakfast for dinner needs, eggs are a must-buy for your grocery budget. 

A carton of 12 Great Value cage-free eggs retails at about $4.66 at Walmart. This comes out to spending around 39 cents per egg.

• Price: $3.42

Milk can be expensive to shop for, but Great Value 1% low-fat milk, at $3.42, is among one of the cheapest price tags we saw at Walmart for a gallon of milk.

• Price: $0.68

You bought the milk, now it’s time to add a box — or two — of Great Value macaroni and cheese to your shopping cart. 

This bestseller is even cheaper to shop than the Kraft brand sold at Walmart: 68 cents to Kraft’s $1.24 per blue box.

• Price: $1.48

Cut costs without sacrificing taste by shopping for Great Value white bread for just under $1.50 per loaf. Walmart also carries brands like Wonder Bread, which costs $2.92 per loaf. 

At that price, you’d save more money buying two loaves of Great Value bread than a single loaf of Wonder Bread.

• Price: $2.00

If you’re running low on peanut butter, swap out a more expensive name brand for Great Value creamy peanut butter. In comparison, a jar of Jif creamy peanut butter in the same 16-ounce sizing costs $1.38 more to buy at Walmart.

• Price: $1.08

As much as we hate to admit it, few purchases eat up a $50 grocery budget faster than fresh produce. If you’re making soups or stir fry for dinner, add a bag of Great Value frozen mixed vegetables to your Walmart shopping cart. 

They’re only $1.08 per bag and loaded with carrots, corn, green beans and peas. Best of all, whatever you don’t use up can be saved for later in your freezer.

• Price: $5.72

Like the frozen vegetables, we chose to add Great Value breaded fish sticks to this roundup in lieu of fresh fish to save money and eliminate potential food waste.

And in case you’re wondering why we chose fish sticks instead of another frozen meat, like chicken, this was intentional. According to Prevention, frozen fish sticks provide 51% of your daily value for vitamin E.

• Price: $3.98

What’s a grocery budget without an easy cheat meal?

On the days you don’t feel like cooking and know ordering out will be too expensive, it’s Great Value rising crust pepperoni frozen pizza to the rescue. At a little under $4 per pie, this is significantly less expensive than ordering pizza out and will keep households just as full.