You don't need to track prices to eat keto on a budget — you need to shop from a different part of the store. Buy the fattier, bone-in, less fashionable cuts (chicken thighs, drumsticks, whole chicken, pork shoulder, ground beef, eggs) instead of lean premium cuts, buy frozen vegetables instead of fresh, and skip anything with the word "keto" printed on the front of the package. Those three moves cover most of what makes keto feel expensive.
For a lot of people, cost — not willpower — is what actually ends a diet, and most of that cost is decided at the store, not at the table. The good news for keto specifically: the cuts of meat this way of eating asks for are usually the cheapest ones in the case, not the most expensive. Fatty, bone-in cuts like thighs, drumsticks, and pork shoulder are exactly what keto wants (more fat, not less), and they're consistently cheaper per pound than the lean, trimmed cuts a lower-fat diet would ask for. Ground beef, whole chickens, and eggs round this out — none of it is a specialty purchase.
Frozen vegetables do the same job as fresh at a lower price and don't force a shopping trip around a spoilage clock — frozen spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans work in essentially anything fresh versions would. And produce prices swing through the year regardless of what a list says, so the honest advice is to buy whatever's cheap that month rather than shop off a fixed list.
The one category actually worth cutting is the one marketed as keto: bars, keto-labeled snacks, specialty sweeteners, MCT oil, ketone drinks. These tend to cost more than the plain version of the same food, and none of them are required — eggs, butter, cheap cuts, and frozen vegetables are the whole diet. If you're buying in bulk, splitting and freezing meat the day you get it home is what actually makes the bulk price pay off — otherwise a chunk of it just spoils before you get to it.
If time is the other constraint, none of these need a stove: canned tuna + avocado + olive oil; smoked salmon + cream cheese + cucumber; sardines + olive oil + lemon; hard cheese + olives + salami; cottage cheese + berries + walnuts. Canned fish, hard cheese, and frozen vegetables also survive a big shop — they're still good two weeks later, which a fresh-produce-only list isn't.
The app's Shop section keeps a running "on a budget" and "nothing to cook" list, filtered against anything you've told it you don't eat — so the list you see is one you can actually use, not a generic one you have to mentally edit.
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