Everywhere you look, food seems to be going up and up in price. It may seems as if you have pared your budget down to the bone.
But if you aren’t using all the methods listed in this article, there’s still some room for savings.
Combine your savings from taking your lunch with cooking your own dinners at home more often and you’ll be surprised at how much you can save on food each week. It can easily add up to $25 a week if you plan your meals carefully and don’t resort to take out, fast food, delivery pizza and so on. Many of the foods that you enjoy in restaurants can easily be made at home for a fraction of the cost.
Plan your means around the protein, and add to it with lots of additional foods. Serve it in a variety of ways, and use your freezer for your own “TV dinners” made from the leftovers or various dishes made from one single meal and then prepared in different ways. For example, a roast chicken can stretch to many meals, especially if you have it with salad, vegetables, roast potatoes or sweet potatoes on the side for the first meal. Then cut the chicken into strips for stir fry or Mexican fajitas.
For the stir fry, serve with broccoli, green papers and some Oriental style vegetables, with some brown rice. For the Mexican food, have it with onion, green pepper strips and some salsa and cheese all rolled up in a soft tortilla, with some golden or yellow rice and some beans on the side.
You can also roll out some pastry dough and make your own pot pies or ‘hot pocket’ types of snacks for the kids. You can even smuggle some of the dark meat into these recipes for a bit of added flavor. Then there are chicken skewers, chicken soup, or chicken stew with some pop and fresh rolls on top as steamed dumplings.
Cook in bulk. Try make and freeze meals.
Cooking at home does not have to be a chore if you plan ahead and you will certainly save a great deal of money cutting down on your expenses related to eating out.
*Buy store brands if they taste good and offer good value for the money.
Many people turn up their noses at the store brand of many items, but the secret they are unaware of is that many of the products are most likely manufactured by one of the larger brands. It is called private label selling, in which the packaging may be slightly different, but the items in side are the same. Certain people will argue Coke versus Pepsi or Hellmann’s versus Miracle Whip for the rest of their lives, and that is fine.
If the food is going to go to waste rather than get eaten, by all means buy what your family likes. But generally speaking, many store brands offer good taste and good value. Just be sure to check the per unit price on the items and on the small versus large sizes, if available. Don’t be embarrassed to use a calculator/your cell phone calculator to see if you are getting a good deal.
We also say this because in many cases the name brands offer valuable coupons each week in the Sunday papers, so sometimes it will be cheaper to buy the name brand.
Further Reading
Visit the Money Matters section for better budgeting ideas.
Visit the Food Matters section for cheap but healthy meal ideas.
