The second highest category in the majority of budgets is food. We all need it. We all love it. Yet, sometimes we may be looking for ways to cut back our spending in this category. Here are a few tips to help with that:
1. Plan ahead- If you have taken our course, you have already seen how we feel about meal planning but man is it crucial if you want to keep a reasonable grocery budget! Start by looking at your schedule and plan around that. If you are going to be taking kids to a soccer game, don’t plan steak for that night. If you are going out of town make sure you plan for that etc.
2. Make list of everything in the fridge that needs to be used up– This helps so much! You can even use websites like www.allrecipes.com and search by ingredient to find recipes that use those foods.
3. Plan realistic meals- I usually look for meals I can make in 20 minutes or less. If you enjoy cooking you can do longer. Dan cooks for us on weekends and makes a hot breakfast almost everyday and he prefers to make gourmet meals! Either way, make sure they are realistic so you don’t end up with last minute take out you weren’t planning on a break the budget!
4. Plan in leftovers and eating out– One great way of doing this is to repurpose leftovers. Dan is a leftover master! Seriously. The stuff he comes up with blows my mind. But you don’t have to do anything crazy. Maybe you have leftover chicken, rice stir fry. Through it in a tortilla and turn it into chicken burritos. It can be simple but it helps you to actually eat your leftovers.
5. Themes each day- My mom did this growing up and I have kind of adopted it but it helps to make meal planning much easier. You just create a simple theme for each day of the week: Mexican Monday, Fish on Tuesday, Chicken on Wednesday, Crockpot Thursday, Pizza Friday etc. You don’t have to make that specific meal that day but it helps to get more variety in your diet and makes meal planning go WAY faster
6. Never go to bed without knowing exactly what you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks
7. Only go grocery shopping once a week- NO MATTER WHAT. I must say we are not perfect at this but getting better! I would also add shopping on the same day each week. Then you know that you will have exactly a week’s worth of food and you won’t be stopping for “just a gallon of milk” and walking out with 10 things.
8. Stick to the budget– keep a running total– Online shopping is your friend!! It does this all for you and makes it super easy to stay in your budget each week. I would also recommend creating a weekly budget rather than a monthly budget and try to stick with that each week. It gets really hard when you spend $125 one week and $75 the next etc. to keep it all straight and not eat into the next week’s budget.
9. Buy in bulk- especially in non food items- detergent, diapers etc. Compare the price per ounce/per item to know if you really are getting a good deal.
10. Double and freeze- When cooking, make double the recipe and freeze half of it! I especially like to do this with soup or crockpot/instant pot meals.
11. Freeze when things are about to go bad or you have extra and you don’t think you will finish it- Things last so much longer in the freezer!
12. Keep fruit and bread in the fridge to keep them fresh longer
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