Cooking and baking are both great ways to stretch your food budget. Coupons are good too, but the easiest way to cut your food costs is to prepare as many of your meals at home as possible. Cooking your meals at home will be not only more affordable, but more nutritious, too.
As you’re deciding to prepare your own meals, you should understand exactly what cooking is. Cooking (at least for these purposes) is not heating up a Hungry Man dinner in the microwave. Cooking is also not dumping the ingredients of a box into a sauce pan and heating it up. In its truest form, cooking is combining ingredients together with some type of heat to create a food dish.
Sure, using one of those box dinners (I favor the ones from Campbell’s) or Hamburger Helper is still cheaper than dining out. But you’re not necessarily saving all you could, and you’re certainly not preparing the most nutritious meal you could. I prefer to save those for those days when everything is crazy, and I need to make dinner in a hurry. The rest of the time, I try to rely on the staples from my pantry and a favorite from my collection of recipes.
Baking is always a prominent part of my savings through cooking at home. A very specific type of cooking, baking from scratch allows me to make all kinds of tasty things for my family. Chocolate chip cookies are one of my kids favorite treats. My husband, however, prefers my chicken noodle casserole. In either case, being able to bake allows me to keep grocery bills low and still provide my family with warm dishes that make them glad to hear me clattering around the kitchen.
However you prefer to cook, committing to prepare your meals at home will always be a good idea financially. Think about it for a minute. During my last visit to the grocery store, I spent $60 and bought a week’s worth of groceries. On the other hand, when my family eats at a restaurant, we spend at least $35 (before we add in a tip.) Cooking at home allows me to turn to the money I would spend on two dinners into enough food for a week. I can’t go wrong with savings like that!
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Hey everyone,
I saw the article on money saving tips and think it is great that so many people are sharing hints and tips whilst in the middle of a financial crisis. I love the money saving tips found on this site, I think with all the financial worries going around at the moment, we all need to be more aware of our spending. I thought I would share my new tip with you, I have now recently become a bit of a fan of electronic greetings cards. I have spent ages on the internet and have found a really cool free eCard greetings site. I think this is such a great idea as a money saving technique! I dread to link how money I have spent over the years on papers cards, and postage! I like this particular site because it always seems to have new designs to choose from, so I have never become bored. They also have a great application called ‘Face It’ where you can upload your own photos to add that extra personal touch, which is a great idea. I hope this piece of information helps, let me know!
The easiest way to save on food is to bring your lunch to work (or wherever). You can make a week’s worth of sandwiches for about the cost of buying ONE!
Or leftovers from dinner… if you have access to a microwave or toaster oven… will give you a good, nutritious meal.
I bring snacks; fruit, notes and that sort of thing… even my own snak cakes (LOVE Little Debbie) which are about a tenth the cost of what they have in the vending machines. Make your own ice tea, too, for pennies.
When you DO want to go out, go someplace decent… maybe once a week or every other week… or never, depending on your budget.
I’ve just started once a month cooking and I love it. Instead of take out or processed foods, we’re eating lots more lean meats, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables. We’re eating better tasting foods and saving over half our food budget! It’s fantastic!