It's a fact, cooking at home saves hundreds of dollars over dining out. Taking your lunch, packing a snack, and grabbing a drink from the fridge before heading out the door are those saving tips that most people know about.
Less obvious money savers include these 8 tips:
1. Add inexpensive ingredients to make your batch or meal larger. Freeze the extras or save a complete lunch for later. For example, add cabbage to stews or soups. It's super cheap, filling and keeps in your fridge for weeks. Great stretching ingredients include: Cabbage, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, rice, noodles, beans, lentils, and oats.
2. Consider using dried foods. Dried mushrooms have a very long shelf life, and can add quick instant flavor to inexpensive foods like rice, pasta, or beans.
3. Learn to cook meats SLOW so you can can make even the cheapest cut of meat taste wonderful.
4. Can you use half? Can you fix half of a seasoning packet? Or just half of a batch of muffins or brownies? How about half the package of meat? Can you cut those pieces in half or only fix three of the four chicken breasts? There are many times I can use half of a taco seasoning packet instead of a full packet.
5. Do you ever watch tv shows that show family dinners in the 50's? One thing they did well, was keep meals simple. Three items on the plate, and many of the sides were super inexpensive options. Things like applesauce, peas, or Mac and cheese. Limit the number of items prepared for dinner.
6. Use refrigerator containers to corral your foods. Don't allow foods to be pushed to the back and not used before they expire. Pull a bin out, flip it around periodically. My kids only eat foods on the top two shelves. So be sure to pull up foods from the bottom to the top shelves so you don't end up throwing away some of your groceries.
7. Adopt a night for leftovers or "Fend for yourself" night. We have this weekly where we eat what we have! Instead of fixing a whole new meal, we pull out all the leftovers and eat em up. I allow the kids to fix what they personally like.
8. Not all saving ideas are about having or fixing less, you can also practice using food substitutions. Food Substitutions
For more money saving ideas visit these pages:
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