There are many ways to eat well and many of them are expensive. In these hard economic times we need to cut back wherever we can, This is partially due to the increase in prices for companies to make their balance sheets look better but it is usually at our expense. It is time to fight back and buy smart. Here are 7 ways to reduce your food budget and still eat well.
1. Find a coupon!
- Clip coupons from your local newspaper
- Look at the mailers in the junk mail you get
- Look at the grocery store you visit on-line to see what special coupons they are offering
- Go to the coupon sites—and there are a lot of them
- Go to manufacturers sites and look for their coupons
- Look in the grocery store for the coupon shooters in the isles.
2. Buy when sales are on
- Find the days in your favorite store when they are having specials. Look for the best deals:
- 10 for $10.00 sales
- Buy 1 get 1 free
- 5 for $5.00 sale
- Deep discounts on products you normally use
- Giveaways
3. Only buy the products that you use. If you see a sale in the store that looks great and you don’t use those products, then it is not really a sale for you.
4. Buy products in bulk. Look on the pricing stickers and compare the cost per unit. For example if cereal is 32 oz for $3.79 and another is 26 oz for $3.50, know how to figure out which one is cheaper.
- Dollars / units = Dollars per unit
- $3.79 / 32 oz = $0.1184 per ounce
- $3.50 / 26 oz = $0.1346 per ounce
The item that is less expensive on the face is not actually less expensive per serving.
When you buy in bulk, be sure that you are going to use that quantity of product before it goes bad. You may be able to buy 10 pounds of bananas for $3.50 but if you can’t eat them before they go bad then you have wasted some and actually spent a lot more per serving. This is the principle of grocery selling or food costs (in restaurants):
Suppose you have 4 people in your family and make a lasagna. The Lasagna serves 8 and you all eat a really great and hearty meal. If you do not eat the additional 4 servings for another meal or for lunches, the cost per serving is twice what you may have expected in the beginning because you wasted half of the food. Which brings us to the next saving tip.
5. Eat leftovers as a meal. When I was growing up, we had 1 or 2 nights a week that we called “Leftover Night” and we took anything that was in the refrigerator and heated or remade or whatever it needed to have a great meal. Plan a Leftover Night and have some fun with it. In the end it will save you money.
6. Prepare our meal plans ahead of time. Deciding what you are going to have each day and preparing well will save you money. It gives you something to look forward to as you are getting ready during the week as well as helps you buy in bulk to cut costs.
7. Shop only with a shopping list. This is a really hard one. When I go to the grocery store and want to buy for the week, there is always calling me to that impulse buy. Deciding that you are only going to buy wha
t is on your list helps protect that you don’t go after that extra impulse buy placed judiciously at the checkout counter.
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