How to Cut Food Costs
Cash-strapped and budget-conscious consumers continuously look for ways to trim their daily living expenses, particularly as food prices keep rising. Food prices are affected by economic and other sometimes invisible factors, and although you cannot directly affect costs at the beginning of the food chain, you can use money-saving techniques to keep your spending in line.
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Things You'll Need
- Grocery store flyers
- A PC with an Internet connection
- Paper and a pen
- A refrigerator magnet
Instructions
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Develop a meal-planning strategy. Write what you want to prepare for breakfast, lunch and dinner for each day. Also, change your meals to more cost effective options. For example, pre-packaged weight-loss foods are convenient but expensive, so consider buying and cooking cheaper raw vegetables and meats yourself.
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Scrutinize the measurements on the packaging. Food makers and suppliers can reduce the amount of food in a package but deceptively keep the outside appearance of the container looking relatively the same.
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Create a system for discovering and organizing coupons and discount information. Obtain file folders or create folders on the hard drive on a computer. Visit a local supermarket's website and sign up for email alerts for when sales occur. Listen and look for ads from local restaurants about specials. For example, weekly pizza lovers might order pizza on advertised slow days -- Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday -- to receive a discount.
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Visit local food businesses and organizations that sell food at or near cost. Nonprofit food banks and grocery outlets often charge customers only about 5 percent to 10 percent over the wholesale cost. For example, if the store bought a box of noodles from a supplier for $1, you pay $1.05 to $1.10 at the checkout counter. Visit supermarket warehouses, Sam's Club and Costco.
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Obtain smaller cooking appliances that help to reduce an electricity bill. Use a full-featured toaster oven in place of an electric range or wall oven. Use a microwave to boil spaghetti instead of firing up the gas range.
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Add "fillers" to your recipes to increase the bulk or yield. For example, you can add oatmeal to ground beef when preparing a meat loaf. Some people buy a gallon of whole milk, then divide and pour it into smaller containers. Then the milk is watered down and frozen to make it last longer.
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Make leftovers into new meals. Use leftover meat from hamburger patties to make chili. De-bone cooked fried chicken to make fried chicken salad.
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Sign up for government nutrition assistance programs. Elderly adults have several programs to choose from, including the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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Enroll children in after-school and summer activity programs that also include meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsors the Summer Food Service Program in communities so children who are on summer break from school don't go hungry.
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Tips & Warnings
Many social networks such as Gather have groups dedicated to cost cutting. Joining these groups allows you to benefit from their tips and tricks.
Don't take your children grocery shopping. They are the worst impulse buyers!
References
- The New York Times; Behind the Rising Cost of Food; Kim Severson; April 2011
- CNBC: Food Inflation Kept Hidden in Smaller Bags; Stephanie Clifford; April 2011
- ConsumerReports.org: Plugged-In Cooks Rely on Small Appliances For Big Dinners; Mary H.J. Farrell; November 2010
- The Street: 15 Companies That Serve You "Wood"; Miriam Reimer; March 2011
- USDA: U.S. Nutrition Assistance Programs: Food and Nutrition Information Center
Resources
- Photo Credit Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images
