How to Set a Thrifty Food Budget
For many families, groceries are one of their greatest expenses. Since healthy, filling meals are one thing that can't be downsized or eliminated from the budget, finding a way to creatively reduce your family's grocery bill is essential to minimizing this necessary expense. Whether you are creating a budget to help you live within your means, save for a special purchase, or just have a more comfortable cushion of cash at the end of the month, these key steps for reducing your grocery bill will get you started. Some methods take more time or effort than others, so keep in mind that you can pick and choose from some of these steps to create a personalized plan that fits your lifestyle. The more steps you use, however, the greater your savings will be.
- Difficulty:
- Moderate
Instructions
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Analyze your last few grocery bills. Pinpoint the most expensive items. Note how long you were able to go between each grocery trip. It may also be useful to write up a few typical weekly menus for your family. Seeing your expenses laid out clearly in front of you is the first step to finding places where you can cut down.
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2
Start making items from scratch. Many things are much cheaper when made from scratch at home. Baking your own muffins, bread, and snack cakes will save you a bundle compared to buying these items prepackaged from store shelves. An added benefit is that even junk food like cookies and brownies are a little bit healthier without the preservatives, and eliminating all the individual packaging is very eco-friendly.
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3
Shop the sales. Track your local grocery stores' sales, and only buy meats when they are on sale. If you are careful about following sales, you can buy several weeks' worth of meat in one shopping trip. Your subsequent shopping trips would then only need to include milk, eggs, bread (if you aren't baking it), and produce. You can track sales for these items, too. By stocking up when something is cheap, you should be able to avoid having to buy something for full price.
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Explore local discount stores. Some bread factories have discount stores where they sell their products for just a fraction of the price. The only catch is that they are close to, or sometimes past their expiration date. Solve this problem by immediately freezing anything that you won't use right away.
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Make use of every little bit. The easiest way to make your groceries last longer is to always eat all of your leftovers. Save anything that is left from dinner and have it for lunch the next day or have a designated leftover night once a week. You can also make careful use of your scraps. If you don't need a whole vegetable for your recipe, save the extra for soup or a salad. Use bones and vegetable skins and scraps to make stock for soups. Use stale bread and bread ends to make croutons and bread crumbs.
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Explore new recipes. Push yourself every week to make at least one meal out of nothing. On that last day before your shopping trip when you think you can't possibly throw together what you have left, find a way to do it. Get cookbooks from the library, or search recipes online to find something new and creative that uses the few ingredients that you have. If all else fails, just improvise!
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Tips & Warnings
There are a wealth of books focusing on just this subject. To get a more in depth understanding of managing a thrifty food budget, read The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn and America's Cheapest Family by Steve and Annette Economides.
Avoid fast food at all costs. The 99-cent items on the menu may seem like a great deal, but even these don't compare to the value of a home cooked meal.
