Things You'll Need:
- Budgeting skills
- Passion for good food
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Step 1
If you don't want to put that much effort into changing your food habits, the easiest thing to do is to not modify your food budget at all. Depending on many factors, for example, how often you eat out at restaurants, you will need to make more cuts in other areas of your personal consumption. This isn't that hard, and in fact, it's possible that making cuts to different areas of your budget could leave you with even more food money than before! There are some goods that you pay for by use; utilities come to mind (pay per kWh of electricity, gallon of water, and so on). For goods that are priced with one consistent rate, you will need to cut those out entirely. Cutting out an expensive digital cable bill can leave you with plenty of food money, enabling you to eat well during a recession!
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Step 2
If you want to actually change your food budget, the first thing to do is to analyze how often you go out to eat. Usually, food at a restaurant is significantly more expensive than cooking on your own. One thing to keep in mind, however, is a hidden cost of cooking at home - the extra time spent to prepare a meal. For example, let's say that going to a restaurant takes an hour and a half, and cooking at home takes two hours. Furthermore, let's assume that the restaurant meal costs $10 and the home meal costs $5. In this case, the total cost of eating at the restaurant is $10 + 1.5 hr, and the cost of eating at home is $5 + 2 hr. The "cost" of an hour is your wage. If you could work an extra half hour and go to a restaurant, you would actually make more money as long as your wage was more than $10/hr. It's up to you to figure out what works best for you.
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Step 3
Once you've done that, a good way to shop for food is to buy in bulk. Stores will price bulk items lower than individual goods because they want to separate the market into loyal consumers and those who are just stopping in to buy a few things. Stores like Costco and Sam's Club, which offer great discounts to store members, are great places to buy in bulk.
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Step 4
If buying in bulk seems like a daunting task, you can host dinner parties where everyone brings a dish to share. If you have a huge party, then the total average cost per person will be lower than if you were serving a smaller group. Since the economy is in a recession, you need to save money to eat well!
Comments
0sara0 said
on 7/18/2009 I love the idea of throwing a dinner party it also means I can cook less!
goldiec said
on 3/1/2009 Great article. I love Sam's club and we always buy in bulk. 5*
AprilThomas said
on 2/27/2009 Buying in bulk definitely enables you to eat well. We like Sam's Club, but would switch to Costco if it were closer. Sometimes a friend and I share a bulk order.