Part 1 of Money Saving Meals

Inflation has been hard for just about everyone I know.  One place that everyone seems to be feeling the pain the most is their grocery budget.  I have been saying my dollars aren’t dollaring like they used to dollar.  In the midst of this I have had two separate friends tell me that they think that for a two-person household it is cheaper to eat out than it is to cook at home.  I was astonished that these people that I considered to be intelligent individuals had this thought process.  I was then a short time later scrolling through social media and saw a thread that said basically the same thing that with the price of groceries you may as well eat out.  The number of commenters that agreed with that blew my mind.

               I cannot believe that so many people would believe that eating at a restaurant or fast-food restaurant is cheaper than eating at home.  If you have had that thought before or you are looking for some easy and affordable meals, you have come to the right place.  I want to help you as much as I possibly can save money where you can.  I am still learning new ways to save money in my own household and more specifically grocery budget.  I want to pass on the things that I learn so that you can use them too!

               One way I want to do this is with by sharing money saving meals with you and breaking down the cost of each meal by the total cost and the cost per serving.  I know that the cost of ingredients will vary in different areas of the country.  However, I think I will still give an over all idea of what different meals can cost, and possibly inspire you to swap an ingredient that maybe more affordable in your area than one I used or more readily available. 

               Before we start breaking down different meals and what they cost let’s talk about the basics of saving money in our grocery budget.  

1. Pay attention to what your family actually eats, and maybe even consider starting a list of the common and recurring meals.  By becoming familiar with this you can start to break down these meals and understand common ingredients you need frequently.  This will allow you to utilize the next step better.
2. Shop the sales.  I know you have probably heard this one before and it does require spending more money at one time on specific items, but I promise this will save you so much money in the long run.  I haven’t paid full price for butter in years because when it goes on sale I stock up!
3. Learn the what and how’s of food storage.  More specifically the food that your family enjoys and the ingredients you are going to be acquiring from the sales above.  For example, the butter from above keeps in the freezer.  Forever.  Ok maybe not forever, but with proper rotation stored in the deep freezer it lasts a really long time.
4. This one is an important one and one that I feel like is really really simple and yet often overlooked.  Are you ready? Ok, good.  Make a meal plan.  I don’t mean you have to make a meal plan that you have to stick to eating a certain meal on a certain day necessarily unless you find that helpful.  What I do mean is make a meal plan with the amount of meals you will need until the next time you go grocery shopping.  So if you are a weekly shopper and shop every Friday.  You need to make a list of meals that will cover everyday until the next Friday.  Same logic applies if you are a biweekly shopper, or even a monthly shopper.  Make a list of the total number of meals.
5. The reason making that list of meals is so important is we are going to use that list of meals and make a list of ingredients to shop for so that we can make those meals.  Who wants to spend the time and money going to the store only to spend too much money and only have ingredients for a couple of meals.  Not me and I feel like you don’t want that either.  So if you have been reading some of my other posts about becoming more disciplined, we are going to put in the work that will help us in the long run.  We are going to take the 15 minutes to go through the fridge and pantry and make the list.

I hope you have found this list helpful and are able to apply these tips to your next shopping trip.  I am going to be sharing much much more on this subject coming up very soon!