1. You get to save more when you cook meals from home.
2. Your family eats healthier food.
3. They get to eat more too, as you can see. Take out food can only take you that far with $20. That’s only for one eating. $20 of groceries can feed you for days.
While it is perfectly fine to indulge in eating out once in a while, I believe nothing gets better than staying home and eating homecooked meals! (I should learn how to cook!)
I was a bit surprised with how much we are allocating each for our wet market needs. I usually let our helper buy produce and meat from the market every Sunday. I commented that my set amount per week produced less food in the table and I noticed that there were not much veggies anymore. Our help told me that it might be better for me to just buy meat from the grocery because I can select cuts (whereas in the wet market you get one whole chicken, have it chopped and had it weighed) and it might be cheaper for us since slices are bigger.
So I tried to see if it works – and one week’s worth of wet market versus the price used in the grocery led to 8 days worth of meals + the kids’ baon to school. I am sad though because I don’t get to have that much veggies.
Everything seems more expensive these days. I wish salaries increase too!
The biggest culprit in an over-sized food budget can be attributed to habits that add money to the bottom line. Simply living in one of the most expensive neighborhoods, for instance, can leave you with grocery chains nearby that cater to wealthy people. However, travel a little further and you might find discount grocery stores that have better prices elsewhere. It’s not just where you live, however, that contributes to a larger food bill, just the act of walking in the wrong areas of the grocery store can keep your food bill high.
Eat Before You Shop
Don’t ever go to the grocery store when hungry to do your grocery shopping. When you walk in the door, you should have a grocery list in hand, and stick to the list. Grocery store layouts are set up to tempt you at every corner to buy things you don’t need or to buy too much. Stick to the outside aisles for the bare necessities and avoid the inner aisles where much of the convenience and packaged food, with high costs, reside.
Learn to Cook
Just learning a few good recipes that are inexpensive can help to reduce the need for convenience food. Making your own casseroles is not only healthier for you, but can also provide brown bag lunches for the following day. Learn how to re-use leftovers so that you can make more than one dish from an ingredient, like roasted chicken. The following day cut it up and make chicken salad sandwiches for lunch.
Schedule Trips
If you have a day when you plan on shopping, you can avoid additional trips to the convenience store or shopping center when you run out of milk. The minute you do make an extra trip, it costs more gas, and also will make you more susceptible to think of other things to buy while you’re there. If you’re not there, you can’t spend any extra money.
If you don’t have a lot of money, you aren’t the only one out there in that situation. It might even be difficult for you to buy the groceries that you need to keep making great recipes for your family. You don’t have to worry about how you’re going to feed them, though. You can simply find a better way to handle your bills, which will provide you with more money in your pocket. Then, you can use that money for the ingredients you need for wonderful dinners. Handling your bills better often comes through combining them and lowering your interest rate – two things that can be done by a debt consolidation company.
If you really love fixing the newest foods and trying the latest recipes, consolidating your debt can help you have more money on hand for the basics like eating and paying bills. Because your interest rate will be lower, you won’t be paying out as much money over time. You’ll also have only one monthly debt payment, instead of having a lot of them to keep track of. When you have fewer payments, you’ll be more likely to get them handled, instead of accidentally overlooking one or more of them.
Things can get lost in the shuffle but finances, like recipes, require the right ‘ingredients’ at the right times. If you don’t take care of your finances or you allow them to get out of control, you aren’t going to end up with a good end result. Even though it can be uncomfortable to ask for help, take the time to think about how important good finances are to your family. They affect so many things, and they aren’t something you can just take lightly. When you consolidate your debts and start paying them off faster, you’ll be doing your entire family a huge favor that will last a lifetime.
Just a few months left in the year and once again I am trying to assess how we have fared financially this year. I think almost any mom puts the budget among her new year’s resolution every year and although it is too early to start writing mine, I figured that I could benefit from budgeting tips any time of the year. Not only would constant reminders help a lot, it would hopefully prevent us from taking any cash advance loan in case of emergencies.
One of the hardest things as a parent is coming up with meals on a daily basis. It seems like you always eat the same thing and your kids are always asking, “What’s for dinner?†If this sounds like you and your family, then you should take some time to put together a calendar menu and get your family involved in the decision making. This will help you be less stressed and make meal time more enjoyable.
If you are worried about money and are considering a mortgage refinance Virginia residents can get, then you are probably looking for other ways to save money too. Your groceries are a great place to save money. The best strategy to save money at the grocery store is to sit down with the Sunday newspaper ads and clip coupons for the things you are going to buy. You should also plan your meals around what items are on sale that week. Then write out a list and don’t buy anything that isn’t on the list. This takes a little time, patience, and planning, but it is a great way to save money on food.
Your family really should be giving input on what meals they want to eat during the week. Sure, not all requests can be satisfied, but any idea is better than no idea. Have each of your kids suggest at least one meal idea each week. This will help ensure that you do not get in a rut and eat the same things week after week and your family will be happy about what they eat too. You could take the idea further and have each member of your family be in charge of one meal per week and they have to help cook it too. Your kids will learn cooking skills and you will be less stressed about meals.
Whether you are doing grocery shopping and menu planning there is one thing you should always do beforehand: make a list. It solves everything and can make you save money actually. Of course, you need to plan your week around lean meals and healthy foods otherwise you will need thermogenic fat-burners for all the junk you will eat.
I got this from the How About Orange site, it’s a great way to let househelp or the cook know which one to cook for the day – so cute too!
Another fun freebie from Alma Loveland: a graphic you can download, print, and frame under glass in your kitchen, then use a dry erase marker to write your meal plans on it. The print will fit in a standard IKEA Ribba frame, or you can scale it to a smaller size if you prefer.
We have been eating out a lot lately and I have been spending more on our grocery the past few weeks. I think one of the reasons is we have two kids in school so I need to take into consideration having a big breakfast (rice usually) at mornings and snacks plus fruits. I think all our extra money is going to food, which is fine because we enjoy it. But we need to be more stringent with money and be more aggressive with money saving. A friend advised us that we buy gold coins as investment as it has great value and never depreciates. We will see.