The cost of living continues to increase, yet sadly people’s incomes are not growing to match those rising expenses each year. For many families, sacrifices must get made to keep costs down.
One area where family budgets are tightening is food. Thankfully, it’s possible to keep your family well-fed without skipping meals and causing bellies to rumble all the time.
The following tips and tricks explain how you can keep your food costs down while still providing healthy and hearty meals each day for you and your family:
Stick With Traditional Favorites
The first tip is to avoid meal ideas that demand lots of ingredients, including ones that require expensive or exotic fruits and vegetables. Instead, concentrate on making traditional favorites for you and your family.
For example, you could follow a beef tips and gravy recipe that only uses a few basic and inexpensive staples found in most homes. You’ll find plenty of such meal recipes on this website and elsewhere online.
Check For Reduced Items In Grocery Stores
Each day, grocery stores mark down the price of specific items if they are fast approaching their use-by dates. It makes sense to seek out such discounted foods and beverages and stock up on them to save your family money.
Look for examples you can store in your freezer for several days or weeks. If you buy discounted items with a short shelf life that you can’t freeze, use them for your immediate meal plans.
Stock Up On Cheap Ingredients
Aside from buying discounted, short-shelf life foods and beverages, one thing you can do is buy plenty of cheap ingredients. Examples include potatoes, onions, salad items, and root vegetables.
The reason to stock up on such ingredients is that you can make many meal ideas using them. Most recipes only call for a small handful of essentials; everything else is for garnishing or flavor enhancement.
Avoid Take-Away Meals
One sure-fire way to blow your food budget is by purchasing take-out meals from fast food establishments. Sure, it’s easy and convenient for you and your family – especially when you don’t feel like cooking. However, the high cost of such meals will cripple your budget.
Moreover, take-out food often has little nutritional value – and you should avoid such food when possible.
Buy From Discount Food Stores
There’s no point buying your groceries from a single store for convenience reasons. You’re unlikely to save money on your grocery bills each week, and you can almost always get the same branded items cheaper in a nearby discount food store.
Look out for such stores in your area. The grocery stores you should look out for in your area include Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Food4Less, and Costco.
Use Food-Sharing Apps
One final tip to keep in mind is to use food-sharing apps like Olio. Doing so is a fantastic way to get some food you love for free if some people have too much of it in their homes. The chances are high that you won’t have to travel far to collect such unneeded groceries.
