This week’s Money Monday article focuses on budget-friendly grocery shopping and meal planning. Our guest contributor is Dawn, who is the creator of MenuFortheWeek.com. In this article, Dawn shares with us some simple tips on how shop and plan meals, making it much easier to enjoy family meal time.
Do you think that meal planning and cooking at home is a good idea and great way to save money, but just can’t fit onto your plate? I’m going to bet that you don’t realize just how many ways this can save you money. Some of the more obvious reasons are:
- No last minute trips out to restaurants. (This one is huge, but you already know that.)
- You would only need to make one trip to the grocery store a week. How often have do you go to the grocery store for 5 things and walk out with 20…? Exactly. We all do that, which is an excellent reason to limit those trips.
- Planning meals by the week gives you a specific grocery list. This helps you stay focused, buy only the things you need, and prevents impulse purchases.
And have you considered these reasons?
- All of these trips to the grocery store and restaurants costs you gas. It may not be much, but it definitely adds up.
- Cooking dinner often means left-overs for lunch the next day. We save so much money by bringing left-overs to work for lunch. In fact, in my family, we rarely have dinner left-overs because we use them for lunch.
Now that you know the financial benefits of planning your meals in advance, what are some other ways you can save on your specific grocery list? Here’s a few:
- Stockpile meat when it’s on sale. Buy meat that’s on sale for that week and freeze it until you need it. If you need a cut of meat that is more expensive than your budget allows, ask the butcher if there’s a less expensive alternative for the dish you are making. I’ve done this so many times and they are more than willing to help. Often times, there is something very comparable in quality for that particular dish.
- Fresh verses frozen. When it comes to meat and vegetables, we always assume fresh is better. Not necessarily. Things are frozen immediately after slaughter or harvest, making them very close to fresh. Often it is much less expensive and you will never know the difference or lose any less nutritional value. For example, I needed a bone-in turkey breast and could only get a frozen one. The butcher then explained to me why he much prefers frozen meat to fresh meat: Because it is frozen immediately and fresh meat is usually days old, frozen meats are actually much fresher.
- Use fruits and vegetables that are in season. Another example, when avocados go over $2.00 a piece, we have guacamole hiatus at our house. When they are in season and on sale, however, we might have a Mexican dish 2 or 3 times that week.
- I always substitute dry herbs for fresh, especially expensive ones like basil. It might not taste exactly the same, but consider the $4.00 – $5.00 you are saving. If you find that it is only a dollar or two difference, you might consider the splurge. I’ve found that dry herbs go better undetected by children which gives them additional bonus points. Also, if you are going to be using an expensive herb in a dish–try to incorporate it into at least 2 dishes that week so none gets wasted.
- If you do a more expensive meal one week, plan a less expensive meal the next week to compensate. For instance, I try to average $12.00 a meal. If I plan lasagna one night, I would then be sure to have red beans and rice or bean burritos another night. This would keep my grocery budget on track.
Food is the one thing we have to spend money on, but luckily it’s also an area with lots of room for savings.
To learn more about Dawn, meal planning, or to get menu ideas, visit MenuFortheWeek.com where you can also subscribe to weekly meal plans that include recipes and shopping lists.
