Big Savings on your Grocery Budget - 9 Tips

Busy cooks are faced with the dilemma of how to save money on their grocery budgets when tempted by the array of time saving, convenient prepackaged food. Sadly, the convenience food on your grocery shelves is more expensive donating cars less nutritious than food you prepare from scratch. Yes, cooking from scratch is more time consuming but it does not have to be overwhelmingly so. With careful shopping, menu planning and some basic organization you can save up to one third of your weekly grocery budget without having to spend endless hours in food preparation. The following tips will help you realize big savings and you may actually find cooking is more relaxing and enjoyable.

1. If it is instant or labor saving, it will be much more expensive, so avoid buy it. Long grain rice is half the cost of minute rice and hardly takes much more time or effort to cook. The same is true of quick oats versus instant oatmeal. Learn to shop and cook smarter. For instance, buy a chuck roast and cut it into stewing or stir fry portions yourself. Grate your own cheese rather than buying pre-grated. Make your juice from concentrate or squeeze your own rather than buying premixed cartons. These are just a few suggestions, many more will come to mind.
2. Buy foods in bulk quantities, taking storage space and shelf life into consideration. You can realize substantial savings mesothelioma doctor way. Buy economy sized or family sized packages of meat and poultry and divide them buy meridia online home. No name and generic brand foods are usually less expensive and of good quality.
3. Do cost comparisons when you shop for groceries. Calculate the cost per meal by dividing the number of meals you expect to get by the price of the item. For example, a particular cut of boneless meat might be more economical than one with a bone in, even though the cost per pound is higher, if you can get an additional meal from the leftovers. For some foods, like fruit and vegetables, it makes more sense to figure out the cost per serving.
4. Try to make from scratch some of the things that you traditionally buy ready made like salad dressings, stuffing, pancake or dessert mixes, etc. The homemade versions will cost less and taste better.
5. Buy sale and seasonal items. Check out the specials in your supermarket flyers and plan menus accordingly. Local and seasonal produce is generally less expensive than imported Scooby and Scrappy Doo Puppy Hour Check out farmers markets in your area and, whenever possible, follow the 100 mile rule by purchasing food produced within a 100 miles of your home.
6. Casseroles, soups and stews containing pasta, rice, beans and vegetables are excellent low cost meals and best of all they can be put together in advance and left all day in the slow cooker. Make extra for additional meals. Avoid waste by freezing leftover veggies, gravy and meat to add to homemade soups.
7. Plan a couple of meatless meals each week with fish, eggs or legumes providing the protein. Cook pancakes or frittatas or omelets for dinner occasionally.
8. Consider joining a food co-op in your community. Food co-ops provide members with a mechanism to collectively purchase food in bulk. You can save a great deal of money although you need to be well organized to use the produce when it arrives.
9. Finally, buy a good quick quote car insurance that features economical recipes and use it as a guide to planning your menus.

Pat Lockhart is the author and publisher of the website: SuperCookbooks.com, a comprehensive cookbook resource. It includes a cookbook directory featuring a selection of the best cookbooks in a wide number of categories. There is also resource information about how to create your own cookbook; a weekly featured recipe; articles and cookbook reviews; and links to free e-cookbook websites. Currently, we are collecting recipes for an exciting project: The Valley Cookbook which will feature healthy recipes from food produced locally in the Okanagan region of BC, Canada. We welcome submissions to this and other cookbooks. Visit our website at: www.supercookbooks.comhttp://www.supercookbooks.com