Need help on saving money on food!

[Jimhassel]

Hi Hover, its good that you have finally thought of learning to cook because even I think that your expenditures for food are quite high. Cooking saves a lot of time and also releases a lot of our stress. If you don't have much of an idea on what or how to cook then I would suggest you to start from the simplest dishes like sandwiches, rice and roasted chicken, omellette or boiled eggs and the like. Moreover, if you search for these or any other recipe online then you would get instant recipes which have detailed instructions that anyone can follow. All the best.

[97guns]

[The Budget School]

Budget Cooking For Your Wallet

Hello everyone,

I am looking for advice on how to save money on food..! I am 23, single, live in Southern California. According to Mint.com I am spending about $600/month on food related expenses. I eat out everyday and it costs about 7 - 8 dollars per meal in my area.

I know that I need to start cooking, but problem is I have never cooked before. If you have and advice on where I can buy cheap, nutritious food(For example, my coworker tell me about Tacos Tuesday where I can get a great meal for under 5 bucks!)or if you have sample recipes that doesn't required much cookware/skill, please let me know!

Thank you all for your help.

Solution: Crock pots are a glorious find when cooking on a budget. You’ll be able to stretch a dollar and eat healthy all at the same time and the best part is, you’ll be able to eat from a slow-cooker meal multiple times before the food is gone. The nutritious ingredients would cost you only about 8 bucks. If you have a busy schedule and are used to picking up fast food or take-out for lunch, try this approach instead: Get ground turkey or beef, canned beans, canned tomatoes, frozen mixed veggies, and your favorite spices. Add this to a slow cooker for 3 hours and you can eat off of this all week. It will cost between $8 -$10. Visit The Budget School online for more money saving tips and to pick up free budget worksheets. Good Luck.

[The Budget School]

I not the best cook but I can follow instructions well. What I do is buy foods like hamburger helper, dinner entries, frozen pancakes (they are actually quite tasty), and other meals that don't take much time to cook and then follow the instructions on the package. You only need a couple of pots and pans, spatulas (get at the dollar store for a buck) and measuring cup & spoon. Go to Wal-Mart or your local dollar stuff and buy items that you personally like that are convenient to make. Use coupons and try to eat out less. I used to eat out all the time but it was so expensive even when taking advantage of specials. If you can, hunt down the grocery store specials. My family is pretty large now so I end up visiting 4 different grocery stores for food but I get some awesome deals at each one.

Solution: Crock pot meals are another great solution. They are easy to make, inexpensive and practical.

[Gailete]

frozen pancakes (they are actually quite tasty),

Arrgh! Do you know how cheap those are to make from scratch? Even I suppose if you make them from Bisquick they should be cheaper than buying frozen and taste about 1000% better. And here is a hint, if pancakes tend to feel like lead in your stomach after the fact, use club soda to replace the milk in both pancakes and waffles and they will be as light as a feather and not leave you feeling uncomfortable. It does increase the cost somewhat, but worth it and makes them edible for those allergic to milk which is how I learned this. My friend who is an admitted awful cook served me some waffles one day that were out of this world and that was her secret ingredient since her husband was allergice to milk.

Also another trick of mine is to get a chuck roast on sale (and some times they have them buy one get one free) and put it in the freezer. Before you leave for work in the morning put that frozen chunk of meat in the crock pot on low(remove all wrappings) add a packet of dry oinio soup mix and a can of beef broth or a can of cream of mushroom soap and a can of beef broth and when you get home 8 hours later it will be falling apart delicious and throw a potatoe or two in the microwave and cook a veg and you have several days worth of food and great tasting meat and gravy. I also cook frozen chicken legs and thighs pretty must the same way.

[ValQue]

You should go to your local farmers market. Not only is it healthy, but it's cheap. $600 a month is crazy! When you eat every meal out, you'll spend hundreds more and also may start packing weight on. When you cook at home you will know exactly what is going into your food. Healthy recipes found on http://www.foodnetwork.com/healthy-e...age/index.html can be very simple and inexpensive to cook. You can get creative with your recipes too and make this new learning experience fun! Good luck with saving!

[joshuaking]

Not everyone will like this idea, but you could buy the frozen Michelina's dinners at a supermarket for $1.00 each on sale. If you just replaced one meal a day with this idea, you'd save around $200/month.

And for something healthier, I would definitely second the Crockpot idea.

[Gailete]

Not everyone will like this idea, but you could buy the frozen Michelina's dinners at a supermarket for $1.00 each on sale. If you just replaced one meal a day with this idea, you'd save around $200/month.

For someone that doesn't YET know how to cook, that is a good idea. Plenty of people use frozen meals otherwise the manufacturers wouldn't keep making them! I can almost always tell who really doesn't know how to cook just by looking at their grocery cart because it is filled with frozen and boxed meals and side dishes--but at least in the long run they are saving money by eating at home instead of always going out to eat. For someone who usually spend $600 going out to eat each month, to cut $100 of that for a couple of months by using prepared meals at a store while they learn to cook and then just seeing how easy some things are to make as they keep whittling away at the amount spent each month is to be commended. Just making up things like a taco dinner, you learn how to make the meat up, and you have enough for several meals when you add in the lettuce, etc. yourself. Then one day you start monkeying around with your own spices and find using your own not only tastes better but is cheaper in the long run. To make that taco meal, you only needed to learn how to brown hamburger and warm up tortillas. Soon each of those frozen and boxed meals have taught you different parts of cooking and you can put meals together yourself.

[Justin Pierce]

I had same dilemma about a couple of years back. I good friend then suggested that I do grocery for a month so that I won't have to spend money all the time on food. It has really helped me in a way, now I have no problems with my food budget anymore...

[Gailete]

I have fallen in love with Pinterest and spend many happy moments there. One of the most popular type of Pins are the cooking and recipe ones. There are tons of crock-pot/slow cooker recipes and ideas, lots of making and freezing meals ahead of time, lots of 'regular' recipes, lots of information like how to make your own cream of whatever soup instead of buying cans, in other words just about any information you need to make food. At this time of year there were abundant recipes for yummy treats as well. Anyhow seeing pictures and having recipes so easy to get would be a great help to a beginner. They also link to cooking blogs as well and the blog writers for the most part would be happy to help with suggestions if you run into a problem when making up one of their dishes. Pinterest reminds me of an old-fashioned quilting bee where the ladies get together and discuss sewing, recipes, health, child reaering advice, etc. It has lots more of that, but for someone wanting to decrease their grocery bill a great place to start and because of how Pinterest works you can save any recipe that looks inviting until you are brave enough to try it and if you hate it you can delete the pin or if you love it, you can move it onto another board of recipes you tried and like. In essence making your own recipe book. Then others can share in your learning process as well. Saw some Pins last night on making up 10 crock pot meals ahead of time and freezing them, and then popping one in the crock pot before heading off for work so you will come home to a nice warm meal with no trouble. Took the lady 3 hours to prep the meals which fed here family of four, which means for 6 hours of work you can have a months worth of meals frozen ahead of time if you are single! Prepping a lot of meals at one time saves on time, food, dirty dishes, and just how many times do you want to cry over onions?

As I have mentioned before you need an invite to Pinterest, but I can do that for you (no money or affiliate stuff involved here). Lots of stuff for folks that are needing to save money on it right down to all natural cheap cleaners you can make.

[rossmel]

Free Food Sometimes

I had same dilemma about a couple of years back. I good friend then suggested that I do grocery for a month so that I won't have to spend money all the time on food. It has really helped me in a way, now I have no problems with my food budget anymore...

Well true! I also do that to save money. Sometimes I sign up for free food samples like what I can find in Freaky freddies to save more often. But it just an other way.

[johnnyjs]

There are lots of ways to save money on food. One that will help you save money on healthcare as well is to introduce fasting into your dietary regiment. It will cut down on your weekly grocery bills as well as make you healthier by lowering your daily caloric intake.

[Bades]

I'm always looking for ways to save on food!

Two weeks ago I decided to cook my lunches in bulk, put them in Tupperware and freeze them. Then I take them out the night before, thaw in the fridge, and heat in microwave at lunch time at work.

My meals have come out to be about $1.50 per lunch and are also very nutritious and tastes good!

Although I'm from Ohio and California is more expensive with food, but I could imagine it being much more.

Example:

Stir Fry - Brown rice, frozen stir fry veggie mix, chicken, and lite soy sauce.

12oz of brown rice is $0.80 and will give you multiple servings. My grocery store has these great $1 frozen bags of veggies and a lot of them are premixed veggies specifically for things like stir frys. I bought 8lbs of skinless fresh chicken breasts on sale for $1.88lb.

Cooked everything up as if I was going to eat it right then and there, and divided it out into 4 tupperwares and immediately put in freezer.

I cooked up about 22 individual meals in about 4 hours (4 different style of meals overall) and this has been a huge time saver, money saver, and convenience factor.

That equals about $8 a week on lunches!

[reedda]

Two weeks ago I decided to cook my lunches in bulk, put them in Tupperware and freeze them. Then I take them out the night before, thaw in the fridge, and heat in microwave at lunch time at work.

I do this too and it's been a real saver. Lunch at work, even still, is tough for me since many of my co-workers like going out somewhere, but it's a lot easier for me to say no since I always have something available.

Another thing I do is buy canned soup when it's on sale and keep some at work. That way even if I forget to grab something out of the freezer, I have something to fall back on.

I also make a lot of soup, and it's a great way to re-purpose leftovers, easy to portion out and freeze.

[Harlem]

Food is necessary. So please no compromise with food. I don't know how will be the low price foods, but I know to have good and healthy food you will have to spend more. In this case, the best way will be cooking. Cooking is really easy. It's all about doing, not learning. You may boil eggs, rice and eat. You can add onion, green chilly and salt with 1 or two eggs and mix it. Then fry it. It's easy, just start from today. If you can cook yourself, I can guarantee you that it will be healthier than any other outside food.