Meal-Planning to Save Money

[pennypinch]

I just read an article on meal planning and saving money and it really does make a lot of sense.

A lot of us tend to go into the grocery store and shop for the days meal everyday. When you do that you tend to pick up "extra" things and spend a lot more than is needed.

You should sit down and plan out your weeks meal at one time. Make a list of the items that you will need for those meals and go in the store with your list and buy those items. You don't need to look around. Just follow your list and get out of there.

They say typically you can save about $50 bucks a week by doing it this way.

I have another tip for you as well. NEVER go grocery shopping with your kids because you will always spend more than you had planned. I have learned that first hand lol!

[DynoDollar]

I'm with you pennypinch when it comes to not bringing the children while shopping. When our children were teens we would always spend an extra $100 on them for the little things they wanted too.

We shop just once a month and use coupons since we work at home.
We buy a lot of meat and frozen veggies to stock our freezer, canned goods, and dry products like cereal and pastas.
These things will last a long time on the shelf and in the freezer during the time between each shopping month. Plus we rotate the older foods to the front of the freezer when new foods are placed inside.

Another great tip; don't go shopping when you are hungry. You will end up buying more because everything looks good when you're hungry.

Eat before you shop and try to stick to your grocery list.

[Rae74]

Reusing things like left over biscuits for bread crumbs as well as the end peices of the bread can save money on the grocery bill.

You can also freeze your left over veggies and reuse them to make vegtable soup and sandwiches one night for dinner.

If you strain and drain your oil after each use it will last a lot longer,this way food particles are not continuing to cook and turn the oil dark.

[Rae74]

Another great idea is to put your flour and spices into a ziploc bag to batter them for frying.This way you can label the bag and put it into the refrigerator or freezer and reuse it when you make that meat again.

You can also take any left over or about to go bad fruit that you may have and get some jello and mix the fruit into the jello chill and serve your fruit salad that does not have mayo incorporated into it.