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Help with cooking and grocery budget
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This has nothing to do with teaching children, but I need some help 🙂 We need to cut down our grocery bill and I am so clueless as to how to do it. I have read several things online about coupons, making things from scratch, comparing prices at different stores, etc.
1. I don’t know how to cook many things from scratch.
2. I need some ideas on how to make things last longer than one meal. Like cooking chicken and making several dishes from that one chicken.
3. I don’t have a lot of time to prepare food everyday. We eat all 3 meals at home and I have been buying things that are quick and easy which is most likely more expensive.
4. I also do not know how long left overs can be stored in the fridge or what types of things can be frozen.
I don’t have a large freezer or lots of storage space. I also have picky eaters and it is probably my fault for catering to them. So now I need to try and make them eat differently too. I am open to any suggestions on saving money and dealing with picky eaters.
Thanks,
Amanda
Hi! Take a look at these blogs
http://grocerycartchallenge.blogspot.com/search/label/Christmas%20Ideas
http://freezerfriendz.blogspot.com/
Also, I have checked out some good books from the library that listed specifically what you could freeze and how to freeze it best. For example, I did not know that you could freeze eggs, until I got some of those books. Problem is, I don’t remember there names. Sorry 🙁
I do one weeks worth of shopping, always planning my meals based on what I already have. I keep to some basic recipes that I know my family likes, including those picky ones, and mix in a new recipe every 3 regular ones. Then I always buy enough to double or triple my recipes. I then just make more of what I need then freeze the remainder. After a while of doing this you will find that you have a stock of meals, then every week as I plan out my weekly menu, I add these meals into my weekly plan which eliminates several nights of cooking.
I could never do 1 month of cooking in 1 day. I tried, but I guess I am lazy 🙂 This is my solution.
Blessings,
Vanessa
I also plan my week in advance. That way I can and only buy what I need. I always make enough for left overs for lunch the next day and then anything more is froze for other times. I only make one meal take it or leave it. They will not starve.
You can do things like buy chicken legs and boil them in water for chicken noodle soup, you have the meat (which is a mess but cheep to pull apart) and the broth. Add carrots, noodles and celery if you’d like. cheep and easy. You can make a lot with this one and freeze.
Start simple with something like lunches and breakfast to get going. Scrambled eggs and toast, a good cereal like from Kashi, Smoothies (water, banana, strawberries for real ease) w/ a slice of bread, or toast with PB or jelly. Oatmeal is always a good one (mine like cream of wheat better made with milk). Lunch=Always PB&J, grill cheese, cheese, meat and crackers, left overs (as mentioned above), green smoothies, fruite, string cheese,
Dinner is always a tough one but we have a family of 8.. and I would say we spend about 150 a week. That might be good or bad to you :??? But we buy a lot in bulk (oats, flour, raisins) and we buy a 1/2 cow (organic). So that is mostly fresh vegi’s, fruit, and chicken, turkey, etc. My monthly meal chart above the days says this.. Sunday = Pizza Night, Monday = Meatless meal, Tuesday = Turkey, Wedensday = Chicken, Thursday = eggs, Friday = Fish and Saturday = Beef. That way we are trying new things and not eating beef every day of the week. I also have a list of favorites and try new things all the time. Like last night I made (spellings going to be very wrong here so bare with me) Venison (fresh this years hunt) Stroganoff. Cost me about $5 and that made enough for lunch today!!
Hope that helps. Misty PS Don’t feed everyon something different this will add a LOT to your grocery bill. Never buy more than you need, and always look to see what you can make with what you have before you go do your list. (Go full and stay out of the middle of the store its not good for you and cost more)
My biggest tip is to shop the perimeter of the store only. Kroger will mark down items that expire in 3-5 days. I buy these items only along with my coupon items. I use coupons on top of store sales and often double coupons. http://www.couponmom.com has great tips to get started. I have gotten things like popcorn and toilet paper for free. I often buy salad for discount. If you are not shy you can ask for the produce manager and ask if he will sell or give you the bruised fruit. I shop once a week and usually spend $40-60 for our family of 5 a week, this includes toiletries and cleaning supplies. I stock up too whenever there are really good sales, so I dont run out and have to pay full price. The best days to shop are Wed. or Thursday for these discounts.
I love the freezer books, there are some great ideas to be found. Also, menu plan. Make 2 weeks worth and rotate the meals. Nobody seems to mind eating the same thing every other week here. The Duggars have some cheap recipes in their new book. I used their recipe for laundry soap and it works really great, plus it is really cheap. Whenever they are on sale I will buy a Fryer chicken and roast it for dinner, this is really easy and not time consuming. Then, pull off the leftover meat and set aside for the next night. Chicken and rice, chicken enchiladas and barbeque chicken sandwhiches are some things I have done with leftovers.
We do monthly meal planning. I have a calendar that I write all our meals for the month on. Over the years we’ve simplified it somewhat.
Monday: Chicken
Tuesday: Fish
Wednesday: Beef
Thursday: Soup or Sandwich or Salad
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: Breakfast (pancakes and eggs, sausage gravy and waffles, omelets, etc.
Sunday: It varies but it’s always a crockpot meal
I go shopping at the beginning of the month and only go back to the store from produce (usually one other time a month). Most of our meals are crockpot meals. We have food allergies and I have to make everything (!!!) from scratch. The best way to cut down on your budget is to simplify and do basically meat and veggies. Here are some examples:
*Roast with potatoes and carrots in the crockpot. (I throw a frozen roast into the crockpot the night before with 4 cups of water on low. At lunch the next day I add 1 onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1 potato per person and 2 carrots per person and turn it to high. I let it cook until dinner time. Sometimes I make a gravy. I use potato starch because we are gluten free and whisk it into the broth and add salt and pepper to taste) Whatever leftover roast we have gets thrown into a freezer bag and used later for italian beef or BBQ beef.
So out of that one meal, I get two. If you can, BBQ beef (or chicken) is easy and cheap if you buy a bottle of cheap BBQ sauce and add it to your meat and cook it all afternoon on low in the crockpot.
A whole chicken or chicken cut up with bones in it can be put in the crockpot with water onion, garlic and carrots. Add rice and veggies on the side. With leftovers we throw into the freezer to use for BBQ chicken, fried rice, soup or stir fry. Make sure you save the broth that it makes (freeze it). You can use it for a soup base.
Lentil Soup is cheap and yummy!
Tonight we splurged and had leftover turkey, cranberry sauce, and cream cheese sandwhiches (most of us had only the cranberry sauce and turkey without bread because of allergies). We had salad on the side.
Stew is easy and cheap. You can make soup with ground beef instead of stew meat.
Tacos or taco salad is easy. I put browned (I brown a months worth of hamburger at a time and stick it in individual serving sizes in the freezer) hamburger in the crockpot with mexican seasoning (I make my own) and water. Let it cook all afternoon on low. Serve with lettuce, tomato, cheese (if you can have it), salsa, corn, etc
We eat leftovers for lunch. I only keep leftovers 1 week. I go through the fridge the night before trash pick up and get rid of what is a week old. It’s a rare thing that we have anything leftover.
Refried Beans are easy to make yourself and cheap!
I could keep going and going. Once you figure it out it’s easy!
I hope this makes sense and is helpful.
If you have a chance to get to the library, check out some of the books by Ellie Kay. She has several books out. They’re great. I think the one that talks the most about grocery and budgeting is Shop, Save,and Share, but she’s got a ton of other great books, too.
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