By John
With household budgets being squeezed, people are increasingly looking for ways to save money and make the dollars stretch a little further. Food accounts for quite a large part of the monthly expenditure and we are often asked for our tips on how to economize on the cost of eating at home without sacrificing healthy foods. You can do this surprisingly easily, actually, but it takes some effort and you do have to have the discipline to do without some of your expensive favorites.
Planning
The key to eating well on a tight budget is planning. You need to plan your menus for a definitive period – the next week, or fortnight, or month – based on your family’s favorite 7 or 14 or 28 recipes. List the meals and their ingredients. Total the ingredients, cost them as far as is practicable, and that is your shopping list for the week, or fortnight, or month. Take the exact amount of cash you need (after all the available discounts, rebates and coupons have been applied) when you go shopping and don’t buy anything that is not on the list.
A scientific refinement of this is to allocate a percentage of your available food budget to the main nutritional components, which are staples, produce, and protein, when planning the recipes and menus for the upcoming period. Your shopping list should reflect these percentages. As mentioned earlier, this takes a little work! And you can see where you may well have to make the sacrifices of some of your favorites to make the budget balance, however that is what eating on a tight budget entails.
Shopping
Where, when and how you shop will have an effect on how far you can make the budget stretch.
Where
Stores may be convenient, but they may not give you the lowest prices, or the best value, even after discounts and coupons. A farmer or a butcher will probably be cheaper for meats, and also give you cheap, less popular options that you may not find in stores – like offal, beef shins, and knuckles. Bread is a usually lot cheaper from a bakery than a store. Online vendors often have lower prices for the same products as stores.
When
Timing is important too. You should only buy seasonal produce in-season, for instance. The prices of perishable products almost everywhere are reduced later in the day and you can pick up remarkable bargains for immediate consumption or even freezing, if you can wait until the evening to do your shopping.
How
We have mentioned coupons before. While they can get you amazing reductions, especially when used in combinations with other available discounts, you have to make sure that they are used on items on your shopping list, and not on extras or exotic stuff.
Buying in bulk is plain common sense when you’re on a tight budget, especially when products are on sale. It works for meats – especially if you buy from a farmer or butcher who will make cuts for you – which you can freeze. Try to buy non-perishable items, such as the staples like oils, flour, rice and even cheese, in bulk.
Working out how to eat on a tight budget should become easier for you if you follow these tips.
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