Budget Friendly Meals

January 27, 2023 In Uncategorized No Comments

Everyone has noticed the increased price of groceries lately. It has probably left some families wondering how they can afford to buy groceries to feed their family nutritious meals while sticking to a budget. There are a couple tricks and tips to saving money and making your groceries last longer. Finances are a common stressor for everyone whether are a single parent or from a two parent home. Buying groceries and feeding your children shouldn’t be a huge part of that stress. Hopefully with these tips we can alleviate some of the stress.

 

    • Try to stick to a plan. Grocery shopping with a meal plan in mind or written down could help reduce over shopping or buying items you don’t need. Whether you do your shopping weekly or bi-weekly try to stick to meal plan for all meals. If your children are in school and take hot lunches, then you only have to worry about lunches for the adults in the family.

    • When available, buy generic brands. Those are usually cheaper and are almost always the same quality as name brands. I almost exclusively buy store/generic brands when I can. When budgets are tight, you see see a significant price difference between generic and name brand.

    • Buy in bulk. While this sounds like it will be more, buying in bulk usually comes with savings. Buying in bulk for non-perishables and paper products are where those savings will come into play. Some good items to buy in bulk are toilet paper, paper towels, canned goods, pasts or rice.

    • Use coupons! Coupons can be found in the weekly paper, ads that come in the mail or oftentimes you can find them in the grocery stores themselves!

    • Lookout for sales and specials and be open to shopping at more than one store. Sometimes different stores will have better sales for produce, meats or other items. It might be worth the second stop to save in the long run.

    • Online shop. This will could take away the option to add unnecessary items to your shopping card while walking the aisle. Getting what you have on your list and simply picking up it up gets rid of the risk of grabbing random items and spending way more than needed. There are several apps and stores that allow you to do this.

    • Buy plenty of frozen fruits and vegetables. They often go on sale and are cheaper than fresh. This will ensure you will always have nutritious food on hand. Frozen fruit and vegetables often have the same nutritional value as fresh.

    • Plan for leftovers. Double recipes when cooking and freeze leftovers to pull out for another day.

 

Check out this link for some budget friendly dinner ideas 60 Cheap Dinner Ideas for Busy Families on a Budget.