Homemade, Home Interiors, Home Life, Homeschool, Home Organization, Home Business and Home Moving Tips. I am a large family homeschooling mom of 8 sharing tips on all things home.
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How To Afford Groceries - 9 tips to try
Published 15 days ago • 3 min read
Hello Friend,
We all have to eat to live. But how do we afford to eat with the rising food prices? It's time to get creative as homemakers! Here are a few steps we follow in grocery shopping for our large family.
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Determine your grocery budget and be thankful with any amount of grocery budget you have to spend. It could always be worse.
Write down what you already have. I like to separate my list by types: protein (I will put mixed meals in this category like lasagna, casserole, canned beef stew and canned meals here - as long as it has protein), fruits, vegetables, breads, snacks, desserts, other.
Make a list of how many meals, snacks and desserts you can make out of what you have on hand. If you realize you need a few ingredients to make a meal, write those down on your shopping list for this week.
Figure out how far you can get with what you have. Now figure out how many days you have until your next amount of money should come for groceries AND you will have time to plan and shop. For me, I know I need to add two days. My husband is paid on Thursdays and I like to shop Saturday mornings. I now start slotting meals, snacks and desserts into those days. Always consider whether you will eat at a potluck, relative's house or need to eat away due to travel when planning.
Get creative and use what you have in meal planning. Now look at the oddballs that are left in your list of what you have on hand. Let's say you have frozen pumpkin, one can of tuna, one box of macaroni and cheese, oatmeal, flour, sugar, oil, spices and condiments left. Maybe we could frugally make pumpkin muffins if we buy a carton of eggs and use them sparingly along with my egg substitute recipe. We could add more boxes of macaroni and cheese, more tuna and frozen peas until we could make an entire meal of that. We could get some cinnamon and make oatmeal for breakfast. Do you see what I am getting at? If you cannot think what to make out of your frozen rhubarb, for example, just do a search online, skip the art. intel. answer, scroll down and get a real one - PLEASE! and now you know what you need for ingredients.
Add totals and count how many meals, snacks and desserts left and plan accordingly. If it isn't much, remember in the Laura Ingalls books that sometimes they just survived on pancakes, beans and potatoes!
Try to make room in your budget for clearance items. I like to leave at least $20 for this, if I can, and I shop at a store that has four clearance sections to check: general & produce (they are together), meat, dairy and frozen. Ask a person stocking the shelves where these are located. It may be hidden in the bottom shelf of an upright freezer section, not marked, except on the packages - underneath! This is seriously the case in a local store that I frequent.
Use a local food pantry. Even if you don't think you qualify. One that we have used is Ruby's Pantry - they do not have income requirements. You can check online to see what is available close to you. If you are unsure, contact your local county extension office. They may be offering free cooking or gardening classes, know where you can get free food items or give you a list of where to go.
Try to always have these 45 food items on hand after a shopping trip as you can make such a wide variety of meals, snacks and desserts with them.
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Homemade, Home Interiors, Home Life, Homeschool, Home Organization, Home Business and Home Moving Tips. I am a large family homeschooling mom of 8 sharing tips on all things home.
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