In today’s world, with inflation across the board and the markets tough for many of us, saving money on food is a sure-fire way to help support our devotional cooking journey.
I know for many people, the thought of dropping a couple of hundred of dollars on food at once feels like a dent in the bank account and can deter us from taking the time to buy ingredients to cook with for our meals.
Here are some rules that I personally live by that helps me save money and stay within my budget as I cook practically every single meal at home:
8 Rules to Save $$ of Food
1. Not everything needs to be organic: Look up the dirty dozen fruits and vegetables- and prioritize those to be organic. Certain things don’t matter if their organic or not- don’t fall for the green-washing of grocery marketing.
2. Buy in bulk (especially when something’s on sale): If you have it available, that’s less forethought that’s needed to go shopping for it again. Make room in your freezer/ cupboard/closet to store bulk food items. That way you have to make less shopping trips
3. Make a list before you go shopping: Get clear about what you’ll want to eat, then make a list of what you need. Stick to the list. This keeps us from buying items that we don’t really need, that end up being a money drain (especially with such high cost of food products right now).
4. Treasure-hunt- Cheap stores have high quality items too (search!): Whole Foods isn’t the only place that sells organic foods. Many ‘lesser’ stores sell the same products that aren’t ‘name brand’ but are essentially the same. So some searching through the cheaper stores to see what you can get there that you don’t need to spend a premium on (rice, beans, lentils, bananas, citrus, spices, etc).
5. Make more to freeze (one for now, one for later): Make a double-batch of items to freeze for later. There’s nothing like pulling a casserole or soup out to defrost for dinner that you made a couple of weeks ago and have to do zero labor or buy ingredients for.
6. Learn to preserve foods: Pressure canning, water-bath canning, dehydrating, and vacuum sealing and freezing are the ways we can make perishable foods shelf stable or available for storage for long periods of time. This is where buying in bulk to then process for preservation will save us time and money in the long run.
7. Use what you have first: Limit food waste by eating the food in your refrigerator, cupboards and freezer before you buy MORE food. I like to write the date I bought the food item onto the packaging (if it’s not fresh) to make sure I use that first before I use something I bought more recently. This is where we can get creative and figure out ways (or look up new recipes online) to use the food we already have
8. Meal plan: This saves money by thinking about the food we already have and how we can use it, and then only buying the ingredients that we need for those recipes. This limited excess spending on unnecessary food items.
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Enjoy these tips?
Join me in my upcoming course, Kitchen Hearth Heart Heal, where we’ll explore and practice the Way of the Devotional Cook.
Click here for all the goodies and details!
https://kitchen-hearth-heart-heal.pages.ontraport.net/
I can’t wait to devotionally cook with you!
Xoxo
Denell