Frugal Food
Tips on Buying Food Frugally
Frugal Food. There are many ways to buy food and groceries frugally. Food
is a large part of any money management plan. We are human beings and we need
to eat! We can't get around it! So we have to plan how and what we will eat.
The benefit is, however, that we get to choose what to eat.
Many people say that to eat frugally you have to go without or eat junk food.
That really isn't the case.
This page shows you how you can eat well and still shop for frugal
groceries and frugal food.
For ideas on living an active
frugal
lifestyle click here.
For ideas on creating
Frugal Meals click
here
Plan your Meals and your Grocery Shopping.
Take 15 min out of your week to plan your meals for the next week. Then do the shopping that day or
early on in the week. Then stick to the plan! Make sure that you don't go and buy the food
for the week and then dine out every night. That will be a waste of your money
and the food. Not only will this work for being frugal, it will also help
with your health if you choose healthy meals for the week.
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Frugal Food Tip -
Cook in Bulk
Make extra and take leftovers for lunch the next day. My daughter
LOVES Wednesday night as she knows she will have her favorite pasta for lunch
the next day too! You could also make your meals at the beginning of the week
and reheat them later in the week (works great if you are short on time in the
week). When my mother-in-law travels to visit family, she leaves all of my
father-in-law's meals in the freezer. He just warms them up when he is
ready to eat them. Again this is frugal food and healthier! Look for recipes
online to ensure that you have variety!
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Frugal Food Tip - Have Items on Hand for
Quick and Easy Meals
Picking up
take out food on your way home sounds like it is easy but it can get expensive
and be unhealthy too. Make sure you have sliced precooked chicken in
the freezer (or now you can get it for the fridge too), some cut up vegetables
(that you could do at the beginning of the week and store them in the fridge), and some
instant rice (now you can get the "already cooked rice" that you
warm up in the microwave).
Stir fry (or if you prefer sauté) up the vegetables, add in the chicken, your
favorite spices and warm up the rice. This makes dinner in less than 15
minutes. Try some different spices or sauces. Keep leftovers from other
meals and throw them into the stir fry. You could also take the stir fried mix
and put in in a wrap for fajita night.
Eggs are also a quick alternative for easy meals. Try omelets with
leftovers, or even just cheese.
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Frugal Food Tip - Buy in Bulk
I LOVE Costco or any of the other big discount warehouses. To me
my time is money as well so being able to buy my dry goods once a month at lower
prices is one of my favorite ways to be frugal.
One thing we do is buy the bulk chicken. The package comes with 10-11 pieces of boneless,
skinless check breasts (you can also get chicken legs or whole chickens). When I
get them home I separate each chicken piece out and place it in a sandwich size ziploc bag. I then put all the ziploc bags in one large freezer bag an
d mark the
date on the outside. Then each morning that we are to have chicken for dinner, I
take how many pieces out I need and leave them to defrost. When it is time for
dinner we have defrosted chicken. We can then stir fry, bake or BBQ the chicken.
We also do this with shrimp. I buy about 35-40 pieces of medium sized shrimp and
keep it in the freezer - then defrost what we want for dinner.
The best part of
this is that I don't have to think of what to make for dinner each night!
One last thing about buying in bulk. If the store has an executive membership and you shop there often
you received your membership fee back in store rewards. This year I got back
$135.00 as a rewards certificate! I used that to fund our Mother's Day Dinner
for my whole family!
Two things to be careful of - Make sure you only buy bulk items of foods
you know you and your family love. Don't get caught up in bulk buying and
buy items that you haven't tried or tasted before. This usually ends up in
disaster and wasting your money and the food. The second thing is
that sometimes the prices aren't necessarily better than a grocery store. So
do your research and make sure you are getting the best deal.
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Frugal Food Tip - Buy your Dry or Packaged Foods at No Frills
Type or Even Dollar Stores
More than likely your favorite foods
and dry goods are the
same products (or a generic brands) and are
less expensive.
It's amazing what you can find at a dollar store these days! Some dollar stores
even have frozen food now. Sometimes the expiry dates might be a little closer,
however if you are
planning your meals this won't be a problem. As the
item will be eaten sooner rather than later.
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In "designer" supermarkets fresh produce is very expensive. Look for
local
markets, or if you live close to the "main" market in town (usually where the
restaurants shop early in the morning) then shop for your fresh produce there - The
early bird gets the
worm!
Avoid small produce stores that offer "premium" fruits and vegetables. They are
great at finding items that are rare or are out of season, but you will pay
dearly for it. Once I was in one of these fruit stores and saw that the
strawberries were $5 a pint, and I went to my local store and the exact same
strawberries were $2 a pint.
Look for the sales for fresh produce, and even take a look at the damaged
food rack - if you are cutting up or cooking the vegetables you can always
find something useful and quite inexpensive.
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Learn More about Frugal Living
To learn more about more about this type of money management and frugal
living see the articles below.
More will be added regularly, so come back and check them out. To be up to date
on the additions and changes to the Frugal Living section of Transform Your
Money.com and the rest of the site. Join our
newsletter or add us to your RSS, social bookmarks, Google, Yahoo or MSN (on
the left hand side of this page).
These articles
will outline how to live frugally day to day,
tips on
saving money, living frugally as a family, the benefits of living
frugally, having awesome holidays while still living frugally, and my story of
living frugally.
Best
Ways to Save Money
Tips on how to save money with Food, Utilities, Finances, Entertainment -
updated regularly - You can also submit your own if you don't see one of your
favorites.
Have a Frugal
Holiday Season or
Tips on Frugal
Christmas Shopping
Check out how to have a happy holiday season frugally.
Active Frugal
Lifestyle
Tips for having and active and healthy lifestyle frugally.
Frugal Travel
Tips
Great tips on how to travel frugally.
Frugal Foods is part of Frugal Living and it could be part of your overall money management plan.
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