I’m going to skip over the oft-repeated savings tips such as “buy what’s on sale” or “use coupons”. I’d assume for most people those are obvious and well-known tips that the thinking public doesn’t need me to parrot again so I’ll go straight into money-saving tips that are also fairly self-evident, but maybe not so wide-spread.
1. Rotate Your Pantry Items.
Check expiration dates on pantry items every three months and place those items in a separate area or on the counter. I put the items set to expire on the counter so they’re in my eyesight each time I go to prepare a meal. I hate having them out in the open so it forces me to prioritize using them to get them off my counter. I have a task in my TickTick app to check and sort the pantry every quarter. For example, if my task is scheduled for October, I will pull out items that are set to expire in November, December and January. Then when January rolls around, I’m looking for February, March and April expiration dates.
2. Only Buy Things You Will Actually Eat.
Don’t buy something just because it’s on sale but you know in your heart of hearts, it’s never going to make it to your plate.
3. Eat In. Eat In. Eat In.
Eating out for multiple meals a week has become so commonplace that I don’t think people realize it’s a rather new way of living. What was once an event limited to afternoons following church on Sundays, celebrating a baseball league finale, or getting good grades (remember PizzaHut’s BOOKIT program which is happily still a thing) has become so normalized that some people eat out for every lunch or order in five nights a week. Sure, if you work in an office and everyone goes out to eat every Friday then I’d say join them if you like (and you enjoy their company), but if it’s every single weekday, then I’d suggest you pack a lunch the other days.
4. Avoid Delivery (On Most Things).
It’s still a rather new option for us to be able to get anything from any restaurant delivered to your door. It wasn’t long ago that delivery was limited to pizza and Chinese food. Anything else required us to leave our house. I’d suggest retreating back to those ‘olden days’ to save money. Uber Eats, DoorDash, and their counterparts offer you delivery and death by a thousand cuts. A Big Mac, fries and a coke would cost about 6 bucks if you showed in person but that same meal can quickly double when it’s dropped at your door. I’d also argue that the delivered food is rarely as good, and sometimes downright gross, by the time it reaches your door. Lukewarm fries, partially melted ice in a soda, and a soggy bun with hot lettuce hardly sounds like it’s worth twice the price of eating the food fresh. If you tell yourself you’ll only order take out if you have to get it yourself, you’ll save some money and maybe even decide it’s not worth it. An exception to this is pizza (or some other Italian dishes) and Chinese. Those have stood the test of time for delivery and can still be worth it, quality-wise, today.
5. Keep Ready-to-Eat food In Your House.
Bulk prep some meals that freeze well so even if you haven’t been able to stop by the grocery store, you have something inexpensive and quick to heat up waiting for you at home.
6. Keep A Frozen Pizza in Your Freezer (Or Something Comparable).
This is the “break in case of emergency” food for those times when you want something cheap and savory that doesn’t require any prep. When I had evening classes in college, I’d always look forward to the little Tostitos pizzas when I got home. I’d immediately drop my bag at the front door and preheat the oven. I still like to eat those, though I’d argue they’re not as good nor as large as they were twenty years ago (I remember being able to get two meals out of them) but that seems to be the norm nowadays. So many things have lost much of their original flavor (I’m looking at your Cocoa Puffs and Butterfinger) but they’re still tasty and around $2 where I shop so at least they still provide a good value.
7. Grocery Budget Towards Staples.
Beans, flour (anyone up to baking their own bread), lentils, pasta, potatoes, rice, tortilla shells, oats, and other grains can be very inexpensive for the amount of sustenance one can obtain. Yes, they’re not most flavorful on their own but with some salt and spices, they can provide healthy calories for very cheap and can be prepared and cooked with relative ease.
8. Learn to Cook (at least a little bit).
If you can boil water, use a microwave, and sauté onions, you can make simple meals. I’m not a great cook. There are some things that I make really well but I’d be lying if I called my cooking skills good. I’m more of a C+ student in the kitchen. I love to bake, and I make a mean casserole (which my friend rightfully says is just baking without sugar), but it’s very hit or miss on most other things.
9. Become Friendly with Soups.
I already mentioned that I’m not a great cook, but the place where I will experiment with flavors and ingredients in soups. Soups are fantastic because you can make most anything into a soup. They’re also a tasty way to get more vegetables into your diet because unappealing flavors can simmer into a nice broth. I find soups to be the best way to utilize leftovers that you’re not quite sure what to do with. Leftover potatoes and veggies, throw them into a soup. Tired of eating beans and rice, make them into a soup instead and change up the flavors. Want to add more vegetables into your diet? Make a vegetable soup or toss them into a blender and use that as your soup base. This works really well with root vegetables and is the only way I’ll eat butternut squash. I’m not a fan of butternut squash on my plate but roasted and blended into a bowl and turned into butternut squash soup, it’s one of my favorite things to eat.
10. Learn Which Foods Can be Successfully Microwaved.
Did you know you can microwave rice? I used to dread making rice (except the instant kind) because I’d always end up with a big pot with stuck-on-rice at the bottom, but now I often microwave my rice and it tastes just as good. I measure the rice and water and microwave in my porcelain or ceramic baking dish. I can even use the same container with its cover to store the leftovers in the fridge. Baked potatoes, corn on the cob, eggs, and other items can also be microwaved for easy preparation.
11. Learn Which Foods Can be Successfully Frozen.
Do you have the best of intentions to eat healthy when you grocery shop but always find that same old bag of spinach rotting in the bottom of your fridge or those yellow bananas slowly turning black on your counter? Then it’s time to try freezing them. I make a fruit and veggie smoothie almost every day as a simple and delicious way to make sure I’ve gotten most or all of my daily servings of fruits and vegetables in my diet. I’ve found this to be the easiest way to make healthier eating a completed goal and not just a “hopefully I get around to it” goal. As a society we’ve strayed so far from eating our daily servings of fruits and vegetables that only 1 in 10 adults meet the recommendations. If possible, buy fruit that’s in season as this is when it’s most likely to be on sale and taste the best. I also buy frozen fruit and kale or spinach in a large bag weekly. Spending $10 on a few pounds of frozen strawberries and $5 on kale can seem like a splurge but assuming you put 1.5 or 2 cups in each smoothie and include some green veggies, you can end up with a week of healthy fruit/veg smoothies for the cost of one bad takeout meal. Other foods such as bread, the bulk soup you hopefully fell in love with in Item 9, most fruits and vegetables, nuts, butter, casseroles, rice, jams and jellies (best to transfer out of the glass jar), can also be frozen. If you’ve purchased something that won’t get eaten before it goes bad, consider freezing it to use later.
12. Get Creative with Leftover Items.
I purchased a large pack of lasagna noodles because they were super cheap, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to make a lasagna out of them. Instead, I found a recipe to create lasagna soup but the recipe only called for half of the noodles. To not waste the other noodles, I created a lasagna bake and the extra ingredients of sauce, cheese and meat (or in my case meat-substitute) ended up costing only about $1 per meal as my husband and I got two meals each out of the lasagna bake. The lasagna bake ended up tasting better than the lasagna soup so overall this was a happy find and nothing went to waste.
13. Recreate Your Favorite Restaurant Items.
The internet has made it so easy to recreate some of our favorite foods from restaurants in our own kitchen using copycat recipes. I do this with a sofritos recipe I found online. It doesn’t taste exactly the same, but it’s a nice dupe that I can make at home. If you’re craving your favorite latte from one of the large coffee chains, or the baked potato skins appetizer from that casual dining place where you like to drink two-for-one margaritas, try and make them yourself. You could even try making the margaritas and inviting friends to “hang in” instead of hangout at the restaurant.
14. Bake Your Own Bread.
I love baking bread. I’ll put on my apron and knead the flour until I’ve created the start of a nice loaf of bread. It makes me feel like I live in the past during a quieter and simpler time. There’s something about creating my own food that makes me feel more creative and almost accomplished. It’s a nice feeling to make something out of nothing and to be able to serve my family with that effort. Perhaps it’s a “back to nature” thing from earlier times. Homemade bread can be made for pennies so it’s a great way to save money. There are so many easy recipes for baking bread and the ingredients can be simple: flour, yeast, salt, and a little sugar. You can create bread as simple or as creative as you desire. If you do decide to bake your own bread, know going in that it will be quite different than the typical sandwich bread you’re accustomed to. It’s still wonderful to eat but it’s not going to be like Wonder Bread. I heard a food scientist describe store-bought versus homemade bread as almost two different things because they have so few similarities in their shelf-life and ingredients. The homemade bread will not last more than a few days on the counter (you can freeze it) but the satisfaction you get from baking it and serving yourself and your family with a tasty bread made with minimal ingredients is satisfying in its own right. Who knows? Maybe it turns into a new hobby you enjoy like it did for me.
15. Bake Your Own Desserts.
It’s amazing how many desserts can be created with some sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, butter and salt. Throw in some chocolate chips, nuts, oatmeal, raisins, cinnamon, condensed milk, and you’re golden. Baking desserts, much like baking bread, is something I enjoy as a hobby and for sharing with others. Try it out and you may discover another hobby. Baking sweets is not really a part of healthy eating but it’s not something that I’d never completely give up. I need a little sweetness in my life.
I hope you gained something with the tips I’ve provided. They won’t slash your food bill in half, but it may help you save a little and become less wasteful and perhaps healthier in the process. Any obvious tips I missed or should be added? Let me know in the comments. Thank you kindly for reading.