My fiancee and I make sacrifices. From Monday to Thursday, we'll only eat vegetable stews that are made with beans, potatoes and vegetables. On weekends, we'll splurge, but we're still within our budget. I haven't gone over my budget since the summer, which is fantastic. So to answer your question, your best bet is stew: - potatoes - beans - a bunch of vegetables - tomato paste - Chicken/vegetable stock - oil That'll save you a lot of money because those ingredients can last you for four days. Good luck!
The best tip I can give is to buy liver. Liver is the cheapest meat you can buy and it is the most nutrient dense food on the planet. What more could you want? Very cheap and packed full of nutrients. I eat liver once a week, it's nature's multi-vitamin.
I really hate to admit it, but you're right. Sometimes it is. Most times it isn't, but I have found a few things that are cheaper to buy the convenience variety instead. That doesn't mean just takeout, but sometimes those frozen or canned varieties at the store are a lot cheaper than buying all the fresh produce and whatnot yourself, too. I still don't usually recommend it because you don't know what kind of chemicals and whatnot are going in there, but if we're strictly talking about money, then I can't disagree.
There is a very good newsletter called living on a Dime. It tells you many good meals to prepare. It allows you to get the best bang for the buck. Many options are available for those who need quality budgeting. These are the items you need and can use. Since these are the items that you need.
I hI hate liver, I would never eat it no matter how cheap it was. It is also high in cholesterol, so it is not as healthy as people seem to think it is. It is one of the things that I would have a great deal of trouble with eating. It used to be required on Weight Watchers diets years ago, and the only type I could stomach was chicken livers
Try making your own snacks instead of buying them processed and pre-made. You can easily make large batches of granola or puffed rice bars, or even hummus, to snack on instead of paying an arm and a leg for them at the store. Dollar Tree has all the basic ingredients to make snack bars, if you don't already have many of them already, such as some peanut butter, some corn syrup, brown sugar, some rice cereal, or rolled oats... etc... Or perhaps you already have a lot of these items and just need a few extra things to throw in them such as some chopped nuts, dried cranberries or some flaked coconut. You could make a whole baking sheet (or two) of these bars and individually wrap them, for just a few bucks - instead of paying several dollars for just one small box. With hummus, there is only one expensive ingredient you need to buy up front, the Tahini paste, which runs around $8 or so per jar, but it will last a long time since you only need about a spoon of it per batch of hummus. The rest of the ingredients are super cheap - canned chick peas, fresh parsley, some fresh garlic... You could even keep it cheaper by using bottled lemon juice instead of fresh lemons, and/or canola oil in place of the olive oil. When making dishes such as Chili, cut the ground beef in half and throw in an extra can of beans. When making something like a stir fry, use half the amount of boneless skinless chicken breast per serving and simply bump up the amount of frozen veggies, which are cheaper. Or swap out the white meat for boneless skinless chicken thighs, which I actually prefer.
I think the best way to save with groceries is to plan as much as possible in detail. Buying a whole chicken, for example, can yield you many benefits since you could use every last part including the bones to make stock, but this would only work if you plan long enough to know where you could use each part and the broth when you finally make it. Compare that with buying filleted chicken which is already more expensive and has less to use for other resources, then you'd essentially be paying more for just one meal when you could have gotten a cheaper price for multiple meals.
I find great bargains on frozen vegetables at Wal-Mart as well as other food very economical priced. You can check their baby food isle too. They have good prices here in Honolulu so on the Mainland it must be cheaper than here on island. CVS has weekly sales and so does Walgreens. CVS is in our Sunday newspaper, but I'm not sure about the Mainland newspapers if they have CVS ads. CVS locally have their ads in store posted somewhere. Walgreens here in Honolulu has their weekly ads somewhere near their entrance locally. Safeway has $5 Fridays-get their free card-get their online acct. and start clicking away at the specials, coupons that'll be automatically added to your card. I believe Ralph's supermarket has an ad online too, but don't know about Ralph's at all. All the supermarkets have their weekly ads online too. Huge savings when you buy on sale at all the stores.
It's great that you have set a budget. Some of the things that have really helped me save is having a list, using coupons and rebate apps. Specifically for my baby, I don't buy anything without a coupon or a rebate. With everything else, I don't buy anything that's not on my list or is not on sale. It takes a little bit of research, time and effort, but it is definitely worth it. I also suggest, like many others on here, to get a blender. In the long run it will save you money. I don't buy the prepackaged snacks for babies because they are way overpriced. Slow cooker meals can be made to last a couple of days and doing freezer meals can help you prepare all of your dinners in advance so you know exactly how much will take you through the week. It will also save you a lot of time!
