One of the basics of groceries on the cheap is to spend more time planning and shopping, and less time cooking. You don’t get “paid” for cooking, but there is money in shopping 🛒 with a plan.
Most families don’t care how much time you spend cooking dinner, they just care if they like it.
It pays you to learn recipes that allow,you to efficiently cook food from scratch. Anything premade or that comes out of a box is going to cost you more with few exceptions. It is actually cheaper to buy pasta sauce on sale and there are meatballs that are actually cheaper than making scratch.
Identifying meals that have inexpensive ingredients and are easy to cook is easier than one might think. Pinterest, Betty Crocker on line cookbook is free, and any cookbook that has the buzz words 5 ingredients or less is good, The simpler the better. Betty Crocker sometimes has brand specific ready made ingredients, but most of the time an adequate substitution is workable.
Prepping meat and portion controlling meat is a good money and time saver.
Buying in bulk and cooking stair stepper is another, Stair stepping is when you make enough of something to do double duty during the week. That batch of rice can be Spanish rice with a taco dinner and also be the base for stir fry. A batch of chili can be chili one day and the basis for nachos, burrito bowls or a topping for a baked potato bar.
Kitchen Management aka meal prep is another way to save the dinner hour. I remember the days when you hit the door, mail in hand after picking the children up from daycare. They are hungry, wanting to tell you the happenings of the day, and dinner is waiting to be cooked and laundry is staring you in the face. Having part of dinner ready to cook and having a plan saves a lot of stress.
We have a garbage can, and an in basket on the computer stand in the hall to the kitchen. Dealing with mail as soon as you get in the house saves time, handle it once.
Anything made in a slow cooker or insta pot is a good thing.
Engaging children to help get the table set etc encourages them to talk about their day and gets dinner on the table. A win -win.
Remember
No food will do your family good if you are feeding it to the garbage disposal.
Some people could have a bargain get up and bite them in the butt and they wouldn’t see it. Don’t be that person.
If you buy 10 sacks of potato chips. They will eat ten bags of potato chips. And, not have good nutrition. If it isn’t there, they will make wiser choices. I grew up without junk food in the house.
My sisters and I survived.
