10 Frugal Ways To Stretch Your Grocery Budget
The Heart Of The Home
Have you ever noticed that the heart of a home is the kitchen? It’s where you prepare meals. You connect as a family over dinner conversation. It’s where you entertain.
Budgeting
Your children do crafts and homework at the kitchen table. You balance the budget, plan events and so much more in the kitchen. Now it’s where you can learn to save money. Discover 10 frugal ways to stretch your grocery budget.
Groceries
The kitchen is also where you cook and store groceries. Whether you are planning an elaborate holiday celebration or a simple Thursday night meal the kitchen is where you’ll be.
Cost Of Goods Increase
I am not sure if you have noticed or if it just something happening in our area but the price of groceries is on the rise.
Feed Your Family
Where we live the average price of eggs is $6 a dozen and a gallon of milk is about the same. Yes, it is getting expensive to feed your family.
Groceries On A Budget
How do you feed your family on a budget with grocery costs on the rise? Honestly, you get creative. You clip coupons, shop sales and use Rakuten. You can also learn to stretch your grocery budget.
Ways To Stretch Your Grocery Budget:
Pantry basics
Beans, rice, pasta and oatmeal are all common kitchen staples. They are cost effective meal items. You can substitute beans in meatless meals for added protein and nutrition.
Pasta comes in so many shapes and sizes, get creative, add some sauce, break bread and enjoy.
Make it once and serve it twice
I think this one is my favorite tip. You cook a ham or a chicken and use it for multiple meals throughout the week.
We use leftovers for lunches. This oven lunch box allows us to have warm meals on the road.
Plan meatless meals
Let’s face it even with the cheapest cuts, meat can get expensive. One way to cut the cost is to have meatless meals once or twice a week.
Replace the meat in a recipe with beans or other protein sources like tofu.
Save your leftovers
You know those extra few carrots left in the fridge or that half an apple you need to use before it goes bad. Freeze them.
You can save the leftover vegetables in a bag in the freezer to use for soup stock. Save your extra fruit for smoothies and baking. Learn more about what you can freeze to save money here.
Shop in season
Yes, I know those juicy red strawberries look real good in the middle of December but the price tag doesn’t look that appealing.
Save yourself the coin by purchasing produce in season. Shopping locally sourced items is even better. The less it travels the cheaper it is.
Water it down and spread it out
Did you know you can add water or broth to “make more” soup? Or add rice or beans to a meal to make more. Simple additions to a meal can make more food for pennies.
A common example would be to water down soup or add “fillers” to burgers. Adding simple common pantry ingredients to make more food to feed your family.
Pasta for example is cheap, you can use it as a base for just about every meal. As a side dish, a main dish. I am sure you could even get creative and use for a dessert.
Shopping discount stores
To all of you out there that live near an Aldi store I envy you. There isn’t one near us. The deals I hear about are amazing.
Shopping discount retailers and ethnic grocers is where the food savings is at. We have these great little ethnic stores that we shop at to save on produce and basics.
And the food and spices are amazing. You can easily save 20% off your grocery budget by shopping at discount retailers.
Breakfast for dinner
I love breakfast for dinner. This is a standard meal in our meal plan rotation. Who doesn’t love pancakes and eggs or waffles and bacon for dinner?
Breakfast foods are cheaper than dinner foods and it’s fun to switch it up every once in awhile.
Do it yourself
Preserve the harvest and get baking. You can cut some of your grocery costs by growing your own food. Even a small pot of herbs, tomatoes and strawberries.
Preserving the local harvest by canning, dehydrating and freezing goods can also save you money throughout the year.
Baking your own pastries, muffins and breads can save you money as well. You can read what we stopped buy and started doing instead to save over $1000 a month.
Get creative
Use what you have. Improvise. If you want to have a bean based taco buffet for dinner do it. If all you have in the fridge is eggs, bread and cheese make fried egg sandwiches or french toast.
Creativity in the kitchen is half the fun. We love having pizza or omelet meals to use up leftovers. Who says you can add (fill in the blank) to a pizza?
Stretching The Grocery Budget
Stretching the grocery budget is easier than you think. Stock your pantry with beans, rice and pasta. Make it and take it for lunch the next day.
Shop with cash. Use a meal plan and be creative.
Using Rakuten is also a great way to save money while you grocery shop. You can try out Rakuten today and get $10 for free just for signing up.
Related Frugal Money Saving Posts:
- Secret Must Haves Of A Frugal Home
- 7 Things We Stopped Doing To Save Money
- 7 Little Ways To Save Big Money
- 50 Of The Best Frugal Living Tips
Updated April 29, 2021
