Better Homes and Gardens Budget Meals: Save big $$$ with smart ways to shop and efficient ways to cook

Save money and eat well with the healthful, delicious, and affordable recipes in Budget Meals Everyone is pinching pennies these days. But it’s hard to find the time (and the energy) to devise effective ways to slash your food bill. Now, Budget Meals comes to the rescue with more than 350 everyday and party-special recipes designed to save you money without scrimping on flavor. With recipes including entrees, soups and stews, skillet meals, pastas, salads, side dishes, and eve (more…)

The Tight Budget Cookbook

Here’s a cookbook perfect for budget conscious meal planners…

If you want to save a lot of money on your grocery bills, yet still serve delicious and nutritious meals, this cookbook is for you!

All of the recipes in this book were contributed by Nutrition Educators with your needs in mind. You’ll find breakfast dishes for as little as 4 cents per serving, and main dishes featuring meat for as little as 51 cents per serving.

With hundreds of recipes, you’ll find everything from breakfast; main dishes with meat, poultry, fish and a secti (more…)

Family Finances: 7 Ways to Save Time and Money on the Food Budget

Time and cash are a trade off. When we have plenty of income, we turn that resource into time by purchasing convenience foods and eating out. When we don’t have as much income, we spend time cooking at home more often and using more staple items as well. I look at it this way. When I’m working, I’m adding to the budget and I can afford more conveniences. When I’m not employed, my job becomes saving. Both ways, I’m helping the quality of life for my family. But in the real world, how do we manage the time drain while we try to save? Here are seven ways:

Think of your family as a team. Every member of the team should participate in the process of providing food for the family, whether it’s hauling in groceries from the car, helping with meal preparation, or stacking the dishwasher.

Consider co-op cooking with another family of similar size. Once or twice a week, one family will cook a larger meal and share half of it with the co-op family. This will give one or two kitchen-free days to each participant. Sharing can work well when people live in close proximity and are very good friends.  I would not try this with strangers or with people whose taste in food is quite different from yours. Planning the shared meals together would be a big help.

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The Everything Meals For A Month Cookbook

You don’t have to order take out every time you don’t feel like cooking–now there’s an easier way to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner (not to mention dessert) right at your fingertips!

The Everything Meals for a Month Cookbook is the perfect tool to help you save time in the kitchen (and money in your wallet!) with practical shopping tips and food handling tricks for buying and cooking in bulk.

Learn how to plan your menu, assemble the ingredients, and store and freeze a month’s (more…)

Recommended Cooking Accessories when on a Budget

 

Are you looking for ways to save money on food? There are lots of standard tips that will help you stay within your budget when grocery shopping. Here are some top tips and cooking accessories that make it easier for you to stay within your food budget in tough economic times.

Buying in bulk is a great way to save money on purchases that you will use over time, but you need a way to break down your purchases and store them. One of the handiest items to have on hand is a Burger Maker Set that lets you turn 3 pounds of ground beef into 12 hamburger patties and store them in airtight trays in your freezer. You can easily pull out one patty at a time for use, or take out a whole tray. A 6-piece Burger Maker set lets you pick between full size patties or 9 sliders for each tray of burgers.

Speaking of hamburger, you can save even more money by buying whole cuts of meat and grinding your own at home with an Electric Meat Grinder. Take advantage of sales on pot roast and other cuts, and grind them yourself at home for higher quality ground meat at bargain prices.

Why pay a premium for deli-sliced roast beef, turkey, corned beef and other deli meats? Why pay for plastic packaging for name brand sliced meats? Invest in a deli slicer and you can slice your own sandwich meats at home and save up to $5 a pound on ham, turkey and other deli meats.

With salad dressing costing up to $2.50 a bottle, you can save a nice chunk of change by making your own salad dressings at home. For about the price of two bottles of dressing, you can buy a salad dressing carafe and emulsifying mixer that lets you whip up your own dressings in seconds. Pick up a few and you can keep several different salad dressings in your fridge for easy use.

Store dry cereal and snacks in a handy set of snack dispensers, reminiscent of retro gumball machines. You can set the dials to deliver measured portions, which makes it easy for kids to grab a bowl of cereal without spilling (and wasting) half the box on the table. It’s also a handy way to limit the amount of snacks that kids take at once, which is good for their health as well as your pocketbook.

Are you paying a premium price for little plastic tubs of yogurt full of preservatives and additives to make them “appealing”? Save big bucks by making your own yogurt at home. You won’t believe how easy it is to do with a Yolife Yogurt Maker. Just pour milk into a jar, add yogurt starter (which you really only need once) and cover with the domed lid. In less than 12 hours, you’ll have the freshest, best-tasting yogurt you’ve ever eaten at a fraction of the cost of store bought products.

Microwave popcorn is a favorite snack because it’s so easy to make – but a buck a bag can really put a crimp in your budget. You can still pick up a bag of popcorn for less than a dollar, and a Microwave Popcorn Popper makes it just as easy to pop the corn as dropping a bag in the microwave.

How much does it cost you to grab lunch at work each day? Even if you eat off the dollar menu, you can save hundreds of dollars a year by bringing your own lunch to work each day. Investing in a good set of thermal storage containers like the Smart Portion Container Set can make it easy to bring delicious and nutritious lunches to work or to school each day.

Do you end up throwing away fruits and vegetables that have spoiled before you get to use them? Do you have to pass on great bargains because you know you won’t eat them before they go bad? One of the hottest products to come along in years, Green Bags keep your produce fresh for days, even weeks longer. Other fresh storage options to look at include FreshVac Storage Containers and the Produce Keeper which lets you store up to three vegetables or fruits in one container and keep them fresh up to two weeks longer.

Fresh herbs are a delight in your cooking, but buying fresh herbs at the supermarket gets expensive quickly. Growing your own basil, thyme, oregano and other herbs is surprisingly easy. A set of Herb Pots is a wonderful way to add some green to your kitchen and flavor to your meals, all while keeping the green in your wallet.

 

Frugal Dinner Ideas

photo credit: Ken Wilcox.

You shouldn’t have to break the piggy bank just to put food on the table, but sometimes it sure feels that way.  Especially with the price of food going up these days…

Here are some tips on how to have a frugal dinner any night of the week:

1.  Cut down on the meat.  If a recipe calls for a pound of ground beef, use 3/4 or even 1/2 pound instead.  I generally will buy ground beef in bulk (especially when it’s on sale), and then will partition it into 1/2 and 3/4 pound portions.  Thanks to my trusty food saver, the ground beef stays fresh for much longer.

2.  Eat more veggies.  Watch for veggies that are in season, on sale or you can use frozen veggies.  I actually like cooking with frozen vegetables better than fresh veggies for certain recipes.

3.  Cook in bulk and freeze the leftovers.  I can’t tell you how much time and money we have saved since I bought my food saver and started cooking more bulk meals.  My family actually looks forward to leftovers now because they stay much fresher with the food saver.  And it’s much easier to plan meals when I’ve got full meals and several side dishes tucked away in the freezer.

4.  Use more pasta, rice and potatoes in your meals.  These are all cheap ingredients that can go a long way in a recipe.  And you can create countless of your own homemade skillet meals with these ingredients (instead of using a box mix).

5.  Make your own spice mixes.  Those packets of taco, chili and other seasonings can get pretty expensive.  Thankfully, many recipes for taco seasoning and other seasonings can be found online, using spices that you probably already have on hand, so it’s very easy to create your own spice mixes instead of spending a dollar or more on one envelope that will last for just one meal.

These are just a few ideas on how to have a frugal dinner.  Please share your own ways to save money on dinner!

On a Tight Schedule and Budget? Learn to Cook Without A Recipe

On a tight budget? It doesn’t mean you need to go on a canned-food diet. There are quick and simple home-cooking options that are easy on your budget, but also taste better than fat-laden fast foods. If you crave healthy, fresh, home-cooked meals but don’t have time to follow complicated recipes, read on.

Healthy Meals without a Recipe on a Tight Schedule & Budget

Stir-Frying: Chinese foods get a bad reputation for excessive oil use and fried items. But any of your Chinese friends will tell you that they don’t eat like that at home at all! Stir-frying is the easiest cooking method – it’s fast and it’s tasty. All you need is a non-stick pan (or a wok). Toss sliced meat with cut-up vegetables into your pan. If you are concerned about oil, use broth instead. When the meat and veggies are almost done, add your favorite Chinese sauce into the pan. Most stir-fry dishes can be completed within 10 minutes.

Recommended Tools: A non-stick wok, ready-made Chinese sauces

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