Can’t Cook On a Budget? It’s Grandma’s Fault

Cooking everyday at home is a great way to cook on a budget. But sometimes, the habits that we picked up as a kid can be detrimental to saving money on food. Let me explain what I’m talking about – remember the end of most family meals when grandma would push the serving platter at your already loosened belt and waist-band?

“Eat it or it’ll go to waste” she’d always say.

“If it’ll go to waste, what did you cook it for”? was my thought, even as a young kid. “Isn’t there a way to figure out exactly how much you should cook?” I didn’t actually say that sentence out loud…I never was fond of the taste of soap. But, it only took my 8th grade math skills to figure out what grandma hadn’t been able to for decades.

The precise portions you feed your family is the basis of cooking on a budget. When you know exactly how much each person will eat, you’ll know how much to buy, and how much to cook, eliminating over-buying, over-cooking, wasting leftovers, or letting food spoil while in your possession.

The average cooked portion is 4 ounces protein, 3 ounces vegetable, 5 ounces starch per person. If your husband is a big eater, adjust upward. If your wife is petite like mine, adjust downward. But, with a digital scale and keen observation, perhaps a notebook, you’ll arrive at the quantifiable amount that everyone in your house eats.

Now, you can begin saving money at the grocery store, or using the money you’ve saved by buying more wholesome, exotic, or expensive ingredients because you know there will be little waste. You’ll also be helping the health of your family buy controlling the amount of food they eat.

In her everyday cooking, Grandma offered you more and more of what she prepared and she did it out of love for you. Today, when you’re cooking at home, the best way to show love to your family is by preparing a wholesome meal that is an appropriate amount for all to enjoy, while still being able to cook on a budget.

Leftovers Are Like Finding Money When You Cook On a Budget

Cooking everyday at home is a great way to cook on a budget. But sometimes, the habits I want you to enjoy cooking at home by examining basic cooking methods and perhaps taking cooking classes online to further your journey in your cooking. My goal is to help you pay for these cooking classes by saving you at least that much in your food budget everyday.

Previously, we’ve talked about saving food in purchasing, storing, and portioning to get the greatest effect if you’re cooking on a budget. But, many of these skills take time to develop and perfect. If you’re not cooking like a chef at home yet, the likelihood is that you have some over-purchasing, over-cooking, or over-portioning that has lead to leftovers.

How you use your leftovers can make a great impact on your everyday cooking budget, but there are few recipes that you can find dealing specifically with leftovers when cooking at home.

Here’s where you need basic cooking methods to be able to create something regardless of what the ingredients are. Our online cooking classes concentrate on the basic methods behind cooking that will empower you to create great meals from any of the ingredients you have on hand. This is especially useful when preparing something from the result of your everyday cooking leftovers.

For the best use of leftovers, try to keep ingredients separate before presentation. For example, cook a chicken breast and then top it with sauce, one plate at a time. This way, if you have leftover chicken, it doesn’t have tomato sauce on it and can be made into chicken salad for lunch the next day. Or, it can be shredded and rolled into a tortilla for a burrito, but it won’t taste like last night’s chicken.

You can even plan your leftovers in advance. Using the knowledge of your family’s portions, let’s say you purposely cook ½ pound of shrimp more than you need for tonight’s dinner. You set this over-cooking aside, prepared to make shrimp salad or shrimp tacos tomorrow evening. This not only saves time, but money also by making two satisfying meals, rather than one over-portioned meal and some leftovers that are discarded later.

When you’re cooking at home everyday and you’re left with leftovers, or have even planned for leftovers, HOW you treat the food afterward can double your savings and protect your cooking budget.

Cooking on a Budget Part II

We used another Kraft Foods Recipe! 1 Bag, 5 Dinners.

Cooking on a Budget: Chicken Parmesan

Parent Tested-Kid Approved! Really easy!

Cooking on a Budget in One Minute: Pasta Primavera

Pasta Primavera Alfredo-enough to feed 3 kids and me! Let me know what you think.

Household Budget Worksheets.

Provides Personal And Household Budgeting Tools And Advice.
Household Budget Worksheets.

Ideas For Gourmet Cooking on a Budget

How much do you pay for a meal in a fancy restaurant? How much just for the entree? Even on the low end of the scale, you could be paying around $15 per person for an entree. Sometimes you may end up paying $20-$30. Well, you can save a lot of money by cooking at home, and you can make a meal just as good, if not better than you can find in a fancy restaurant. You can easily cook up a gourmet quality meal at home with ingredients that you can easily find in your local grocery store, and with what you already have in your kitchen. If you do some planning, and look around in your store for some good prices, you can make a meal for $5.00 per serving that would cost $15-$30 in a fancy restaurant.

The most important thing to do is to plan the meal ahead of time, before you go shopping. A typical meal consists of a main dish (fish, chicken, pork, beef), a starch (rice, pasta, potatoes), and a vegetable or salad. For example, you may go into a restaurant, and order a steak; typically, it will come with a potato and vegetables. You’ll want to keep the three elements in mind when you plan your meal. The main dish, should be the primary focus of your meal, after all, you don’t go into a restaurant and order a baked potato in order to get the steak. So, you’ll want to start by deciding what the main dish is going to be. Look in your newspaper for circulars from your local grocery stores, and find out what is on sale. Pork chops are usually a good deal. I know I commonly find pork loin chops for around $1.00 per serving, and they are thick enough to stuff with other ingredients. Keep in mind the price per serving when you’re shopping. $8.99 per pound for tuna steaks may seem like a lot, but 1 pound is 3-4 servings, meaning about $2.25-$3.00 per serving… not too bad.

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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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