9 Simple Ways to Save Money on Your Groceries
Easy Meal Planning |
It never fails, we budget for our groceries, but the bill always ends up being more. We underestimate, run out of things faster than expected and overall, everything is becoming just too darned expensive! To make things a little bit easier, here are 9 simple ways you can start saving money on your groceries.
1. Go with a List: Yes, I know…it’s a pretty obvious suggestion, but it’s amazing how effective it can be. You can purchase only what you need and avoid all the other yummy distractions of the grocery store.
2. Meal Planning: Planning your meals in advance makes it easier to get your list together and ensure you buy only exactly what you need. You can get help with your meal planning at Dine Without Whine AND they actually put your grocery list together for you too.
3. Eat Before You Go: Another classic tip. If you’re hungry, you’ll want to buy (and instantly eat) everything! Have a meal or good snack before you go to avoid impulse purchases.
Why Meal Planning is so Important During These Bad Economical Times
Can Planning Meals Save You Money? You Bet!
OK….let’s see a show of hands. How many of you know how much money you spend on groceries per month?
A recent unscientific survey conducted outside a grocery store in San Francisco offered some surprising results. It doesn’t seem most people keep track of how much money they spend on groceries, because trips to the grocery store usually include non-food items such as health and beauty products, pet products, etc., and there are usually several trips per week. Who scrutinizes receipts? Do most of us go to the grocery store armed with a list of just the essentials? The answer is a resounding “NO!”
Living Cookbook 2008
If you are like me and have recipes scattered everywhere, you’ll like this software I just found on Amazon.com. It’s called Living Cookbook 2008 and not only will it help you organize your recipes, but it will help you do your meal planning and your grocery shopping. Sounds good to me!
Living Cookbook 2008 is the latest version of the award-winning recipe software from Radium Technologies.
Use Living Cookbook to organize recipes, plan meals, create menus, calculate nutrition information, create shopping lists, publish cookbooks, export, e-mail and much more.
The software is extraordinarily flexible and easy to use and Living Cookbook’s comprehensive help file, tutorials, demo videos and customer support will ensure that you can find and learn to use the features (more…)
How to Get Started Meal Planning
| Easy Meal Planning
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Meal planning may sound intimidating at first, but it’s really not that hard.
The first thing you should do is to write down all of your family’s favorite dishes. This will be very handy when you just can’t think of anything for dinner 
Next, grab the grocery ads. If you don’t get these in the mail or in your weekly newspaper, just jump online and visit your favorite grocery store’s website. Most grocery stores have their weekly ads listed right on their websites now, and some are even interactive (allowing you to create a printable shopping list – very cool!). Once you have your grocery ads in hand, scan them for sale items that can be used for this week’s meals.
Before you get to deep into your menu plan, you might want to look at your calendar for the week. If you have family or work activities that will keep you from getting home at a decent hour, you will want to plan very simple meals or even leftovers for those particular nights.
Next, you should take an inventory of the items in your fridge and pantry. Do you have any food that needs to be eaten right away? This is one of the greatest benefits of meal planning. You waste much less food because you only buy what you plan on using that week.
At this point, you should have an idea of what you want to cook for the week based on the grocery store ads, what you already have on hand, and your family’s activities for the week. Go ahead and write out the meals you plan on cooking for the week, and fill in your grocery list for the items you don’t have in hand.
All you have left to do at this point is to do the grocery shopping, post your menu on the fridge for all to see, and create your meals each day. The rest of your week should go much more smoothly now that you don’t have to worry about “what’s for dinner” at the end of each day. See how easy meal planning can be?
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Free Weekly Meal Plan Worksheet
If you’ve been looking for a free weekly meal plan worksheet you’re in luck. I found one over at HealthyMenuMailer.com this week.
It’s a simple worksheet that allows you to list breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks for each day of the week. This is a great worksheet to post on the fridge so everyone knows what’s for dinner each day.
You can find the worksheet here:
http://www.healthymenumailer.com/ebooks/weekly-meal-plan.pdf
How To Organize Weekly Meals & Shopping List w/ Nutritionist Linda Miner – Goal #5
ichange.com Registered Nutritionist Linda Miner shows you how to plan out 1 week’s worth of meals, prepare a shopping list and make a meal in under 10 minutes. You will yourself save time, money, energy and frustration. www.MyHealthyBalance.com
Weekly Menu Planner Tools
Mom's Home Plan-It 2010 Softcover Engagement Calendar 
Price: $14.99 
Mom's Home Plan-It 2011 Softcover Engagement Calendar 
Price: $14.99 Complete Book Of Sauces 
Price: $28.00
Fundamentals of Menu Planning
Product Description
Fundamentals of Menu Planning, Third Edition presents a complete overview of key aspects of menu planning, including designing, writing, costing, marketing, and merchandising a menu. Reflecting the latest menu trends in the restaurant industry, the authors show how research, surveys, and sales analysis are key to menu planning and design. With updated nutrition and menu planning information, an expanded collection of sample menus, new appendices and resources, numer… More >>
Create Diet Menu Plans That Work
Let me ask you as question? Do you enjoy going on a diet and creating a strict diet menu plan?
I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t! The very word “diet” literally makes my mouth start to water as I think about all of the foods that I “can’t” have!
But the bottom line is that every year millions of people decide to do just that. The first thing that most people vow to do is go on a strict diet in order to lose that weight and they create impossible diet menu plans to follow.
These days, it’s hard not to feel like you need to lose weight because everywhere you turn, some news media outlet is spouting weight loss tips and tricks. The problem with diets is that they don’t work. Typically speaking, most diet menu plans quickly cut all junk food and sodas out. All of the “bad” food is pulled out of the fridge, the freezer and the pantry and thrown away. Then the exercising starts and most people pray for a quick and painless weight loss.
The problem is that once you eliminate everything from your diet menu plan that you love and add foods that you don’t normally eat on a consistent basis, you begin to feel deprived. Then the cravings start and it’s only a matter of time before you are doomed to falling off the diet wagon. Then you start to eat all the “bad” foods again, the weight piles back on and you feel bad about yourself! It is a vicious cycle.
Let’s face it, dieting is bad no matter how you look at it and we all just need to sop dieting. You have to come up with a diet menu plan that you can live with and that doesn’t make too many changes all at once. Any diet plan menu that severely restricts what you can and cannot eat will not work in the long run. Many times the foods you limit yourself to will not fill you up and you are hungry all the time too. This is just a recipe for disaster.
The best way to lose weight is to come up with
You have to do what works for you and set yourself up for success. Sitting down and designing a diet menu plan that is healthy BUT flexible is one of the keys to losing weight and keeping it off. CLICK HERE to grab a healthy menu plan and free recipes as well as more information.
Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals
Product Description
The essence of nutrition guidance is to provide the
public with the best information available to assist
them in making wise and nutritious food choices to
sustain life and good health. As public officials in the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, we are deeply
concerned that Americans not only have enough food
but also that the public has enough information to
know what food to purchase and how to prepare it.
While a healthy diet is the corners… More >>