So you’re meal planning: congratulations! You’re saving a ton of money and wasting less food. But if you’re new to the planning game, there are probably a few tweaks you could make to save even more. Here are six proven strategies to make your grocery budget go further than ever.
Learn To Take Inventory
Restaurants often take inventory of what’s in pantries and fridges so they don’t buy too much food for the upcoming week. You can do the exact same thing. Building your meal plan around existing ingredients is one of the best ways to make sure you’re using everything efficiently and before it expires.
Build Your Plan Around What’s On Sale
Most people decide what they want to eat, then go to the store to buy the ingredients. You’re gonna do the opposite from now on. This involves checking the weekly sales to see what you can pick up. Use these sales, like a deal on chicken thighs, throughout your meal plan. You can search recipes based on what the store’s pushing and see what looks good to you.
Use More of Each Ingredient
Are you throwing away veggie scraps, unused herbs, and chicken bones? You’re throwing money away, plain and simple. Let’s look at rotisserie chicken, which is a meal prep Swiss army knife. You can use the meat in multiple ways, like chopping some up into chicken salad and eating some of the breast meat with roasted vegetables, and then using the bones to make a rich broth for free.
Eat Less Meat
Your reliance on meat is sending your grocery prices sky-high. Even if you’re not ready to commit to a vegetarian lifestyle, simply making a conscious effort to eat less meat will make your next grocery receipt significantly less shocking. And if you are eating meat, reduce the amount per meal and stretch it with vegetables and healthy grains.
Shop Seasonally
Seasonal produce not only tastes better, but it’s actually cheaper, too. That’s because there’s often an excess from the harvest, lowering prices to make it easier for the stores to get things off the shelves. A good example is how in the summer, you’ll find great deals on berries, corn, and zucchini. In the winter, root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and squash will be more affordable. This makes your diet more varied, too, so you’re less likely to get bored with whatever you prep.
Use Your Freezer
Even the best meal preppers find themselves with too much of something. That’s never a bad thing if you have space in your freezer. Maybe you made a soup that makes 12 servings, but you know there’s no chance you’ll eat it all. Great: pop half of it in the freezer and enjoy it next week.
You can do this with bones and vegetable scraps for making broth or even fresh herbs, putting them in ice cube trays with olive oil to create an easy-to-access puck that adds a punchy flavor to any dish in seconds.
