Grocery shopping isn’t fun on anyone’s wallet. But what if there was a way for you to spend next to nothing to plan most of your meals for an entire week? Here are seven ways to keep food costs low by first shopping in your pantry.
Take Inventory
Having a running inventory of everything you have at home can help you avoid buying too much when shopping. Not only that, but it also gets much easier to see what you have at a glance, so you can use things up long before they go bad.
Creativity Is Key
If you let your creativity guide your meal planning, you can do a lot with very little. Even the simplest ingredients, like canned beans or pasta, can be transformed with the right pantry ingredients. Multiple websites are dedicated to helping you clean out your fridge and pantry by offering delicious, barebones recipes that won’t cost you a thing.
Reuse and Repurpose
Do you have something in your fridge you aren’t sure what to do with? There’s probably a fun way you can turn even the most basic leftovers into something new. For example, that last bit of tomato sauce from pasta night could be the base for a fun tomato soup. There are so many options that can make your frugal food a lot of fun if you don’t limit yourself.
Learn Substitutions
If a recipe calls for sour cream, use yogurt. If it says to use chicken stock, use veggie stock. Morph recipes based on what you have, provided they’ll still make logical sense once you add everything together. But you’d be surprised how easy it can be to swap something out so you don’t have to run to the store.
Challenge Yourself
You feel like there’s absolutely nothing left for you to eat in your home. But that’s probably not true. You might need to take the road less traveled by making something entirely from scratch, which you should embrace. Take that “nothing” you have and try to make it as fancy as possible, like you’re in a cooking competition.
Shop for Options Earlier in the Month
Frugal food prep is significantly easier when you have options on hand. That doesn’t mean you should buy everything you see to make things easier on yourself. But things like vinegar, spices, herbs, and canned goods provide a massive amount of mileage when doing challenges like this. And since most of them last a while, it’s worth investing to give you more to play around with later.
Freezing Is Your Friend
This is another way to set yourself up for success earlier in the month. If you can prevent something from going bad, freeze it and find it a new home during your low-cost meal prep week. We also recommend saving things like veggie scraps, bones, and even cheese rinds.
You can use the scraps and bones to make flavorful broths that cost next to nothing, and cheese rinds can add a hint of flavor to stew and sauces.
Read More:
- 30 Ways To Get Free Stuff (That Aren’t Scams)
- 12 Best Coupon Apps of 2024
- 13 Ways To Earn Money From Paid Surveys [At Home, Online & More]
