The kids are home for the summer and your grocery bill may be facing an increase. Not to mention that some foods go up in the summer (such as certain produce) due to weather conditions and supply and demand. You can save money, though, with a few tips you can use during any season. The best part is that there is no coupon clipping involved, because who has time for that when summer fun is waiting?
Clear your food: This means you should spend one full week without going grocery shopping, except for absolute essentials like milk and butter. Aside from those types of food, though, don’t buy anything. Eat what you have. Chances are, you can make some pretty great meals from all those foods you haven’t yet opened. You’ll need to be creative and flexible, but you can usually feed a family for five days on the basics you have lying around. It saves money and clears your food stash.
Get to cooking more: If you don’t have a lot of time to cook, look into crockpot meals or meals you can make in 20 minutes or less. The key is to cook, because that will save you the most money. Plus, you can cook a lot of foods on a Sunday and save them for the week. That will save money and time.
Buy in bulk: If you do plan to cook a few meals at one time, arrange them around a few main ingredients and buy in bulk to save money. This means you will have to find recipes with similar ingredients, but that shouldn’t be too hard these days.
Remember the season: You can get some things at any season, but remember that things out-of-season will cost more. Replace certain ingredients with seasonal foods and save money on the recipe.
Eat less meat: Eat more vegetables and fruit, and skimp on the meat. Meat can be expensive, but a few meatless meals can save you money and most people in your family won’t even notice if the meat is missing. Almost any meal you find a recipe for can be made without meat, and you don’t even have to change up much if anything at all.
Learn the value of frozen foods: This doesn’t mean processed foods. You can buy frozen veggies for simple meals. Most people think summer and see fresh produce. While produce can be cheaper in the summer, buying too much and not using it means you’ve just wasted money and food. If you cannot shop every three days, then you will need to use more frozen veggies to round out meals and save yourself some cash.