Friday, June 05, 2009
Food Budget
| By Lynn Forgy Lately, I've noticed that the amount of money I spend on groceries each week is steadily increasing. So I'm on a quest to break this cycle. While searching the internet, I found a link to U.S. Department of Agriculture website with a recipe database. You can search by cost per serving, meal type, etc. The results show the recipe, nutritional information, as well as cost per serving. Of course, with summer just around the corner I don't really want to use the oven. I love cooking in the crockpot because not only do I not have to use the oven (which makes the A/C run longer which increases my electric bill), I don't have to "cook" as much. Several months ago, I spent hours searching the internet for cheap, frugal recipes. I printed these out and put them in a 3 ring binder. I refer back to this when I'm feeling my grocery budget getting out of hand. This week's menu includes the following: 1) Homemade pizza (cost about $6.00 total) 2) Stuffing with vegetables in the crockpot (approximately $2.00) 3) Squash, mashed potatoes, and broccoli (approximately $5.00) 4) Baked potatoes ($2-$4 depending on toppings) 5) Homemade Macaroni and cheese and baked beans (approximately $4.00) 6) Cheese sandwiches and chips (approximately $5.00, depending on type of chips purchased) While the total of the above menu is around $26, this doesn't include personal hygiene items, paper products, etc. which I include in my grocery budget. I suppose if I were honest the reason I spend more than I intend during my visits to the grocery is that I purchase lotions, etc. Also not included above is my daughter's lunch items (she likes Lean Pockets and other frozen meals that are convenient to pop in the microwave). A good idea for keeping the non-food items in the grocery costs low, I could use coupons and only by those products that are on sale. One of my favorite resources for coupons is HotCouponWorld.com. Not only does this site have coupons, but lots of freebie offers too! Labels: food budget, grocery costs |
Friday, July 11, 2008
Rising Cost of Food
| By Lynn Forgy The rising costs at the grocery store have definitely put a damper on my menu planning. No longer can I plan to add potatoes to 3 meals - a 5 pound bag is $6!! That's crazy! Milk is $5 per gallon. Everything is going up. What's a person to do? I've been pondering this issue for the past few weeks, trying to re-work my menus because the items I was using have gone up so much and it's wreaking havoc on my food budget. This is particularly frustrating for me because I am trying to put all my extra money towards my DEBT SNOWBALL. Not only do I have less to throw at the snowball due to gas prices, but now with the grocery costs rising I have even less to pay on debt. My dilemma - I have $XX for groceries for the remainder of the month. (Yes, that's less than $100). I have 17 dinner meals I need to plan that I can buy for that amount of money. Ah, nothing like a financial challenge... Suggestion #1 - At Walmart, in the freezer section are bags of vegetables, seasoned and ready to eat (after you heat them of course). I can get a bag for less than $2, which will feed 3 people for 1 meal. Great, right? Except my 14 year old despises most of the vegetables that come in one of these handy little bags. Perhaps if I add a little cheese sauce? Cost = $2.00 per meal = $4.00 Suggestion #2 - Cheese sandwiches and hash browns for 2 meals. Cheese slices I can get for about $2.50 (the healthier version), and a bag of shredded hash browns for $1.60. Cost = $2.85 per meal = $5.70 And this is where my brain just freezes up. My fallback has always been potatoes, but now that the price has risen so much I can't use them as much as I would like. Rice is good, I suppose. But one can't eat just plain rice. Any suggestions????? Labels: food budget, grocery costs, help with menu |
