Stretch Your Food Budget With These 9 Tips

The convenience of buying pre-shredded cheese is undeniable, but it’s costing you more than you might think. Typically, if you compare pre-shredded to the blocks, you’ll find you can get more cheese for less if you grate it at home. 

For instance, Kraft sharp cheddar has a 16-ounce bag of shredded cheese for $5.64, while a block is only $5.46. The 18-cent difference can stack up, especially if you buy a few bags per trip. Cheese never lasts long in our house.

Instead of dumping out your bacon grease the next time you cook, save it for later. All you need to do is wait until the hot grease is slightly cooled to handle, strain it through a mesh strainer to remove the crispy bits, and pour it into a storage container such as a glass jar or metal tin with an air-tight lid. Store in the back of the fridge, or freeze for a longer shelf life. 

You can use bacon grease in various ways such as cooking to add smoky flavors, baking savory goods like biscuits or cornbread, or brushing over meats before grilling. Try roasting vegetables in the leftovers to enhance flavor or as a soup base for added richness. You can even season your cast irons with bacon grease to prevent rusting.

Explore More: The Easiest Way to Cook Bacon Perfectly Every Time

This might sound counterintuitive, but making bigger portions can save you the stress of planning multiple meals, and money in the long run. For instance, if you plan on having a chili night, the ingredients are fairly inexpensive (such as canned tomatoes, seasoning, beans, and broth). 

Doubling these cheap ingredients will save you money as compared to planning yet another meal that might be more expensive or include more ingredients. There’s a reason why meal prepping and eating leftovers has been a long-lasting trend.

How much do you throw away at the end of the week? We might not think about what we’re tossing; we just need to clear away everything that’s gone bad. But cleaning each fridge means throwing money away as well. 

Stretch your food budget a bit more just by freezing your groceries. This includes pre-chopping your produce to easily add to your dinners throughout the week, using ice cube trays to freeze minced garlic or stocks for easy measuring, and freezing butter to make it keep longer.

One of the best tips for stretching your food budget is walking into the grocery store with a clear plan. If you make a shopping list, not only can you anticipate how much you’ll spend ahead of time, ensuring that you stay within budget, but you don’t have to wander the aisles thinking about what to make. 

Planning out your breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals helps you stay excited for the upcoming menu. Plus, this strategy lets you plan ways to buy in bulk, which in turn, saves you a lot of money in the long run.

Check Out: Budget-Friendly Meal Planning – Eat Well Without Emptying Your Wallet

Another great tip if you want to stretch your food budget is making homemade bread. Not all of us are bakers, but this is worth trying at least once. There are a variety of loaves to try, from sourdough rolls to whole wheat sandwich bread. 

If your family goes through bread fast, it might be worth buying some flour and yeast. Flour is relatively cheap, with a five-pound bag costing around $3, and yeast is roughly $6 for a jar. With just $9, you could make a few loaves of bread and save big.

How many of us say we’ll eat the leftovers we put in the fridge but avoid it until it goes bad? One of the best ways to stretch your food budget is by setting aside a day or two to eat your leftovers. 

Whether it’s having leftovers for lunch each day, or leftovers for dinner a couple of times a week, it’s a great way to save money and ensure you’re not wasting food. This also ties into making bigger portions and using your freezer, as some of the best meals to freeze are soups and casseroles.

For this new year, don’t opt for name-brand products. Stretch your food budget by choosing store-brand groceries. Name brands might seem better quality, but there’s rarely a difference. Of course, there are always a few preferences that you might not budge on, like needing name-brand mayonnaise, but for most of your groceries, you can save hundreds of dollars just by making this simple swap. 

To compare, 12 store-brand eggs cost $3.97, while name-brand Eggland eggs cost a dollar more at $4.90. And for store-brand Cinnamon Crunch cereal, it’s only $2.98 for 20 ounces, while named-brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a whopping $4.93 for only 18 ounces.

Also Read: How to Get Enough Dairy on a Low Oxalate Diet

The last, and most important tip to stretch your food budget, is to simply buy your protein in bulk. When you first buy a bulk product, it might seem like way too much money, but it saves you more in the long run. 

Oftentimes, you can find large 10-pound packages of ground beef at the grocery store. It’s a hefty price upfront, but compared to multiple purchases of the smaller portion, you will save quite a bit. The trick is to make sure you divide it into accurate portion sizes when you get home, and then freeze it for later — we’re all about eliminating waste. 10 or more pounds of meat can usually last two to three weeks, depending on your menu and family size. To compare, one pound of ground beef is usually $4.44, while a 10-pound package is about $29.94 — roughly $2.99 a pound and almost half the price. 

The same strategy goes for chicken. Opt for the larger package so you don’t have to buy another one next week and save a few bucks. For example, a package of two to three chicken breasts is around $10, while a package of five or six is $14, not even double the price for the meat. 

If you’re looking to stretch your food budget this upcoming year to combat the rise in grocery prices, these helpful nine tips are the best practices to start with. Not every one of them is doable for every family, but these will get you started and be kind to your bank account. Keep in mind: small decisions stack up over time saving you hundreds, not just pennies.