Starting Frugality-Saving on Food Part I
February 15, 2008 by Jenn @ Frugal Upstate
Filed under Lunchbox Report, frugal philosophy
A couple of weeks ago I got a letter from Alan. He had made a New Years resolution to become frugal-and was looking for a push in the right direction.
Of course there are many ways to be frugal, depending on your personal situation. I started out discussing how to tracking your spending and saving money by distinguishing between wants and needs. But there is so much more to say!
The next big area I would like to tackle is the grocery/food bill! Food seems to be one of those areas where it is easy (and impressive) to trim your bill.
The two main ways a person can save money on their food bill are:
#1-By eating out less. The other way to say this is “cooking at home” 
#2-By paying less for what you are buying foodwise.
Today we will cover #1.
Do you eat out? Yankee Bill and I really enjoy eating a nice dinner or lunch out together. That is one of the things we do that make life enjoyable. But when we both worked we got in the habit of eating lunch out every day.
Have you ever added up how much that can cost? Lets assume you get a cheap lunch for $5. (and honestly, other than fast food where can you do that these days?) 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (lets assume 2 weeks of annual vacation). That would come out to $1250 a year spent on lunch. Holy cow! Even without running specific numbers I can tell that making and bringing a lunch would be a savings.
Photo by keuynish’s via Flickr.comNow there are different levels of frugality you can go for in making a lunch. Even if you buy expensive luncheon meats and cheese, small prepackaged bags of chips, premade pudding cups and soda you will still save money over purchased lunches. If you do more “make your own” (and after all, how much effort is it to make instant pudding and put it in little containers in the fridge?) you can save even more. The cheapest lunch is of course leftovers from dinner the night before!
Want lots of ideas for lunches you can make? Hillbilly Housewife has a great article on how to safely pack lunch, and also suggestions for what to put inside. Also check out some of these neat Tips for Bringing Lunch to Work.
Photo by Massdistraction via flickr.comLunch isn’t the only place to save. Many of us grab takeout or eat dinner out much too frequently. Just to run some more numbers-let’s assume you eat take out for a family of 3 once a week (guesstimate a low $20), and eat out (for two-leave the kiddo at home) one night a week ( guesstimate two $16 entrees for $32) for 52 weeks a year. That comes to $2704.
There are many ways to trim this-and they all start at the grocery store! From smallest savings to greatest:
#1 Buy lovely gourmet produce and create meals that are equal to what we would have eaten out. This might take a while. . .
#2 Buy pre-made frozen food at the grocery store to eat for dinner (pizza, “meals” etc). This is quick and easy, but could be nutritionally deficient.
#3 Buy some pre-made items, but “fill it out” with homemade/canned/cheap starches, veggies and sides. A little cheaper, and a little healthier.
#4 Make everything from scratch. Takes longer, but is frequently much healthier and cheaper.
#5 Make everything from scratch from ingredients purchased on sale/inexpensively. This is like #4, but on steroids.
Most people do some combination of the above. For example, I like to cook most of my stuff from scratch-but then again I also keep pre-made frozen food (such as a spare frozen pizza and some fish sticks) in the freezer to use when I run out of time and the urge to buy takeout overcomes me.
The point is that unless you are buying gourmet ingredients every single time, eating at home winds up cheaper than eating out-no matter how you accomplish it. The only difference is how much you save. This is one of those occasions where doing ANYTHING is better than doing NOTHING. Of course, if you really want (or need) to save money then go whole hog. But start doing something.
Next Friday-Starting Frugality-Saving on Food Part II (grocery shopping). And after that look for a new Friday series on “Frugal Food” covering one frugal food each Friday, starting in two weeks with Tuna fish.
Readers, what are your thoughts on this? Do you have any great tips or tricks to avoid eating out?
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On days I know will be “wild” I will put something in the crockpot, so we can eat whenever. I also try and keep lunch meat, cheese, canned fruit for a quick meal for those days when you weren’t expecting “wild” but happened nontheless. You can always toast a sandwich to make it more appealing and much cheaper than the fast-food toasted sandwiches.
Another thing that I need to get back to doing is doubling some meals and then splitting it up and freezing the extras in lunch-sized portions (the vacu-sealer works great) … include a package in the morning with some fruit and by lunch it is thawed pretty well and dh can just microwave it on the stoneware he has stored at work.
Greatly reducing our eating out has helped.
I’ve also committed to making my own bread this year and have been doing well (my bread maker is getting a workout!).
Crock pot, crock pot, crock pot.
Something else that I do is purchase a few of the Bertoli meal in a bag things. They are about $6, and serve 2 people. They take 10 minutes to prepare and shockingly they taste pretty good.
So, for $3 a person(which you couldn’t even do eating fast food) when there is very little time, and I need to fight the urge to eat out, I make one of these.
Another thing I do, is I don’t keep cash on hand. When you have cash on hand, it is so much easier to eat out.
We don’t keep cash on hand, and I’ll think pretty hard before I charge a couple of happy meals! We also keep some things on hand for when my plans fall through or I just totally lack motivation after I get home from work. We do frozen ravioli, spaghetti, mac & cheese (boxed), pyerogies (sp?), things like that, and then I can add to them with other veggies and whatnot to make it a real meal that’s quick and cheap. I try to limit those meals to once a week so we get good cooking most of the time.
Things I do to avoid eating out include:
- After grocery shopping, but before freezing the meat I’ve just purchased, I use some tricks, such as forming hamburger patties and putting TWO pieces of wax paper between each patty, then stacked into a freezer bag. That gives me some pattied meat to fix quickly when needed.
- I keep sliced meat, cheese, and sugar-free soy milk on hand at all times.
- When i make a big pot of soup, I often freeze portions for use in future quick meals.
Of course my way of preparing food is a bit different, because I have certain dietary restrictions. That, too, keeps me largely away from easy take-out, because I can’t eat most of it. But that also often excludes most prepackaged meals.
That said–because I love to cook, I find it relaxing and easy to do. So making a meal at home isn’t a big problem here most of the time. Some quick-to-cook methods I use are:
- When you have to get food on the table quickly, start boiling a big pot of salted water and start frying some onion in olive oil. Then a quick pasta meal is only minutes away.
- Microwaving white or sweet potatoes is a good way to cook your starch quickly while frying or broiling a piece of protein.
- Salad fixins in the fridge are always a quick veggie side or lunch in and of itself along with some leftover meat or chicken, lunch meat, cheese.
The recipezaar.com web site that you referred me to quite awhile ago has helped my husband and I cut down on eating out and save $$$. It is a great help in figuring out simple meals I can make with ingredients on special at the local supermarkets. – Mac
It used to be that my family would eat out all the time. Mostly because I just didn’t know what to have for dinner or wasn’t prepared enough to make it.
Now I meal plan. You can check out my meal plan along with a grocery list of what to have on hand to make the meals at http://www.CarriesCooking.com
Cant stop eating out?? Cheap ways coupons for buy one get one free out of the local papers, Buy the 2008 Entertainment coupon book on the net for huge savings. One great cheap place to eat out is Sam’s club or Cost-co ect.. You can get a huge polish sausage or hot dog for $1.50 with a drink included or 2 slices of pizza and a pop for only $2.55. There are dozens of ways to save. Have a nice weekend!! Annette They have healthier options too!! The desserts are good too.
Other options Little Ceaser’s pizza (a large pepperoni pizza is only $5.55.) IT is a great cost and tastes good. They also have crazy bread with different sauces that is cheap and good. There are other varities of pizza too!!!
We live in a town that only has take out pizza. So I get very tired of cooking all the time. I learned years ago to ask my DH for help thinking up what we can eat. He always thinks up the quickest, easiest meals. We don’t do this consistantly but we do have PBJ’s, cheese and apple slices, cereal, or toasted ham sandwiches when we are worn out and everyone wants to eat. This is our cheap entertainment: a quick simple meal on a blanket infront of a movie from the library on a Saturday nigt….can’t get much better than that! LOL!
My blog this evening was on Once A Month Cooking which I will tackle for the 2nd time tomorrow. I did it once before and we love it. My biggest savings was eliminating going out after church on Sundays and an occasional midweek take out meal. I look forward to your frugal ideas concerning meals/shopping. Thanks.
We keep canned beans on hand (black, kidney and white) for fast soups or for beans and rice (I add salsa, cheese, plain yogurt, onion and/or pepper if they’re around). Also, those packages of dried tortellini make nice soups very quickly and flavored pastas (we like pesto or garlic) are filling and comforting with just a bit of butter (or olive oil) and black pepper.
We generally eschew Bisquick and the like, but regular old baking powder biscuits are fast and easy and make really nice tuna melts (they get all melty – yum!).
Great blog – love its theme! Found you via a comment you left at Amy’s today.
Lots of great comments.
What helps us is that we buy our favourite ingredients, no matter the cost. So when we are tempted to eat out we just think ‘but at home everything’s so much fresher, healthier’.
Your sight is so good and informative. Have you thought of doing a post on the Mortgage Crisis?? You are so sucessful you could be a model to others. I understand Country Wide Company is the best deal but, what do you think is the key to keeping and being able to pay for a nice home such as yours??
Thanks for the post, this is one thing I struggle with – eating out. We recently went to San Francisco for vacation and spent almost $600 on food alone! we couldn’t believe it. I think we’ll be working on cutting down our eating out bills this year after getting that wakeup call.
I haven’t gotten to the point where I bring lunch to work yet. A fews times I have though. But I make it a point to get inexpensive lunches rather than eating at the more expensive locations here in NYC. Also I’ve been eating breakfast at home rather than at work which is saving me money.
Thanks for the tips!
Great tips. One thing I often do is cook double of something and freeze half, or freeze leftovers in meal-sized portions for lunches or for homemade ‘take-out’.
I wrote an article for my blog called Fabulous Ideas for Make-and-Take Lunches which you might like to read on this topic.
Kate
Wow! Great ideas and tips everyone. Thanks so much for adding them all.
And to the anon asking about the mortgage info, I really don’t feel qualified to comment-that is really outside my area of expertise. I’ll try to do a post soon that directs folks to some other blogs with articles on that topic. Fair enough?