Grocery bills and eating out can be expensive, and it can definitely surprise you at the end of the month with how much you spent on food. Listed below are a few ideas of how you can save money on food and eating out.
1. Plan your meals.
Each week, my husband and I plan out our meals. We then go through our pantry and fridge and make a list of what we need and take into consideration the foods we already have. This really helps with saving money, because instead of grabbing what we think we might need, we know exactly what to buy and aren’t really tempted to grab things that we do not need. Also, this prevents throwing out a lot of food, because we have planned to have it in our meals that week.
2. Don’t Shop When Hungry
Do I need to say more? But really, my husband and I find that when we shop when we are hungry, we tend to buy foods that we don’t need, and have a more difficult time sticking to the grocery list. It also gets very easy to get sidetracked in the store and look at all of the goodies that we don’t actually need. To remedy this, have a snack before you head off to the store.
3. Buy the Generic Brands
This is something that I thought was something only college students did. I quickly learned that some of the generic brands and the national brands have the same ingredients, so why not grab the generic brands?
4. Pack Your Lunches
This one requires some planning, but it is well worth it. Packing lunches is something that my husband and I have always done while in college, and it helps save money. We are either on campus or at work which keeps us out of the house the entire day. At times, it may be difficult to have access to a fridge or a microwave, but there was never a day that we couldn’t make it work. My husband’s job actually doesn’t have a fridge or microwave, but he still packs his lunch everyday and uses ice packs if needed. Also, if we know we won’t have a lot of time in the morning, we make our lunch the night before, which helps save some time.
5. Look for coupons, and get rewarded for dining out.
Each week we get junk mail. But, sometimes there are coupons in there and we snag them just in case we feel like eating out. We also have all the food apps of our favorite places. For example, we only really eat out at Cafe Rio when they promote 3x or 4x the points! Then we get rewarded for our purchase. If you are looking for cashback, go the cashback rewards route with a credit card. We love that our credit card has this feature, and we tend to utilize it more when that time comes around. Just remember to be smart with your credit card purchases to avoid going into debt.
6. Prep in Advance
After coming home from a long day, the last thing I want to do is cook. However, I have found that if I start the prep for cooking the night before, it helps with not having to do everything in one night. If the recipe calls for a lot of chop veggies, I will cut those the night before to avoid having to do that and cook in one night. Or if I have recipes that call for shredded chicken, I will cook the chicken, shred, and portion for the recipes, so I can toss everything into a pot and save a little time on a busier day. Especially if I know my day or week is going to be busy, it helps to get started a little early.
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