Here are some ways to get better meals for less money.  It takes effort but your family will love
the results.




Learn
to cook from scratch.  The cost of
processing foods into ready-to-eat is expensive and the ingredients are
not always wholesome.  If you don’t
know how to prepare whole foods, such as rice, potatoes, noodles, dried
beans, etc, then learn.  You're on the internet, right?





Learn
how to best prepare the less expensive cuts of meat and poultry. 
Cuts like round roast can be prepared using moist heat (pot roasts,
stews) and will be as tender as more expensive cuts when cooked that
way.  Larger chickens can best be
prepared as chicken and dumplings or chicken noodle soup for the same
reason.





Look
for discounts on expired food.  The dates are not dates the food spoils on, they are dates the food should be sold by.  If you use them soon
there is nothing wrong with them. 
Obviously this doesn’t apply to dairy or similar fresh foods which
might spoil.  But things like
breakfast cereals are certainly good past their “sell by” date.  If you see meat, fish or poultry in the
case on or past the sell by date, and it still looks fresh, ask the
butcher for a discount.  Freeze
what you won’t eat right away.





Buy
in bulk.  You’re going to use it
all, eventually.  Why buy small
shakers of something like garlic powder when you can buy a huge one for
just a little more than the small shakers?  Can’t find them in the grocery?  Look for retail outlets of the food service suppliers.  In Michigan that’s Aldi, Sysco or
Gordons.  You can also try Sams
Club or Cosco but will need to buy a membership for those two. You can
actually buy a gallon of mustard for just a couple of dollars.  Which leads us to…





Share
or buy co-operatively.  If you can
organize a group of neighbors to buy together, you can really save a lot.  Imagine splitting that gallon of
mustard 4 to six ways.  You’d each
be able to fill three or four empty mustard bottles for about fifty cents.  You can also do that with large bags of
noodles, flour, sugar, rice, salad dressings, bar-b-que sauce, pancake
syrup, and many, many more items. 
Again, look into the commercial food services that have retail
stores near you.





Learn
the secret of top chefs.  Chefs
don’t pick a recipe and then go out to buy what they need, they look at
what’s in season, or what’s on sale, and then they choose the recipes that
use those ingredients.  So if
chicken thighs are on sale this week, make chicken and dumplings, chicken
soup, b-b-q chicken, but not pot roast. 
An example of this would be buying a turkey when they are on sale,
just before Thanksgiving. 





Learn
to use the services in a grocery. 
Remember that sale on turkeys? 
If you buy a larger turkey the butcher can saw it in half, right
down the center, and re-wrap it for you. 
Freeze one half.  You might
ask for this same service in produce. 
Are you shopping for a group? 
Ask for that watermelon to be split and wrapped as two or more
pieces.





Find
a day old bread store.  The bread
isn’t really stale.  Even if it is,
it still makes great toast, French Toast, stuffing and croutons.  You didn’t know you could make croutons? 
Bought more than you can use? 
Bread will freeze just fine. 






Learn to can or freeze.  Then you can buy a whole bushel of
tomatoes for a few dollars and have canned tomatoes all winter for pennies
a jar.  You can watch videos or
read about canning on the internet, but if you know someone who cans, ask
if you can help them for a couple of hours.  You’ll learn all the tricks and short cuts that way!  Jars can be expensive, so keep an eye
out for canning jars at yard sales and re-sale shops. 





If
you’re going to learn to can, and you have space to grow a small garden, these two things go hand in hand.  Grow foods you like to eat.  Tomatoes, green beans, corn, carrots,
and green peppers can all be either canned or frozen for use in cooking later.  You can also keep potatoes or onions
for several months after harvest. 
Just store them in a cool, dry place.  Again, a good way to learn to garden is to ask a neighbor,
friend or relative if you can help them with their garden.  Keep an eye out at yard sales and
re-sale shops for garden tools like rakes and hoes.





Check
for coupons, but, remember that the store brand may be cheaper, even with
the coupon savings on the national brand. 
You’ve got to do your homework and detective work to get the best
buy.







Think
about left-overs when planning meals. 
Some recipes create tomorrow’s lunch at the same time.  You can make chicken and dumplings and
keep half the chicken for sandwiches the next day.  Just make extra dumplings to make the
first meal more filling.