Baking on a Budget

Meal Planning

Ideally, the farther ahead you plan your meals the better off you will be - if you are really far-sighted, you can work towards planning your meals a month ahead. This will help if you want to save money by making bulk food purchases at Club stores. If monthly planning is not for you, then at least a weekly plan will help budget your time and money. Here are some quick tips for you to keep in mind to help you develop your own budget-friendly meal plans.

When planning and creating the weekly or monthly menus, find some recipes that use similar ingredients you can purchase in bulk, or develop some meals and snacks that will allow you to use up ingredients like that whole stalk of celery before it goes bad. It also helps to browse the freezer and cabinets for ingredients you already have. Get the cookbooks and recipe cards out, or browse recipes on the computer for meal ideas to use up some of those ingredients. Remember that you should also plan for snacks as well, and some fresh vegetables can be used up in a family veggie tray kept wrapped in the refrigerator.

Plan for leftovers! A large pot roast on Monday can become Tuesday's stew, or use the leftover juices as stock for vegetable soup or onion soup. A nice habit to have is to use the leftovers for lunch the next day, saving both time and money.

At the end of your planning session you should have at least two lists; one list with the meals you will prepare and the other one is the shopping list. The meal list gets tacked to the front of the refrigerator, and the other goes with to the grocery store.

These are just examples of the types of things you need to keep in mind if you want to shop economically and save money. If you want to add some of your budget-friendly tips, please go to our Blog and post them.