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Want to eat well while saving time and money? Here are 4 stress-free ways to slash your food bills!
Eat Well While Slashing Your Food Bill
Let me ask you a question – How much did you spend on your food bills last month?
Chances are it was one of your big expenses.
Unfortunately, it's typically not always spent in the best way.
Convenience can not only be expensive, it can be bad for our health. That doesn't have to be the case.
Here are four ways that you can make things easier on yourself, enjoy some awesome food, and save some serious money.
You can watch me share them in this week’s Marriage and Money Tips or check out my take right below!
Plan Your Meals for This Week
The first key is planning your meals for the week. Doesn't sound exciting, but it is absolutely essential.
You will make your life a lot easier if you start preparing ahead of time what you want to have.
Let's be honest, I find it so much more convenient to go to fast food places when I'm stressed and tired on the way home than to cook my own meals.
If you have something set aside and prepared ahead of time it makes it a lot easier to stick to the plan (and your budget).
Prep a Meal Ahead
The second key is prep a meal or two ahead of time which sounds like I'm asking you to do more work, but I'm not.
It's like you're double productive because that meal is cooking in the background but you have a meal for those especially busy nights.
Now there are a ridiculous amount of meals that you can make with a crockpot but here are three set it and forget it meals that you can do – chili, pot roast, and stuffed peppers.
You don't have to do any fancy preparation, just add your spices to your ingredients. The slow cooker will take care of the rest for you.
Think Global with Your Dishes
The third key to making this work is going international with your flavors.
I know we all have comfort foods things we grow up with and love to eat.
However, you can have some incredible meals the same stuff you get at restaurants but at a fraction of the price.
Look around at different cuisines that are out there that you like. Last Year I chatted with early retiree Justin from Root of Good and he told about some of the great stuff you can do going Thai.
He calls dishes like curries, Hamburger Helper easy to make. So look beyond what you usually go to and make sure that you explore your options.
Have Ready to Go Dishes
The last step and key to all this coming together is have some go to meals for those time crunch nights.
Remember I gave you a list of a couple items that you want to add to your grocery list? this is when you use them.
Pull them out to make nachos or tacos. You can do some stir-fries or curries. Depending on your mood and what you have around, you can make a salad.
These are easy to make.
By the way, it's OK to have frozen pizzas saved for those emergency nights.
Would it be better if you could do homemade meals all the time from scratch?. Yes but don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
These are ways that you can start now and save some money while having good food.
Your Take on Eating Well and Saving on Food
So there you have it; love to get your thoughts. How have you guys saved on your food bills? What have been your favorite dishes?
If you're looking for more ideas on how to find, save, and make more money to pay down debt or save for some dream that you guys have, please sign up for my free 5 days to $5K course!
Elle Martinez helps families at Couple Money achieve financial freedom by sharing tips for reducing debt, increase income, and building net worth. Learn how to live on one income and have fun with the second..