Money Saving Tips – Make Planning the Plan #4

Money Saving Tips Make Planning the Plan a crucial step in every aspect of your financial health. Here we focus on Family Meal budgeting.

Planning Ahead

Plan your weekly meals in a way that maximizes ingredients. For example, this week chicken is on sale. You need to grab a couple whole fryer chickens at the sale price. Then, grab your recipe book and choose a couple recipes you can use with chicken. For example, break one whole chicken down and fix a good old Southern Fried Chicken Dinner. Mashed potatoes, cornbread, and whatever else fits in with your traditional fried chicken dinner.

Pick up a rotisserie chicken or roast your own lemon chicken (super easy recipe available). Use leftover chicken to make a nice salad, crumble the leftover cornbread, bake and make a delicious cornbread crouton. Turn leftovers into a chicken pot pie. Boil the chicken carcasses down for the base of a comforting chicken noodle soup. Homestyle noodles are the best!

Stretching the Dollar with Sales and Coupons

Imagine combining a buy one, get one sale with coupons for your meal. I find pork on a buy one, get one sale regularly. Now add a coupon for bagged salad mixings, a coupon for cheese. First, slice part of the pork into individual pork chops. Grill or bake those and serve with a nice mixed green salad on the side. Roast the remaining pork with hearty, earthy spices such as cumin, paprika and turmeric. Shred the pork and make a quick taco slaw with your salad greens, add a touch of cheese and fresh-squeezed lime juice and serve up great shredded pork tacos. Still have leftover meat? Turn the rest into pork enchiladas or build a pork chili.

Make Use of It All; No Waste

Hopefully, you get the idea. By taking advantage of a sale and coupons, you can plan your menu around those savings. Then, utilize all the leftovers so you are not throwing food out. Planning results in savings on groceries bought because you stick to what you know you will need. Plus, waste less because you plan how to use it all in advance. This helps with keeping the whole family schedule organized too. Everyone knows what to expect. For families with older kids, get them in the kitchen. They know the menu, they are capable of getting dinner started!

Additional Shopping Tips

Watch this 10-minute video below for another TEN fabulous tips for money saving on grocery shopping trips.

Money Saving Tips Planning for the Year

Now, have you ever sat down to PLAN your groceries for a YEAR? You ought to try it sometime. It might surprise you when you sit down and figure month-by-month a meal plan. Then, mix each week up a little bit so you are using different recipes. Yet, still incorporating the family favorites. Those easy to fall back on meals that you have all you need in your pantry and freezer and refrigerator to pull it off in a hurry meal!

If you take the previous examples of utilizing your sales and coupons, then you can figure one to three proteins a week will cover your meals for the week. Because you know your own family, you decide what works with those proteins, how to use them and what to serve with them.

Meats in Season

Now go back to what I was discussing with the season for the hot dogs and ground beef. It’s the same with other meats. I know lobster tails will be on sale around Valentine’s Day. Steak too. March is corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day. We are very Irish and love our corned beef. I count on buying 6-8 corned beef during St. Patrick’s Day week. I used to wait until the day after or two days after for the sale price to drop even more. But the last couple years they nearly sold out so I bought them up while on sale but before they were gone.

Turkeys, Roasts, and Prime Rib are “steal of a deal” sales around the winter holidays. Steaks are hot buys for Father’s Day and the outdoor grilling holidays. Hams are the most popular for Easter. Now, if you are like me, I only cook a big holiday meal around the holidays or for a special event. Providing we are having a large family gathering, I don’t anticipate much for leftovers. Maybe a day or two.

Big Meals on Regular Days

But to cook one of these holiday proteins on a regular day for the family it’s a different story. One ham is two dinners, a pot of ham and beans, ham sandwiches, ham and cheese omelets, ham and potato soup, and everybody sneaking a piece of ham from the refrigerator type of meal. Clearly, one ham will last us the entire week, or longer. Therefore, I am wise to cook it up, then make a couple dishes with the leftovers I can freeze for another time.

Stick to the Money Saving Tips Planning

Finally, the last money saving tip is to stick to your plan and avoid binge spending. They go hand in hand. Because if you are spending outside of your plan, then it is spending on a whim, more than what you plan to spend; and it is a binge. Just like someone on a diet who has a four-ounce grilled salmon with a side of mixed green salad, lemon water and then asks for a large side of fries to go with it.

As I shared with you, I plan for how and when to invest in proteins throughout the year. Another money saving tips planning I use is to set aside a budget from my tax return that I use for purchasing bulk items. These are my dried storage housecleaning products, laundry and dishwashing detergents, hygiene products such as shampoos and deodorants. I have cats, so I buy cat litter. I purchase kitchen garbage bags, yard bags, paper towels, razors, sponges. You get the idea. I guesstimate each year how much I will use in the next 12 months. Some years I am a little short on some things, other years I realize I cut back on usage. When I find a cut back, then I reduce it for the next year – saving more money.

On Hand Items Leads to Less Binge Spending

Sure, the house gets a little cramped with every nook and cranny of storage filled with stocked items. However, I LOVE it when I run out of something and I don’t have to add it to the list. It’s here for immediate use. No extra trip to the store. You know each extra trip to the store leads to binge spending. I walk in for two things, three things with a planned budget of thirty bucks. Upon exiting the store, I have a cart full, I have spent close to one hundred dollars and have all this stuff that either sits and goes to waste or we eat and the planned meal goes to waste.

You can PLAN for extras here and there and then that is fine. But whatever you do, your best strategy to save money is to PLAN! With all these money saving tips planning and ideas, I hope you feel confident you have enough information to start your money saving today. And remember, there are ways to save money and MAKE MONEY too. Feel free to send me a personal email expressing your interest and I will respond and get you started! tljabski@gmail.com.

When Times are Tough; the Going is Rough

This 26 minute video has great tips for meal planning and budgeting all while keeping your family properly nourished. You won’t believe how much the average person can save simply by choosing to drink water over store-bought beverages. And be thinking of portion control! GREAT TIPS FOR THE SINGLE PARENT OR SINGLE INCOME FAMILY!