Strategies To Stretch Your Food Dollar

Three of the most important things I learned from my years in the restaurant business were 1) never throw food anything away that could be used in another recipe, 2) do not buy prepackaged foods, rather make everything you can from scratch, and 3) learn how to figure food costs and work within a budget.

So what does this all mean? Well, for example, anytime we butchered or broke down an animal or seafood carcasses (chicken, duck, pork or beef) the bones were kept to make stocks, demi-glase (a concentrated rich stock), and consomme' (a clear rich broth based soup) from scratch. The ends and pieces of carrots, onion and celery were roasted with the bones to enhance the flavor of the stock. Don't get me wrong, we did throw away food, rather the principle was that no food should be wasted. As for prepackaged foods, they generally cost more to purchase and as you have no direct control over their preparation, you cannot always guarantee their freshness or quality. In the classical French tradition (in which I was trained) this meant that in most cases making your own sauces and seasoning's was a better option. And finally, it dose not matter if you prepare and serve the best food in the world, if you cannot control your food costs, you will not stay in business for very long.

All of these principles are just as valid for the home maker as the are for the restaurateur. Most of us have a limited number of food dollars to spend each month, and being able to maximize those dollars may mean the difference for eating regular healthy meals or going hungry.

Most of the focus of this blog has been about how to save money by making meals from your family from scratch or with limited prepackaged ingredients. Why? Simply because you can prepare more food cheaper by doing it yourself. Believe it or not, most of the time preparing foods from scratch takes about the same amount of time as using prepackaged foods and mixes, but the cost savings can be anywhere from 50 to 70%. That's like getting a 50% raise in your salary, and who would not like that?

Other than growing your own vegetables, five of the most common strategies you can implement to help stretch your food dollars and make better, more nutritious meals for you and your family include: 1) Creating a food budget, 2) Creating a menu plan, 3) using coupons, 4) competitive price shopping (Using Competitors Ads), and 5) not buying or limiting prepackaged foods.

Creating a Food Budget

Actually of all the strategies listed in this article, creating a budget is probably the simplest to do. However, following your food budget takes discipline, especially when you are tired, the kids are cranky and you just do not want cook. Now there are several ways to figure out how much money you will need for your food budget. For me and my wife it was simply trial and error however $30 to $50 per person per week should be sufficient to feed everyone. For a family of four that is $120 to $200 for food per week, that's $480 to $800 per month.

If you have a limited income or are working for minimum wage, you will definitely need to to use the lower number. This means that your food budget should include all of your food dollars. That includes meals eaten out at restaurants. Now the average family of four will spend about $6 per person on average or $24 on one visit to McDonald's. The lesson here is eating out will rapidly destroy your food budget. Every two weeks when I get paid, we set aside $200 ($50 per week per person per week) in a regular white envelope and when we shop we take the envelope with us. If we use up all the money we have, we stop buying groceries. Any money we may have left over stays in the envelope for the next time we go shopping. I will not lie you, sticking to a food budget takes discipline, but if you can do this you will find that you start to make more informed food choices.

Creating a Menu Plan

Another strategy you can employ that will actually help you with your food budget is to sit down and make a menu plan for the week. By planning your meals, you will know exactly how much and what type of food you need to purchase to feed your family. A menu plan, keeps you from buying unnecessary items and allows you to stretch a food product (chicken, hamburger meat etc...) over several meals during the week. This is especially important when you are on a limited income. Buying a 3lb package of hamburger to use for spaghetti one night, tacos the next, and a soup or casserole dish a third is far cheaper than buying three individual 1lb packages. 

The bottom line is that a meal plan helps you maximize purchases and minimize waste which saves you money. I admit that since we built up a pretty extensive pantry over the last few years, I do not do this on a regular basis anymore, but if you are just starting out, it really helps. Do not forget to get the kids and your spouse involved, choosing meals they will all enjoy will help you to be more successful with your meal plan.

Using Coupons

Using coupons to increase the buying power of your food dollars can be an extremely effective strategy. I am not talking about 'extreme couponing' like you may have seen on television. In this instance I am talking about using coupons to help reduce the cost of items on your shopping list. Using coupons to purchase food that you do not need is a waste of your hard earned money. Having said that, if you have additional left over money in your budget and the item(s) are something that you can use later, then purchasing these items may be a good idea. But keep in mind, just because you have a coupon does not mean you have to purchase something.

Competitive Price Shopping (Comp Ads)

I have had several emails from people asking why I mention Walmart so often in my articles. Two reasons really, in rural East Texas where I live, we have a Walmart and a Brookshires that's it. The one thing that Walmart does that really helps to stretch our food dollar is accept competitors ads. In plain English, they price match. So every grocery store in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area that has a weekly grocery ad is accepted at my local Walmart in Canton, Tx. 

Now, we could look on-line at each of the grocery store websites and print out their ads, but that costs way to much money in paper, and ink and takes way to much time. What we do is pay $4.00 (out of our food budget) to purchase all of the grocery store ads from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area from a lady at a local beauty salon. We have been doing this for some time, and we always save more money that the $4.00 we spends on ads. Here are just some of the items we bought last week at our local Walmart; 3Lbs white onion $1.00 (regular price $3.49) a 71% savings, ground beef 73/27 1.99 per pound (regular price $3.98lb), a 50% savings, bananas 39c cents per pound (regular price 89 cent per pound), a 56% savings. I think you get the picture, using comp ads is one of the best ways to stretch your food dollar, and the one strategy we use the most.

Avoiding Prepackaged Foods

if you have been reading my blog, then you know that I am a firm believer in making all your own seasoning mixes and replacing prepackaged foods with your own homemade recipes. Ounce for ounce, prepackaged foods cost you more money than just about anything you can buy. If you do not believe me just take a look at beef jerky. Jack Link's Original Beef Jerky is $6.48 for 6 1.2 ounce packages, that's 92 cents per ounce or $14.72 per pound. Heck even fillet mignon or T-Bone steak does not cost $14.72 per pound. In fact, I have purchased 8 to 10lb briskets for cheaper and you can make a whole lot of jerky from an 8 to 10lb brisket.

Buying prepackaged foods when you can make you own is like throwing your hard earned money out the window. Having said that, there are times when you can get prepackaged items on sale for cheaper than you can make them. This is especially true when using comp ads. My point is shop smart, if you can get the prepackaged items cheap enough then go for it, just make sure you have room for it in the food budget.

Conclusion

Personally my wife and I have used and or still use most of these strategies to help stretch our food dollars. Establishing a food budget is the first thing that you should do, once you have you budget laid out, start on menu planning. Any money you have left over after doing your shopping should go to purchasing staples (rice, dried bean, flour, sugar) for your pantry. Having a pantry stocked with non-perishable items allows you to make more recipes from scratch allowing you to stretch your food dollar even more, especially if you can buy them when they are one sale.

The one thing I have not listed here that we do everyday is grow a vegetable garden and raise our own chickens and meat rabbits. Not everyone has the ability to do this, but if you do, supplementing your food budget with fresh vegetables can be a tremendous way to help feed your family healthy nutritious food. If you want to learn more about vegetable gardening, check out my good friend Steve Coyne's blog 'I Grow Vegetables.' at the link on the sidebar or click on the link below. Retired from the USDA Steve has first hand knowledge on what it takes to have a successful, sustainable vegetable garden.

As always, I hope that you have found this article informative and beneficial for you and your family, if so please take the time to share it with your friends so that they can benefit as well.

Steve Coyne's Vegetable Blog 'I Grow Vegetables' www.igrowvegetables.blogspot.com

Additional Resources On our Blog

Spices: Save Up To 80% By Shopping At Your Local Ethnic Supermarket http://culinaryyou.blogspot.com/search/label/Spices