by Joyce Good Henderson

Created on: July 07, 2009   Last Updated: July 09, 2009

Benjamin Franklin may have foreseen our record unemployment and recession when he wrote, "watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." He certainly would have advocated the use of a budget for fiscal planning and managing household expenses. Planning meals on a budget watches the pennies.

For most families, the grocery bill is the largest flexible area of the budget. It is often the easiest area to control and cut back. You can economize on your food budget without sacrificing the quality of meals. Sixty percent of every grocery dollar is spent on milk, meat and dessert. Nutritionists report that the American diet is too high in both protein and calories. Basically, most of us don't need to eat/drink as much milk, meat and desserts as we currently consume.

While milk is a highly nutritious beverage, packed with protein, iron and calcium, and fortified with vitamins, there are many people who cannot tolerate it, and many more who drink too much. Whole milk, with its high fat content, has been implicated in coronary artery disease. Only very young children should drink whole milk or even 2% milk.

You can cut your milk budget by replacing milk with non-fat, dry milk in cooking where the flavor is less noticeable. Many families extend their milk, without sacrificing taste, by combining reconstituted powdered milk with a gallon of milk in a 50-50 mixture. Also in the dairy department, ice milk and frozen yogurt are often less expensive than ice cream, and lower in fat as well.

You can trim your meat budget by purchasing cheaper cuts, taking advantage of specials, and extending smaller amounts of meat by combining them with pasta, rice, tomato sauce and casseroles. Herbs and spices can also help flavor a less-expensive cut. Beef heart, for example is usually inexpensive. Ask the butcher to grind it and combine it with low-fat ground beef or chopped sirloin for a nutritious meat loaf. Liver, while not most people's favorite, can also be combined with hamburger to disguise the texture and taste.

Be your own butcher and save even more. Whole chicken is less expensive than the pre-cut pieces. Buy a whole chicken, cut it yourself. You can always freeze the pieces you don't want to use immediately. Better yet, cook them and freeze them to save time and energy on the later meal. When we faced not having a kitchen for several weeks during a recent remodel, I had a freezer full of pre-cooked meats. I thawed them and served them

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