by Laurie Childree

Created on: September 01, 2010

There is a need to budget every expense that you have including the food that you eat. There are times when the food budget will go up and down because of other expenses making it difficult to set a specific budget. There are some tips for your food buying budget that will make it easier on you no matter how tight the budgeted amount may be.

Only Buy What You Use

When it comes to buying food we have a tendency to go to the store hungry and pick up everything that we see. When you start to pick something up you should ask yourself if you’ll actually eat it. While that $2 salad mix might look good if you don’t eat salad that’s money wasted. There are times when things are bought in sizes that are much too large; these bulk sizes cost more to begin with than smaller options of the same thing.

Avoid Frozen Meals

While the ready made breakfast bowls and five minute dinner entrees look good for those busy days they can drastically hurt the food budget. When you buy these to avoid cooking you’ll need to buy at least one per person per meal. If you have three people in the home eating three times a day that’s nine frozen meals. These meals can easily cost $5 to $10 each which has you spending anywhere from $45 to $50 per day to feed the family. At the end of the month that comes to $1350 to $1500 for feeding your family; you could have gone out every day for that.

Know What You Have and Plan

When you take the time to find out what you already have then you can take a few minutes to plan meals around that. For instance if you have a few bags of chicken, some potatoes, rice and a few vegetables you can use that as a base for some meals. The chicken can be cooked with the rice or the potatoes or even the vegetables. Just how many meals does that make? You can use the rice with pork or chicken neck bones for a simple meal and both varieties are rather cheap. If you have a pack of spaghetti and some seasonings you can buy a can of tomato paste and make your own sauce.The less you have to buy the easier to budget for food even when money is tight.

Budgeting for buying food doesn’t have to be stressful. It can be rather easy when you take the time to plan ahead and only purchase the items and sizes that you’ll use.

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