Cooking with inexpensive ingredients means that your meals will automatically cost you less, reducing your food budget even before you use coupons. There are a lot of easy healthy foods that don’t cost much money to prepare into full, satisfying dishes, and you don’t have to worry about eating beans every night (although beans should be on the list somewhere since they do provide good nutrients for the cost and can be a replacement for more expensive meat meals).
Simple changes are really all that you need to do in order to choose to cook cheaply. For example, choose hot cereal over cold. Oats are much less expensive than cold cereal is. Definitely put oatmeal on the list. Avoid the prepackaged instant oatmeal. You can make it yourself for a fraction of the cost.
Seasonal produce is always less expensive than produce that is out of season. Cook with items that are readily available. Broccoli and tomatoes are usually good deals any time of the year.
Basic ingredients are less expensive than are prepared foods and mixes. Pancakes made from scratch require only a couple of extra steps but will save you at least 50 percent of the cost of buying pancake mix. The same goes for canned soup (cream soups are easy to make), spice mixes, baked goods and even bread.
When it comes to meat, chicken is generally cheaper than beef. You can get the cheapest price when you either buy it whole or choose less popular cuts, such as legs and thighs instead of breasts.
Ingredients that are in the least convenient form is often the cheapest (can you see a pattern here?). Since we eat a lot of cheese, I save money by buying it in blocks and then slicing or shredding what I need for each recipe.
Past is pretty cheap, although I’ve noticed some grocery shrinkage and price increases even on this. I am for no more than $1 for a 16 ounce box. Add those tomatoes or broccoli, and other inexpensive ingredients, such as garlic and herbs, and perhaps a small amount of that chicken, and you have a good low cost meal.
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