Saving Money in the Kitchen – 5 Things I Stopped Buying and 5 Things I Now Do Instead

It is commonly known that after housing costs that food, and groceries can be the largest part of a household budget. I’ve always been frugal, and love a great deal, and saving money whenever I can, but somehow over the years as my large family grew, my food budget got to the point where it could easily take up a third of my household income, or more.

When I reached my tipping point a few years ago, I noticed that while I didn’t have an income problem, I did have a problem with spending too much on food, and that needed to stop. It is not enough to have a debt free end game, I also need to focus on setting my children up for success, and build wealth while doing it. It is not enough to just retire well, but to live well every day.

I made 5 simple changes to my food budget that has saved me close to $3,000 a year.

What we Cut Out:

1. I cut out all eating out, with the exception of traveling to swap the kids for vacations, and special occasions. We used to eat out on average 1-2 times a week, once during the week, and/or once on the weekend. Cutting eating out from our budget was probably the biggest impact on our budget.
2. I also cut out purchasing food from the cafe, deli, coffee shop, or corner shop at work. I work at a hospital, and there are places tucked in all over the place to grab some quick food. It is so easy to grab a muffin and protein shake for breakfast, or run to the corner store and grab a slice of pizza for lunch, or go to the cafe for a salad. I was easily spending $5-10 a day on food, and it added up quickly!
3. I stopped buying any paper plates, bowls, or cups. Working all day, rushing home to quickly eat and run out the door for an evening of activities left little time for washing dishes. The house we are renting doesn’t have a dishwasher, and the endless dishes of a large family got old quickly. It seemed like a good trade-off at the time until I started thinking about the amount of trash that created, and how much it added to my groceries every week, it was a no brainer to give them up. 
4. I stopped filling my fridge with tons of fresh produce that I was trying to keep fresh for 1-2 weeks. Too many times I bought too much for our seldom home schedule. 
5. I stopped buying tons of extra drinks. We had juice, powdered drink mixes, soda, bottled water, and coffee k-cups, and they all got dropped from our food budget. With our large family, we can go through all of this quickly, and it sucks money from my food budget. 

What we do now:

1. Instead of eating out, we cook all of our meals at home. We do weekly meal prep, a few days a week I cook enough food to get us through the next 3-4 days, and supplement with sides.. While getting ready to head out the kids will pack a few snacks for a quick afternoon out, or pack a bag with enough food for lunch. The kids get a $5 bonus for every month we don’t eat out, and we save takeout for special occasions like birthdays, and my oldest requested pizza and wings as his graduation celebration dinner. 
2. I prep my food for the week on Sunday so I have food at work. I start my day around 4am, but aside from a few cups of coffee, and a quick snack, I don’t eat breakfast until after 9:30. I usually eat peanut butter-chocolate oatmeal bars, or a homemade oatmeal mix for breakfast. I prep 10-15 containers of oatmeal at a time, and grab it while packing for the morning. My homemade peanut butter bars are only good for about a week in the fridge, so I make those about once a week. On Sunday night I make lunch for the week. I cook a pound of pasta and divide it by 5 and top with different sauces, then toss in the freezer. In the morning, I toss in a cooler bag, it doesn’t need an ice pack and is defrosted by lunchtime.
3. I sucked it up, and started washing all of my dishes, and the huge decrease in my food budget just from that was a huge bonus, and worth every minute standing in front of the sink. At some point last year I learned of countertop dishwashers, and briefly mentioned it to my mom while she was visiting one day. She filed that moment away and last Christmas she gifted me with one. Now I am saving money, as well as time!
4. I cut down on the types, and amount of fresh produce I buy. I was buying tons of it for smoothies, snacks, and meals. A lot of time, I just bought too much while trying to fill the fridge between shopping trips. Now I buy a mix of fresh, and frozen produce. I buy things like fresh greens and veggies for salads, and seasonal fruit for snacks and salads. I have been buying a lot more frozen veggies, that are flash frozen, and just as tasty as fresh, but last longer in the freezer. I can quickly steam them, or crisp them in the air fryer. My favorite change here is the frozen fruit that we started buying. Aldi has the best deals on huge bags of different blends of frozen fruit and they are great for smoothies, homemade sorbet, ice cream toppings, homemade compote to top waffles or french toast. We still have tons of produce, but half of it will now last twice as long!
5. So we still buy milks, tea bags, and now I buy ground coffee. I bought a coffee pot that also dispenses hot water for tea. Occasionally we will get juice or soda as a treat of special occasion, and it is usually gone within 24 hours. We have well water that is heavy in minerals, especially sulfur and iron, so we don’t drink our water. Sometimes we buy gallon jugs of water, but for the most part we go down to the transfer station in town and can fill jugs of water for free. 

So those are a few easy peasy things I did that had a huge impact on my budget overall, and has helped me get closer to becoming debt free. Do you do any of these to help cut your food costs? Is there anything else you do to help save money? I would love to hear what you do?