My frugal identity definitely has had an impact on how I cook, plan meals and try to stretch the dollar. I know that some of my strategies might be trivial but over weeks which turn into month, Pennie’s really do add up. I grew up with my parents heavily emphasizing and bringing home the fact that “we can eat at home- it’s healthier and cleaner both in how it’s prepared and the nutrition quality”
One of the perhaps quirkiest and happy memories I have from my childhood is when we would pick up deli meats, fresh bread and donuts from a polish store. On the way home in the car, my mom would make open faced sandwiches with the deli meat on her lap and pass them to me and my sister. Yes there wasn’t any butter or margarine but it didn’t matter! lol they were tasty as is. Although not a meal prepared at home it still saved money as sandwiches were cheaper than a restaurant or takeout place.
So how do you cook at home all the time(most of time)?
Preflight preperation- this sounds like a weird way to talk about cooking at home, but what this means is making sure there are groceries in the fridge for at least 4-5 days if you are trying to challenge yourself. Also incorporating any special outings in your weekly shopping list. For example, if you are going to be really late on Tuesday, and Friday; then think about 2 meals worth of ingredients that are really easy to put together. Alternatively, you could cook 2 meals on Monday, so you have something in the fridge on Tuesday, the night you’re coming home late.
For Friday, it could be a preplaned takeout night ( yes this sounds counterintuitive, but you could limit yourself to takeout once per week- which we’ve done and mostly stuck to it lol)
On the fly preparation
This is simply taking a snack with you before you leave the house no matter what you are doing. Hunger hits most of us, regardless if we ate before we left the house. I take 2 🍎 with me when I go to the park with my son and we are only gone max of 2 hours.This part is tricky because you have to have things on hand you could grab.This week I feel like rice krispes squares so I might make that to take with me as a snack. I mostly rely on granola bars, apple cakes or fruits as on the fly, to avoid spending money on food once I get to the place I’m going.
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Keep doing a great job on saving!
