How to Save Money While Serving Delicious Meals

BY JENNIFER CHRISTINE

Would you like to discover the art of menu planning?

These days, saving money seems more important than ever. And just about everyone can save money on groceries if they know how. One of the easiest ways to save money in the kitchen is by menu planning.

What exactly is menu planning? It’s writing a list of the meals you want to serve for the next few days, the next week or even longer. Then you check your pantry to see how many of the ingredients you already have and write a shopping list for the ingredients you need to buy.

This way you know what you’re going to have for dinner every night so there won’t be any more mad dashes to the nearest fast food place for something to serve up to your family. And you’ll also save money by not buying any take out.

But there’s an even better way to menu plan. Instead of just looking through magazines or cook books to find recipes that will appeal to your family and then going to the supermarket and buying the ingredients (some of which may be expensive), take a good look at your local supermarket flyers instead.

Mark the food items on sale that appeal to you, for example fresh meat, fruits and vegetables.

Now, think of any meals that you like to serve that contain those ingredients and write them down.

Next, look through your pantry and write down any ingredients that may be useful, such as canned tomatoes.

If you don’t have enough meal ideas written down after doing that, then you can look through magazines, cookbooks or even online for meals that contain ingredients that you already have or that are on sale.

Menu planning this way should save you more money than if you just made whatever meals you felt like making, regardless of the cost per serve.

And you have the added bonus of knowing exactly what you’re serving up to your family.