Cook With What You Have

With the recession that seemed to last forever, families have been negatively affected and are looking for ways to keep their budget together. How can we stick to our budget when there are so many monthly expenses that cannot be cut. Where can you cut? First, you need to figure out where the money is spent every month? Car payments, daycare, mortgage? Can you cut any of these? Probably not. How about groceries? That seems reasonable because there are so many ways to save with groceries. You can use coupons, recipes that require fewer ingredients, recipes that have ingredients you already have at home, which is basically trying to cook with what you have. Let’s see what this is all about.

It sounds so easy to “Cook With What You Have”. It actually is easy, but how do you do it and where do you start? You should start by understanding your monthly grocery budget. You don’t need to know the details, a general understanding of what you spend and where you spend it is enough. The average family spends $500 per month on groceries. Some families spend much more, so there is a lot of room to save. Before we begin, let’s take a look at other ways to cut down on your grocery budget.

Do coupons really help you save at the grocery store? Absolutely! They are an easy way to save on your favorite grocery store items. Follow these coupon tips for using grocery store coupons: a) do they have special store coupons; b) once you know your stores’ rules, you can combine them to pay the lowest possible prices for your items, such as using two coupons with a “buy one, get one free” deal; and c) go online-grocery stores often have their best deals and printable coupons on their websites.

One way to save money on things other than groceries is a credit card with specific rewards. What is an example of this type of credit card? Target offers a great credit card that gives you 5% back on all purchases, all the time. It’s a really great deal and it offers you free shipping on all online purchases. Amazon offers their credit card, which gives you 3% back and a $40 gift card. Costco’s card may be the most famous. You get 3-4% back on gas and 3% back on all Costco purchases.

Lastly, it helps if you can find a recipe website that has a filter based on the number of ingredients. Also, there are a lot of websites out there that have a recipe search function that is based on the ingredients you type into the search. These are a great way to use up all of your groceries and to find recipes based on the ingredients you already have at home.

Want to salvage money on your monthly expense? Try to Cook With What You Have and you will have a nice savings by the end of the month.