Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget: Eat Less Food

"Eat less food?? But I love food!" This was my reaction about two years ago when I was looking at eating healthier, not looking at saving money. I read in a few different places about how Americans eat more than recommended portion sizes but don't realize it because no one actually knows what a portion size is. So I was seeing that a good place to start when you want to eat better, is to actually just eat less food. So for Christmas or my birthday that year (they're both in December so it's hard to keep gifts straight), I asked for a kitchen scale. My wonderful husband got one for me and I started measuring out portion sizes. Ok, you guys, I really had no idea what portion sizes were! I measured out pasta and realized we'd been eating like a double portion size, probably 4 ounces per person instead of 2. Oh and one whole chicken breast is actually supposed to be two servings of chicken?

So we were feeling pretty good health wise having cut our huge servings down. It didn't take long for me to figure out that this would help us out financially too. When you eat 4 ounces of chicken as one serving instead of 8, you're cutting the cost of your chicken in half. Basically it's 50 cents per serving instead of $1 per serving. When we first started doing this we were eating chicken breasts about twice a week, so cutting our portion sizes down took us from about $400 a year ($2 per pound at eating 4 pounds per week), to about $200 a year ($2 per pound at eating 2 pounds per week) on chicken. It doesn't seem like much over the course of a year, but it's still a difference of about $16 per month, just by eating an actual portion size, not gorging ourselves at every meal. Of course, that $16/month was just the difference in chicken. When you factor in that we ate pork chops a couple of times a month and saw a drop in price there as well, a small change due to cut backs on pasta servings, it all starts to add up.

 Another cut back we made as part of our trying to eat healthier, was on snacks. I am all about the salty snacks, no amount of fruits or veggies can be as satisfying to me as crackers, tortilla chips or pretzels. But we were dedicated to our New Year's resolutions and so we cut the snacky snacks and subbed in carrots, apples, string cheese, etc. Funny thing was I actually just stopped snacking because I don't ever crave carrots or apples and since we didn't have anything else, I just went without. So yay! for my waistline but again, another surprise benefit was to our wallet. It never feels like crackers and the like are very expensive, but it always adds up.

Each week you buy a box of crackers at $2.50 a box and a bag of pretzels for $1. $3.50 a week, that's nothing!  But over the course of the month that's $14ish, and over the course of a year, it's $182! If you still need snacks, some of those savings will be cut down because you'll be buying other things. But, a bag of carrots at $1 for two pounds (if you peel and cut them yourselves) could easily be snacked on by two people for a week. That still saves you $2.50 a week.

It's crazy how much Americans eat without even realizing it. When you first start cutting back on food, you won't be used to it and might feel hungry still, but your body will adjust and you'll feel better! We felt much healthier anyway. And just by eating less, you could save hundreds of dollars a year. 

Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget: Breakfast

I grew up almost always eating cereal for breakfast. My mom was pretty strict about sugar when we were growing up, so it was Cheerios or Corn Flakes or Shredded Wheat, but it was easy, relatively filling and something that we could get for ourselves. When Greg and I first got married, cereal was our staple breakfast. Occasionally we'd have bread for toast and the weekends was usually pancakes or waffles or the like. It didn't take that long for us to realize how expensive cereal actually is for breakfast compared to toast, oatmeal or eggs.

We've started making our own bread now that costs about 40 cents a loaf to make. A loaf of bread lasts us about a week and we usually have eggs with our toast so it's more filling and satisfying. We try and stock up on eggs when they're 99 cents for a dozen which ends up being about 12 cents an egg. If we have toast and eggs every morning, it costs less than $2 to feed us both every week.

Let's say a 21 ounce box of Cheerios has 21 cups of cereal in it (general internet consensus is that 1 oz=1 cup) and costs $3.64 for the box. That's about 17 cents per cup of cereal. To feel as full as I am after toast and eggs, I need at least a cup and a half of cereal. That's a little more than 25 cents a serving, not including the cost of the milk used, but I won't get that picky. So we'll go with 25 cents a serving. For two of us to eat that every morning, it would cost $3.50 a week. Over the course of a year, that ends up being a difference of $78 and we're not even factoring in the cost of milk used for the cereal.

Even if you don't want to make eggs every morning, you could have yogurt or milk to get some protein and it would still be cheaper than cereal. Other cheap breakfast ideas include oatmeal, smoothies (buy fresh fruit in season in bulk and freeze, or buy frozen fruit from Costco, and add spinach or kale to get a serving of veggies), pancakes or waffles made from scratch or a mix, or eggs and hash browns.

Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget: Know the Price of Food & Meal Plan

If you want to save money on food, the best thing you can do to cut costs, is to know what food should cost. If you're looking through your grocery ads and you see chicken breasts in there at $2.99 a pound you may think that's a good price since it's in the ad. But, once you start paying attention to the ads, you'll realize that chicken breasts will pretty regularly go on sale for $1.99 a pound or even cheaper once in a while. If you buy 6 pounds of chicken in one go to last you for the month, right there you could save $6 by waiting to buy it when it goes on sale.

Start looking through those grocery ads that come in the mail. Or go online and check the ad for your grocery store each week if you don't get it in the mail. Specifically pay attention to the costs of meat, seafood and dairy. After a few months, you'll start noticing what the good and great prices on certain items are. That's when you should be stocking up on those things. Meat and seafood freeze really well so if ground turkey is on sale for $2.99 a package, which is a good price, buy 3 or 4 packages to last you a month or two. After a year or so of doing this, I decided that aside from seafood or the occasional steak (like once or twice a year), I wasn't going to spend more than $2.99/pound for meat. Pork chops and roasts and beef roasts are usually more than that per pound, so I really only buy those things when they're at or under $2.99/pound. While meat, seafood and dairy are generally the most expensive things you buy, it's also good to know good prices on pasta, canned tuna, produce, etc. Like one of my fast go to meals is baked beans, so when canned baked beans go on sale, I buy 2 or 3 cans so I hopefully won't have to pay full price for them.

Once you know what the good prices are, you can start meal planning based on what is on sale that week. Meal planning is another great way to save money. If you have something planned for dinner every night and everything on hand to make it, you'll be much less likely to eat out. When you look at the ads each week, check what is on sale and base your meals around what's on sale. If drumsticks are on sale for 79 cents a pound plan one or maybe two meals that week using drumsticks. While you're at the store, pick up an extra package of drumsticks to keep in the freezer to use in the future. If you see a good price on shredded mozzarella, plan to do pizza one night. There are lots of different tips out there for meal planning. After a few years of trying some different things, I found my favourite way to meal plan that works best for me.

I set each day of the week as a certain protein and plan a meal for that.
Sunday: beef or pork
Monday: meatless
Tuesday: ground turkey or sausage
Wednesday: seafood
Thursday: chicken
Friday: easy (canned beans, etc.)
Saturday: sandwiches, quesadillas, other easy meals

Once a week I sit down to do my meal planning for the following week. Using the above format I can check what's in my freezer and what's on sale. If pork chops or a beef roast is on sale that week that's the first thing I plan for the week. If neither are on sale I go to my freezer. When I first started doing this I didn't always have something in my freezer, so I'd do another chicken meal to cover that week because chicken is much more affordable than the other proteins so it's always something I have always had in my freezer. From there I can plan the rest of my meals for the week.

I got the free background for this meal plan from Photo by Lukas from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/board-bunch-cooking-food-349609/

Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget

After a discussion was opened on social media by a friend about food spending, I realized a lot of people like Greg and me, couples with no kids, spend a lot more on groceries than we do, like $100 or more a month. And that doesn't even count the costs spent on eating out. After seeing this discussion, I was curious about national averages. I found this breakdown from the USDA about food costs. Including all our food costs, even eating out, we are about $80 under the low-cost average for a family like us. Looking just at grocery costs, our average monthly grocery cost is about $90 less than the thrifty plan on the breakdown. Obviously, every person's situation is different and not everyone has the time or desire to make things from scratch to save money, but if you want to see about saving a little bit of money on food without couponing, I thought I'd share some of the things we do to keep our food costs down. I'm no accountant or chef and I don't claim to be an expert on budgets, but given that we eat our fruits and veggies, meat and even seafood a few times a month, and spend much less than the national average, I thought I'd share the things we do to keep costs down.

Roasted Red Pepper Feta Pasta

Greg and I have been sick off and on, but mostly on, since early September. We're coming up on our trip to London soon and I was desperate to get feeling better. I've made a similar pasta sauce to this one before, but this has been my favourite version of it. It has roasted red peppers for vitamin C, oregano for some antibacterial action, and garlic and pepper to help clear out sinuses hopefully.

Ingredients:
6 oz pasta
1 T olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1 large roasted red pepper, patted dry and finely minced
3/4 c cream
2 oz crumbled feta
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp dried oregano or more to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile heat oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add garlic and peppers and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Slowly pour in the cream. Add feta and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and let cook for about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt, pepper and oregano. Add drained pasta and toss to combine.

Candied Ginger Apple Pie

In September, I made a candied ginger cheesecake and I kind of became obsessed with candied ginger after that. It was sooo good in the cheesecake and I had more candied ginger left from the cheesecake so my mind started racing with the possibilities of what else I could use the ginger in. With my husband's birthday in October and his love of apple pie, I thought I'd try adding the candied ginger to my normal apple pie recipe that comes from my mom's apple crisp recipe. It turned out so well that I made the same pie for Thanksgiving too.

Ingredients:
Pastry for double crust pie
6 cooking apples (I usually use straight Granny Smith, or 4 Granny Smith and 2 McIntosh)
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 T finely chopped candied ginger
1 tsp lemon juice
2 T flour
1 T cream
Turbinado sugar

Lower oven rack to the lower middle position in the oven and preheat to 425. Put a baking rack to warm up in the oven.
Meanwhile, peel, core and thinly slice apples. Add to a large bowl and add sugar, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, lemon juice and flour. Toss everything together to mix well. Either roll out your homemade pie crust and put in pie plate or place store bought crust in pie plate and leave about an inch of overhang. Carefully pour the apples and all their juices into the pie plate. Cover with top pastry crust. Crimp edges and cut vents in the top of the pie. Brush all over with cream and sprinkle Turbinado sugar over top.
Pull out the preheated baking sheet and carefully place the pie plate on the baking sheet. Put the pie on the sheet into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350 and bake for about 1 hour, until crust is browned nicely. Let cool completely before serving.

Pie from Greg's birthday

Pie from Thanksgiving