Money Saving Tips for the Kitchen

If you are anything like me, you are a frugal grocery shopper.

I am not a coupon-er because I cannot purchase healthy, wholesome, nutritious food with coupons (If only there were coupons for that!).

That means I must shop around and buy in bulk.

I'm going to share with you some of my most helpful tips for saving money in the kitchen. It really just gets down to thinking about how I could save money on something I would normally waste or possibly buy the easier version of.

1) One of the most cost saving things I can think to do is PLAN AHEAD. If you are making dinner on a whim, chances are, you won't buy what is most cost effective, things will go bad before you use them, and you will buy with convenience as your motivator. I used to just plan out my meals for about 5-7 days at a time and didn't assign food to a day. I would just write down the options and then each night pick something to cook. Now, I try to plan for the month or at least per pay period when I will be grocery shopping and assign days for what I am cooking.

I keep it taped inside my cabinet so  all I have to do is open it up to see or rearrange it.

That way, if I buy salad, my menu has it being used before it goes bad instead of every night just picking something off my list to cook and my salad not getting used. It also means I get up and see what is for dinner and pull that meat out to thaw/prepare anything that needs to be prepared ahead of time. So for today, that meant pulling out the frozen spinach to start thawing for my quiche and the frozen banana bread I made in bulk because I knew we would be having it this week and I made some for Mother's Day as well.

This has saved us so much money in the kitchen! I simply rearrange the food and we always have left overs now. We rarely waste anything. I highly recommend doing this. I just sit down with either Pinterest or my recipe folder and write down things so that we vary chicken and turkey meat and tastes. So Mexican or Italian wouldn't be two nights in a row.

2) Don't be brand picky or store picky. I shop around. The most frequent places I shop are Costco, Vitacost (follow this link to save $10 on your first purchase of $30 or more), Walmart, Aldi, Zaycon, and Publix. I shop online for 2 of those- Zaycon and Vitacost and save lots from doing this. I pretty much know what costs what where. I know what I'm going to buy at Costco, Aldi, Walmart, and Publix. I know when I need them and I shop accordingly. Aldi is where we get Almond milk, turkey meat, toothbrushes, can foods, organic apples, other produce, shredded cheese, etc. Costco is where we buy wipes, pull-ups, sugar, almonds, tortilla chips, salsa, coconut oil, liquid honey, pb, chocolate chips, salad, salad dressing, etc. Walmart is where I buy the things I can't get at the other places and Publix is where there are good sales and pizza dough on unhealthy pizza night. Vitacost is my herbs, protein powder, organic shower gel, un-translucent honey, oils, etc. Zaycon is where I buy my chicken now!

3) Buy your meat from Zaycon. Yes, you MUST buy in bulk, but you save a lot of money in the long run for high quality meats. We purchased 120lbs of chicken recently and it is all hormone free and antibiotic free and costs only $1.79lb. That is $0.20 cheaper a pound than Walmart's nasty chicken stuffed with antibiotics and shot up with hormones. Zaycon will do a food event in your area roughly twice a year (with a certain meat). So, you need to buy to last your family around 6 mnts. I honestly don't know if 120lbs of chicken was enough for us for that long. I cook, on average, 4 chicken breast per meal or 2 for things like soups, stews, etc. We shall see. The meat is plump, white, and gorgeous. Seriously. I could kiss it is so scrumptious looking. It also tastes amazing. This is coming from 2 folks who were skeptical about purchasing from a company like this. We had never done something like this and we were doubtful. When the meat comes, it is all bulked together in 40lbs boxes. So you must be ready with LOTS of freezer bags and scissors (and space!). I didn't trim my meat the night of because it was getting late and I just wanted to get the boxes emptied. But, you could do that to save yourself some major time in the long run. Then, you plop your 6 months worth of chicken in the freezer. I separated it into 4 breasts per bag because that is how I could it most of the time. Some of the breasts were DD (or so it appeared) and so with those, I would put 2 in a bag and place in another freezer. Those are the ones I use for soups and stews or if we have company over and just need an extra 2 breasts or whatnot.

*Don't judge me on my messy utility room! It is literally our storage room ;-)

Our main fridge freezer (Side note-- both of our fridge/freezers are missing the handles. We lost this one during the move and the white ones broke. It always makes me laugh when company is over and is like, "Ummmm. How do I open this?" It is also childproofed! We need to order some more.

Our spare fridge freezer in our utility room. We hang lots of our homeschool art on here and I use this for the packages of breasts that only have 2 in them. I also rotate food here. I put newer food in here when I grocery shop and take what is in here and put it in the black one. That way, the older stuff gets used up first.

This is our chest freezer. It houses the packages of 4 breasts. 

We've already used a good bit too!

We have an order of Keilbasa sausage coming on Friday and we are wanting to order some bacon and then ground beef when they offer that again.

We also shop at Costco and buy things like coconut oil, spices, organic sugar, dried cranberries, almonds, soaps, toiletries, etc. there. It costs more up front, but saves in the long run.

4) Preserve your produce that you aren't going to use immediately. For me, that means freezing most of the time or using immediately. I buy lots of frozen fruits from Costco to use in our smoothies so they don't go bad before they get used. That saves us a lot of money! This morning, I preserved some fresh spinach and I'll preserve kale this afternoon. You just need a blender and water. Fill up the blender 2/3 of the way full with spinach or kale and then then add 1/2 cup of water per cup of veggies. Blend until smooth and then pour into muffin pans to fill up 3/4 of the way full. Then you freeze for 3 hours, take out the spinach cup and freeze in baggies. Then, when you are making smoothie or protein shake, you have fresh spinach or kale that isn't bad and it will save you lots of money (if you are anything like us!).

5) Find ways to not waste or spend so much on a product. One of the ways I have done this is with canned beans and tomato paste. Both very affordable, but if I can save money there, why not? Tomato paste is the 8oz can that goes in recipes generally asking for 1 Tbsp. So you get that 1 Tbsp and chunk the rest of the can, right? Well, I decided, how wasteful is that! After getting what I need for my recipe, I now measure out 1 Tbsp and place that in a small piece of seran wrap. Then, once the can is empty, I put each little wrapped up 1 Tbsp of tomato paste in the door of my freezer and wa-la! There is my 1 Tbsp needed for my recipes and I don't need to buy it/waste it for quite a while.

Dried beans are so much cheaper than canned beans also. I decided to start cooking my dried beans (that need much longer to cook than canned beans) and then freezing them and having them ready to go (except for needing to be thawed) when I need them. I write on the bag what they are and possibly what they can be used for.

6) If you are wanting to save money in order to start shopping more healthy, cut out the junk you shouldn't be eating or drinking anyways. That stuff adds up quickly and if it is in the house, most likely you will eat it. Cut back on that stuff so you have more money to spend on produce and wholesome, nutritious food for yourself and your family!

What ways do you save money in the kitchen? I would love to know! Please leave a comment and share.