Whether you’ve just started cooking at home and learning new recipes or are a seasoned meal prep veteran, you’ve probably thought about ways to be a little more frugal with your shopping so you can squeeze out a bit more value from your purchases. Cooking is one of those things that is already a great money saver since it means you’re not buying takeout food and ready meals. That’s great and all, but that doesn’t mean you can’t slip into bad habits such as always buying expensive ingredients or wasting food because you’re not cooking all of it.
So to help you save even more money, here are a few ways to make cooking at home even more economical than it already is.
Bulk buying is the key, but there are more things you could buy than you’d think
When it comes to saving money on shopping, we all know that buying in bulk is an important part of what makes cooking at home cheaper. You can buy loads of fruit, vegetables, and meat, then just store them in your freezer. This is a very basic level of making cooking more economical, but did you know that there are plenty of other things to buy in bulk that you might want to consider?
A good example of this is buying spices in bulk. Spices aren’t used for everything, but they can serve as a fantastic base for different sauces that you would normally buy in packet or jar form. For example, curry mixes and cubes are fairly expensive but people usually buy them since it’s a hassle to make your own from scratch. However, if you’re willing to make it yourself, then it’ll not only taste better but you’ll even save money. Buying spices in bulk means that you have plenty of ingredients to work with and it allows you to adjust the flavors so that you get something that is perfect for your tastes.
Be more accurate with your meal prep measurements
Meal prep not only helps you save time when cooking meals, but it can also help you save a lot of money since it’s focused on buying in bulk. However, meal prep beginners can often be incredibly wasteful because they’re not measuring out just how much they need to buy and how much they need to serve. For example, if you only really cook on the weekends then you should know exactly how much protein and meat you’ll be cooking else it could go bad. If you leave any uncooked fresh chicken in your fridge, then it can start to go bad very quickly. The same applies to vegetables that will easily wilt if you’re not storing them properly or eventually cooking with them.
In short, if you want to be even more economical then you need to remember not to waste anything. Measure out how much you eat and for any spare ingredients, cook them up into something during the week so that they don’t go bad.
What do you think?