Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half

There are a few different ways you can go about making a meal plan.

It takes a few minutes each week or month, depending on how far out you want to go.

It takes the guess work out of dinner planning.

You will save money because you will know which ingredients you will need when you go grocery shopping, you will only need to get the produce you need that week (no rotten fruits or vegetables to throw out), and you will not have the last minute pizza run because you don't know what to make for dinner.

Cooking at home saves money and is healthier than buying processed or pre-prepared foods.

First, you will need a calendar to write your meal plan on. It can be a meal planning calendar or you can just write it on your own monthly wall calendar.

You make make out your meal plan for the next week or the next month.

If you go to warehouse clubs for your food, you can try to make your meal plan out for a month and batch cook.

Batch cooking is the process of making a huge meal and dividing it up into family or single-serving portions for later meals and freezing them for later use.

Look through your freezer, refrigerator and pantry. Make a list of the meat you already have in your freezer. Do you have a lot of chicken, look up chicken recipes online or in cookbooks.

Look through weekly grocery store circulars. What is on sale? Buy the items that your family likes while it is on sale and make recipes according to those sale items.

Think about the meals that your family likes to eat. You could start by making a rotating list of those meals on your meal planner.

Some people like to have taco Tuesdays, fish Fridays, Surprise Wednesdays, etc. This type of menu takes the guesswork out of your meals.

If you make Tuesdays Taco day, then you can make a variation of it each week by having chicken tacos one week and beef tacos another week.

Use less meat and expensive ingredients and use more meal stretchers like rice, beans, potatoes and pasta.

These are all inexpensive and healthy ingredients that will stretch your meal and save you money.

Cut back on ingredients that cost more, like meat.

Cut out expensive processed foods like sausage and lunch meat.

Using meal stretchers will not only stretch your meals, but it will also stretch your budget.

If you make extra food, instead of throwing it out, put it in individual or family-sized food storage containers and save it for later.

If you do not think you will be using it within the next five days, then freeze the leftovers.

If you will be using the leftovers within the next five days, then you can keep them in the refrigerator.

You can use your leftovers as lunch. You will be saving money since you do not have to eat out or prepare another meal.

You could also use leftovers like meat, rice or other basic leftovers as fillers for your next dinner.

If you made too much rice today, keep it in a storage container and add it as a side dish with tomorrows dinner.

You can add vegetables and flavoring to make it a little different than the day before.

If you are a bulk food shopper, you may have noticed that the unit-price of food is cheaper when bought in bulk than when it is bought in smaller packages.

You can buy bulk food at warehouse stores, but most grocery stores are adding bulk food sections also.

Once you buy food in bulk at the lowest unit price you can find, than you can divide it up into meal-size servings and freeze until you need it.

I divide meat up into meal-sized portions and wrap them with wax paper, then place them in sealable food storage bags. They are good months in the freezer!

If your kids like pancakes in the morning, make a huge batch on the weekend and freeze them.

Take the pancakes out of the freezer that you will be using and warm them up in the microwave or oven. It's quick, easy and cheap!

Shop sales at the grocery store to save money on your groceries. Check a few different stores sales circulars to see who is having a sale on what that week.

Shop at the store that has the most deals that you are looking for.

Don't buy food items that you will not eat just because they are a great deal. You will only end up throwing it out most of the time.

To save even more, clip coupons for the items you are buying. You can use coupons on sales items at grocery stores to get food products for almost nothing or even free!

It takes a little while longer, but it gets easier and faster to match sales with coupons as you get used to it.

Do you need all of those cookies or potato chips? Could you stand to lose a few pounds? Stop buying processed snacks!

They are very expensive and not good for you at all. You will end up saving money and losing weight at the same time!

Think about the health benefits and the money you will keep in your pocket from not having to go to the doctor or take medication. It is a win-win situation!