My daughter says she is cutting back on eating out to save money for her wedding. That’s good because it does cost more and it’s easy to get too many calories. However, many families don’t think they can fit preparing food in to the day. Check out the newest activity on the Spend Smart Eat Smart website called Fast Food for Families, and see if you can match the nutrition label to the meal. Then see the rating each meal gets for time, cost and calories. If you want ideas for tasty, quick, recipes check out the featured recipes.
–pointers from Peggy
food cost, food preparation, recipes
eating out, fast food
Last week I challenged myself to come up with a Super Bowl party menu for 12 people that would cost $20 or less (not counting alcohol). I wanted a menu that I could serve to my friends, and one that didn’t take my whole Sunday to prepare. I did it! My sister says I cheated because I already had basic staples on hand—vanilla, cocoa, sugar etc.—for the brownie frosting. She is correct that if I had to buy these ingredients, I would have gone over my $20 goal; however, I counted just the amount I used of each ingredient. Check out the menu, recipes, and costs I came up with. Tell us how you would change the menu for your party, or share other ideas for entertaining on a budget.
–contributed by Peggy Martin
food preparation, recipes
entertain on a budget, party food, recipes
One of the top recommendations for saving food dollars is to prepare it yourself. As a dietitian and a mother of four children, preparing food at home has been essential…for saving money and for healthy eating. This doesn’t mean we never eat out or buy convenience foods, but when we do some or all of the food preparation at home, we are putting money back in our pocket.
I try to look ahead at our schedule and figure out which days during the week I have time to prepare food…whether it’s the entire meal or just part of it. Then I decide what I will cook on those days and stick to the plan. Gradually, I have been able to increase my ‘cooking days’.
One night this week I made homemade pizza for dinner. While it was baking, I prepared a batch of soup to eat the next night when we were going to be on the run with no time for cooking…two meals done for the time of one. Last week I made a LARGE casserole…enough to eat 2 times that week and froze half of it for another time. Cook once, eat twice!
Besides saving money when I cook it myself, I can make it more healthy. I can reduce the salt or leave it out completely, reduce the amount of high fat ingredients as sour cream, cheese, butter or margarine or substitute a low-fat version of that ingredient, use whole grain products like instant brown rice instead of white, whole grain pasta, etc.
If you have any fast meal tips I would love to hear them. — contributed by Renee Sweers
food preparation
cooking, food at home
