Ensuring your grocery budget stretches as far as possible means using every last bit of food you bring into the house.
One of my favourite tools for this is the mighty power bowl. I know the term is usually reserved for high protein and antioxidant recipes for fitness buffs and powerlifters, but I think you can use the term if you are saving money, too. That’s pretty powerful, especially when food inflation in Canada has hit 5%.
5% on food is higher than the 3.4% overall inflation rate, meaning food is growing in expense at a rate higher than average for consumer products and costs. We have to get proactive if we will stay above the tide.
Nothing makes me crazier in the kitchen than watching money flow through the compost bin. A cup of cooked rice, half a bell pepper, a few diced cherry tomatoes, 83 niblets of corn, and almost enough ground beef for a taco. No item is enough for a meal on its own or to constitute a side for another meal, but all those bits together, and you have an entire meal that one person can pack for lunch.
It’s pretty good math, actually.
If you collect up the odds and sods in your fridge and assemble a bowl of like-minded ingredients, you can save maybe $3-$5 from hitting the bin.
That might not seem like a lot, but you also save the $10-$15 you would otherwise be spending on lunch.
That’s a fundamental savings of $13-$20!
For $13-$20, you can make an entire nutritious meal for a family of four.
And there would probably be leftovers for at least one person to enjoy for lunch the next day, which would go a long way to continuing the savings cycle.
Everyone wants to see grocery prices drop. We want to see significant savings, but grocery savings are found using the same method the grocers use to increase prices. We need to inch the savings little bits at a time. Save incrementally to save majorly over the long haul—a nickel here and a scoop of corn there. Think of every item you trash, not as food but as dollars, and count them not once but twice - once for the item you are tossing out and again for the item you must purchase to replace it.
If you want a shocking picture of how much grocery money you throw away each month, keep a notepad by the compost bin and estimate the price of everything you toss. Double that amount and jot it down. At the end of the month, add it up.
Could you be doing better? Are you doing well already?
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