What I've been doing to keep food costs down

One thing that I have always been so bad at and that is using up leftovers. With the cost of food so high I am making myself use them up. I aim to not throw away anything that can be eaten. That's like throwing your hard earned money in the trash.

With meat,I divide it up into one serving per person in our household. If John is going to take some in his lunch then I add a serving for him. This way I'm getting more meals from packages that I buy. I normally get the largest package we can afford to get,when I find it at a really good prices. Right now in my freezer I have several packages of chicken,a whole chicken,a large roast,pork chops and that's just off the top of my head.

I can make tons of meals from the chicken,it's such a versatile food that it adapts easily to most recipes. The roast can become 3 different meals, meal 1 the roast with fixings. meal 2 open faced hot roast beef sandwiches and meal 3 beef and potato stew with biscuits. Using the last bit of the roast for the stew.

I do the same with ham. I'll have the ham dinner for meal 1. Then have ham slices with sides for meal 2 or ham and mac & cheese casserole, and for meal 3 soup beans using the bone and any bits of ham I have leftover.

It's my goal to use as much as I can before moving on to another. This way I'm wasting less and our food is going longer.

So my goals look like this....

1.shop and get the best price for everything we buy. Using coupons when I can as often as I can.
2. putting the food away properly as soon as I get home. Using my vacuum sealer to seal the meat in portions appropriate for my family size.
3. making my menu and sticking to it
5. using up all of the food in the menu so I'm not wasting food
6. Making more than one meal from what is on my menu whenever it is possible to do so.
7.shop at home first and use your shopping trip to stock up more.

Using these tactics is helping keep my home well stocked with food and my grocery bill under control. Not to mention using up what we have before moving on. It takes some control and you have to be determined to do this but it's easy to achieve if you set your mind to do it and just do it.

God Bless,
Tammy