Making the Most of Your Food Dollars

Hello Holiday Foodies,

I don’t know about you, but with Thanksgiving closing in it is hard to decide what I should be focusing on: Thanksgiving, or the holidays beyond? It gets overwhelming to think about all the details.

Food can easily turn into a huge spending leak. And currently, inflation is making it even harder to minimize food expenses, but let’s keep trying to minimize this cost.

According to the Thrifty Food Plan, updated each month by the USDA, a family of 4 should be able to “eat a nutritious, practical, cost-effective diet” for $965.30. How close do you come to that figure? Yep, that amount is based on September 2022 prices. That’s the thrifty average cost and it assumes you prepare all meals at from scratch at home, using few or no convenience products.

As the days get more hectic it’s easy to slip away from the goals we set just 4 weeks ago. When we’re short on time, too tired and mentally exhausted, we can easily justify stepping away from our goal to curb our spending this holiday season. Especially when it comes to preparing (and cleaning up after) meals.

Tips for saving money on food:

• Use what is in your pantry.
• Purchase snack foods and create your own individual portions.
• Cook twice as much and freeze half for a later meal.
• Find ways to use up leftovers.
• To increase nutrition and the number of servings, add vegetables (frozen, canned or leftovers) to canned soup.
• Try using these frugal foods more often: eggs, potatoes, rolled oats, beans, peanut butter, canned tuna.

Need more inspiration for saving time and money on food expenses? Check out this link:

https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/sites/default/files/2022-07/fn1387.pdf

Have a fantastic weekend,

-Irma❤