Food Saving Tips

[joillian]

Completing my research for the day, we have the food thread! Share your knowledge for keeping the grocery bill down.

Eat less meat- a few vegetarian meals is better for you and your wallet. Same with dairy. Cheese is delicious, but can it become a treat not a staple.

Cook more, and wisely. Dry pasta is much cheaper than pre-made ravioli pouches. Pastry is cheaper than pre-made pies. If you can avoid pre-made and make it yourself, you will save hugely.

Stretch that meal! Portion out food before you dig in. Can you turn your dinner into dinner + lunch by siphoning a third into your lunch box?

Bulk that meal! Add lentils, grated carrot or grated mushrooms to mince. Add beans to Nachos, soups, stews. Chuck a grated zucchini into diced tomatoes. Make the meal filling.

Batch cook. Make a huge amount and freeze in meal sized portions.

Weigh your meat- you would be surprised how many people eat more meat than recommended in one sitting.

Add a portion of veggies to every meal (frozen ones are often cheap and easy).

Look into veggie stores, butchers etc. These can be much cheaper than supermarkets. Bonus if you can call in on your way home from work and save the petrol too.

Growing your own veggies can seem like a cheaper option...but calculate how much you need to invest to start a garden. Tools, plants etc can be expensive. But if you have already got the infrastructure, this might help keep costs down.

Food swap...if your feijoa tree is groaning but you have no apples, see if you can swap your produce for someone else's.

Have some easy meals on hand. Either a frozen you can defrost if you no your day will be long or something you can put together easily. Take out is tempting when tired and you don't know what to eat or it takes an effort to make.

 

[snlmommy]

@joillian Great tips. This one may be obvious but do shop at Pak n Save, Reduced to Clear and places like Why Knot. Initially the difference may not seem like a lot but it adds up over a year. Also Best Before is not a use by date and most food is perfectly safe to consume for months after - just be extra careful with things like meat and dairy. The smell test is the best way to tell if food is safe to consume - trust your senses.

 

[congtywebbtccorp]

@joillian The way you keep food costs down is you buy cheap cuts of meat that will make multiple meals you do meal prep.

You go invest in a chest freezer which some you can get 100$ some free ours was free.

Then you stock this up with pre cooked meals that you only need to thraw out and microwave or pan cook.

 

[resjudicata]

@joillian Home Economics

Invest some time in learning to cook. Old fashioned cooking like your Nana used to do. From a basic pantry of staple ingredients. When youre chowing down daily on generous servings of your own fresh nutritious, efficiently prepared, near-restaurant quality pies, salads, pastas, roasted veges, quiches, soups, and curries, at around $3-$8 per serving, life doesn't seem so bad, even at today's prices.

On the other hand, it is SO easy these days to fill your trolley with all kinds of branded pre-packaged products, all conveniently arranged at face level. Without even knowing it, people can slip into a normality of spending 1.5x what they should, with a menu set by advertising trends.

Yes it takes time, but once learned, it pays off every day for the rest of your life. I'm not exaggerating when I say that making this change over the past few years in my household has resulted in our food bills now being well under what they were, 5+ years ago.

For us at least, it dwarfs any other step we could have taken.

 

[laowaiphil]

@resjudicata Yeah and all this food at face level in packets and boxes is what's ruining us

 

[kakerot0]

@pipahaha Any other examples of grocery items you buy on amazon AU? cheers - that's a new tip for me.

 

[pipahaha]

@joillian This does work for food, but also for toiletries etc Amazon AU has some really great prices, and most items are included in the free shipping when you spend over $49.00. Eg at moment 400g Moconna Coffee is $24.38, I just saw it for 14.99 for 100g at Four Square.

AliExpress is a good place to look, I bought 20 scouter sponges for $9.00 delivered, where 2 cost $5.50 at countdown.. I’d say quality was marginally less.

Both Amazon and AliExpress have apps, which make it easy.

 

[pipahaha]

@kakerot0 NIVEA Clean Deeper Daily Face Wash and Scrub (150ml)

This is is $10.90 ps and $14.99 countdown though $7.49 Amazon.

Gillette Fusion 5 Manual Razor Blades

Countdown $32.0” for 4

Amazon $43.00 for 8

 

[resjudicata]

@joillian Growing your own veggies can seem like a cheaper option...but calculate how much you need to invest to start a garden.

You dig up a patch of lawn. Make compost from lawn clippings and kitchen scraps. Buy seed, save seed.

Cost, bugger all.

 

[congtywebbtccorp]

@resjudicata You can grow in buckets on ya deck if you have to

 

[resjudicata]

@congtywebbtccorp To a point. You can't grow decent corn in buckets. Or a decent crop of climbing beans. And depending how big the balcony on your apartment actually is.....limits you.

 

[hubbahubba5]

@resjudicata

Or a decent crop of climbing beans.

Grew thick-stem (no staking required) broad beans in buckets.

Took ages to mature but once it did, we ate it almost every day.

Saved some seeds after the plant grew old and died of disease, planted them again, and they are growing again!

 

[resjudicata]

@hubbahubba5 Broad beans...shudder...I meant green beans.

 

[hubbahubba5]

@resjudicata you can eat the whole pod when its young

 

[hubbahubba5]

@joillian You can turn many green tops into pesto!

Pesto is just greens and oil (+ salt). Other things are optional and improve flavour. Such as garlic, cheese, pepper, chilli, nuts.

Greens can be: Parsly (grows like weed once established, does renew itself every year), Celery (especially the leaves, which you would often throw away), Radish tops, Spinach, Mint (stronger flavour), Nettles (haven't actually seen them in NZ, blanche them before using), and of course basil.

 

[key1]

@joillian Grocer is an app that tracks the major supermarkets and compares all food items and their prices- similar to Gaspy for fuel. You can save your normal shopping basket into the app and it will tell you which supermarket has the cheapest item.

I use it for items that are generally expensive and go on sale once every few weeks - nappies, specific meats, etc so if I ever need to go to the supermarket outside of a normal shop, I can be specific and save some money.

Great app.