Literally, food is what we cannot do without. It keeps us living. But overspending on it can be a burden and affects other important things we need money for. This article will help you economize your spendings on food while you still enjoy good food.
1. Buy in Bulk: Foods are cheaper when bought in bulk. There are some food items you know that you can't do without, buy them in bulk instead of piece by piece that will suck your money fast.
2. Plan what you want to eat ahead: Planning is always good for feeding as it will help you shape your spending and cut unnecessary buyings.
3. Don’t eat fast foods always: Yes, sometimes it's good to go to McDonalds or have nice meetings at KFC, But that's not gonna be all the time. Fast foods are easy ways to finish up your money without you knowing it.
4. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables: Fruits and vegetables are quite cheap compared to fast foods, and they make you lots healthier and younger than all those junks at restaurants.
5. Get good storage for your foods to prevent spoilage and wastage: Good storage is important for food preservation. Refrigerator, store room, deep freezer, and bottles for fermentation and liquid storage are all important for good storage.
6. Go to supermarkets, not mini-markets or small shops: Otherwise, it's necessary, don't go to mini-markets or small shops for bulk-buyings. They will suck-up your money fast.
7. If you like nuts, eat them, they control your appetite and regulate your body weight: Nuts make you feel less hungry, and makes you eat less healthy food. They also help control your body weight.
8. Find alternative for expensive foods: There are some food items that are ridiculously expensive, like local foods abroad. Find alternative for them and only buy those that are not available around so that you can cut your expenses on your feeding budget.
9. Learn how to manage wastes and preserve leftovers: This is very important as most times you will always have some leftovers or foods that are about to spoil because they've stayed for a long time or not well-preserved. For those foods, find a way of renewing them if not totally spoilt or package the leftovers well so they can be used for good purpose later in future.
10. Learn how to convert your cooking mistakes to useful products. There are several times when I’ve made mistakes with my cooking. Sometimes food was overcooked or burnt or I put too much salt or seasonings in the food. I have learnt how to convert some of those mistakes to useful products. For instance, if I overcooked food, I can turn it to something else that can still be eaten and enjoyed. I’ve done that couple of times. If it is problem with too much salt, I have few methods I use to solve that problem, you can check it up on my blog.
11. If you don’t know how to cook or have time to cook, hire somebody who can cook and let them cook for you in bulk. There are people who can offer their time to help you cook good food, you can hire them to cook for you. You save your time and money. Perhaps you are a worker or student who doesn’t have much time for shopping or cooking, there are people who are already good with that, engage them and let them use what they have to help you.
12. Minimize lavish spendings and giving away food to people unnecessarily. There are some people who come to us as friends, but are indeed, parasites. They only come when you want to eat. They don’t come when you want to go to market and help you with shopping. Those are people you should avoid. They can also help you to spend your money on unnecessary things until you are broke, then they can stop coming to you. Nobody is responsible for how you spend your money except you, don’t spend money lavishly on food or be doing father xmas to people who are just there to squander your resources.
13. Buy products in season. Different products come at different seasons. There are some fruits that are cheaper during summer, there are some that are cheaper during winter. Vegetables are expensive during winter. Foods are generally cheap during summer because of increase in agricultural yield. Moreso, animals are not cold, so they can produce more. So, one can take advantage of seasons and get those items in bulk before they are out of season and become more expensive.
14. Plant a garden/ Practice agriculture. Agriculture is the future. You can get everything fresh right from the garden at your backyard. Fresh tomatoes, peppers and vegetables. You can also invest in livestocks, fishery and poultry farms where you can get fresh meat and fish, eggs and dairy products from those animals. Also, agriculture helps you to recycle your wastes. For instance, some wasted food and inedible products from your kitchen can be given to your poultry birds, fish or livestocks or better still put in the soil where they can add nutrients back into the soil.
15. Do shoppings when markets are on sales. This is a good time to save your money. Sometimes you spend half of the amount you supposed to spend when markets are on sales. Some supermarkets have regular time they do sales, some do it out of compulsion when they need to get rid of some items or attract customers to that product. Moreso, new products are also given at lower prices so that customers can be attracted and increase their demand.
