How I Save Money & Time When I Cook My Food

I thought I'd share some of my ideas on this forum as I've got some really good tips to save money. A lot of people probably already do this but I thought I'd post something which has more information and is more detailed. I like many others on this forum like to save money and time and in the past I spend a lot of time preparing food. After going into full time employment I needed to get organized and I used the steps outlined below to reduce the number of hours I spend cooking meals. This method really works for me however feel free to chop and change it.

1. Find All The Offers from Your Local Grocery Store

I get my kids to get flyers and promotional material from the local supermarkets and grocery store. The shopping center is not too far from their school and I ask them to keep an eye out for any promotion. This has saved me from going to the store and looking at the promo material and buying groceries without planning. Another benefit is the children are becoming more aware of being frugal and are now always looking for opportunities to save money.

2. Get Your Children to Find the Cheapest Products

Once I've got all the promotional material I ask my children to circle all the best offers. I have explained to them how things like buy one get one free and half price work, I've even explained how cost per item works. They all have a calculator and love working which items are the cheapest and then circle them for me. They really feel part like a part of the shopping process and their maths skills and frugal skills are improving every week. Hopefully they'll use these skills when they grow up to make good decisions when it comes to money.

3. Plan Your Meals

Once I've got all the flyers I only choose items which are on sale or on promotion. I then plan my meals around these items. There are four of us so for the week I need to plan 14 meals, 7 meals to eat at home and 7 meals to take to school or work for lunch. I them prepare 4 dishes which consist of 4 full portions which gives me 16 meals in total. I think freeze all the meals and then take them out on the day we eat them.

4. Cook Once a Week

I only cook once a week and it takes me around 3 hours from start to finish. Previously I was spending 3 or more days preparing food and spending twice as much. It just goes to show with a little organization and planning you can save a lot of money and time.

I'm now thinking of getting my children and husband involved in the meal preparation process. At least this way they can learn how to cook a meal in batches and then freeze them so they can eat it later, this will also save me time and I might be able to delegate the whole process or we could even take turns to cook every week.