| Plan your meals and save Try to get into the habit of preparing for meals a week or two in advance. Planning in advance your weekly meals will take a bit more time to start, but you'll save time and money in the long run. Do a little research, too. Ask yourself, what are the most cost effective meals that would be suitable to your family's palate? For me, I know the kids love mince. But you can't serve the same dish too often. What I do is Google recipes + mince meat to find new and exciting dishes I can serve up with out the gourmet price tag. My family quickly becomes bored with the same dish each week, so I make an effort to source new recipes to keep dinner interesting. Once you have an idea of the meals you intend to serve over the coming week or so, you can start to work out what ingredients you need. Get into the habit of writing shopping lists. Working out what you have in the pantry and what you need will ensure you buy only necessary items. If you don't need it right away, don't buy it. You may never need it or it might go bad before you get around to using it, and just be a waste of money. Also, be sensible when planning meals. For instance, use recipes that have some of the same ingredients as others. For example tomato paste is a lot cheaper in a big 500gram jar rather than the smaller tubs (and there's nothing wrong with the home brand kind). If you are going to use it in one of the meals you have planned for the week, buy the bigger jar and plan recipes for the next week that incorporate this same ingredient – perhaps as a base for home made pizza. To save even further, don't throw out those 'junk mail' catalogues from the supermarkets. There are often many good specials that you could incorporate in your next week or two's meal planning. If you lack a little inspiration, try Googling a few ingredients and see what recipes are out there. Planning your meals around the weekly specials will ensure you maximise every opportunity to save money. When deciding on the weekly menu, consider all-in-one dishes like casseroles and stews. All-in-one meals often use cheaper cuts of meat that tenderise by long cooking times. During the winter months especially, I often resort to one casserole dish everybody likes, throw everything into it, then straight into the oven and dinner is done.
Article supplied by Sonia Williams of http://www.showmummythemoney.com.au/. We show modern day mums how they can make the most of their purchases, how they can manage and grow their money, as well as leverage and protect the assets they have accumulated.
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