Food Management

Food management is quite easily a task I spend a great deal of time on.  How to feed my family and how to acquire food to feed my family is pretty important around here.  Fortunately for me it is also a something I truly enjoy doing.  I'm sure you have heard me say it before, I pretty much love everything about food.  Even the clean up!

Have a plan, carry a list

I am a meal planner, list maker, deal shopper and sometimes a meal prepper.  We are a very busy family and I work full time so good planning and efficient use of my time is a big part of what I do and I'm always striving to improve and do better in all aspects.

Not overbuying perishable items helps with food waste

I used to meal plan a month at a time, shopping twice a month.  A big shop at the beginning of the month and then a small mid month shop for fresh produce and milk.  In the past few years that has slowly evolved into weekly meal planning with weekly shopping to take advantage of certain sales items.  This year I've decided to try meal planning two weeks at a time and shop accordingly - ish.

Markdowns, sales, coupons, digital coupons, rewards cards & loss leaders

I still want (need) to check the ads each week and purchase items we regularly use when they are on sale.  The goal this year is to use up what we have, replace what we use and pay rock bottom prices in the process.  Checking the sales ads and shopping around will be my best tool to do that.

Shopping around for best prices

I know certain stores carry certain items priced at their lowest.  For instance Wal-Mart has the best price on cream, sour cream, yogurt, two packs of cream cheese and bulk eggs (5 dozen).  Albertsons has the best price on milk and their butter frequently goes on sale.  Albertsons and Fred Meyer run really good sales on meat and often have markdown meats at even better prices.  Trader Joes has the best price and quality for produce while Winco usually has the best prices on pantry items and frozen vegetables.  Winco also has the best bulk bin items, especially spices.

Meal prepping saves me time & money

I try to make enough food to provide us with leftovers for our lunches as well as an additional supper.  When I meal prep I will make a large meal that we will eat that day as well as components to other meals such as taco meat, meatballs, spaghetti and pizza sauce, lasagna or enchiladas, etc.  Having parts of a meal already done and in the freezer is a great time saver as well as a good way to save money.  Check out my latest meal prep if you are interested.

Fresh and frozen produce for healthy side dishes

As always I want to make sure I prepare healthy delicious and satisfying meals that don't take a lot of time to prepare or clean up afterwards.  I'm a big fan of one pot cooking and using my slow cooker too.  Let me know if you have any interest in a series of budget minded healthy meals.  I'm toying with the idea of doing that which would include a breakdown of what I spent to make each meal.