The Plan | Food, glorious food

By Contributed

Oct 5, 2022

For anyone on a tight budget, you’ve likely already cut back on all the non-essential and luxury items such as subscriptions, holidays and impulse shopping. For many of us, there just wasn’t that much wiggle room to begin with. So when we talk about cutting back, one of the only areas left to tweak is the food budget. We all have to eat, and we all have to pay for groceries and household items.

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I’ve always had a pretty good routine when it comes to meal planning, shopping and preparing family meals. If you don’t already, that’s a great place to start. I highly recommend shopping online so that you can shop the specials first, and you can see your total spend as you go and add or remove things according to your budget — no surprises at the checkout!

It’s also much easier to avoid the impulse buys online, those ‘end of aisle’ specials on non-essentials that do add up.

I focus on buying ingredients rather than prepared foods, and switch in frozen vegetables for anything that is out of season and therefore expensive. I buy household items such as cleaning products and toiletries when they are half price. Bulk out your proteins with canned beans and lentils, and don’t be afraid to try the generic brands.

Reducing your food wastage can be another great source of savings. I manage this by planning only five family dinners for the week, then we have a night for using up leftovers, and one more that we call ‘YOYO’, short for ‘you’re on your own’. On a YOYO night the kids will typically make cereal, noodles, or toast with eggs, baked beans, whatever! I often make an omelette with the last of the cheese and whatever vegetable dregs are hanging around the back of the crisper.

As an aside, I’ve found this to be a great way to foster independence and confidence in the kitchen for the kids. YOYO is actually my eight-year-old’s favourite weekly dinner!

With all of that, I still found I was able to reduce my overall spend by at least $500 this year and I did it by committing to take my lunch to work every day. I admit I still indulge in the odd sushi hand roll or toasted sanga from the closest café, but by taking my lunch to work most days I have saved a lot of money.

A sandwich, salad, or last night’s leftovers, a banana, some yoghurt. All these things are fairly easy to prepare and it has become a quick part of my morning routine to knock something together and put it in my little insulated lunch bag.

It’s simple maths. To save $500 in a year, you only need to reduce your total food budget by $10 a week. That might be packing lunch just once a week, or making use of your leftovers, planning your meals instead of winging it — I’d love to hear your ideas!

The author of The Plan has requested to remain anonymous in order to shine a brighter light on some of the more challenging aspects of their recent financial hardship.