Don’t Just Write A Shopping List; Write A Cheap Shopping List

The importance of a shopping list is second to none, if you want to save money on food. However even the best-written list can miss out on a lot of the savings to be had if you are choosing expensive meals.

For example, no matter how cheap you get your meat to cook a roast there is no way it can be cheaper than 2-minute noodles. Of course, you don’t want to have 2-minute noodles every night. But if you could plan your meals for the whole week in advance, maybe you can tweak your list to include some cheaper meals.

So what we are talking about is coming up with a meal plan list. We do this in our household and it adds thousands to the bottom line each year. Just by being able to see what we are going to cook seven days in advance, you can quickly see if your tastebuds are craving expensive meals which will break the budget, or if there are cheap meals which will add dollars to your bank account.

But we are firm believers you need to know where you have come from to understand where you are going. The best way we have found to evaluate your future meals (and by meals, we are talking about dinner) is for one month write down everything your family eats. For example:

Monday November 1^st: Tuna Mornay

Tuesday November 2^nd: Roast Lamb

Wednesday November 3^rd: Takeaway McDonalds

Thursday November 4^th: Homemade Soup.

You continue this for the whole month then you can really and truly evaluate your spending patterns. Ask yourself some important questions like: Are we spending too much on our meals? Do we have a taste for the high life? Does every meal use expensive meat compared to vegetables?

Now at the start of the following month you can write out a meal planner for the next 7 days. Compare what you are planning, to what you had in this seven-day period previously. If you have less expensive meals, that is great. You are on the right track to save money. You can do this a week in advance for the rest of the year.

To truly give you an idea of why this is so important, we looked at 4 expensive meals vs 4 cheap meals. The following ten meals all are from ingredients bought at the supermarket. We have priced them using the recent prices of the ingredients we used in the meals. For example, if the recipe calls for a tablespoon of sugar, we have worked out what the one-tablespoon is worth.

The expensive meals are:
Roast Chicken and Potatoes
Roast Pork
T Bone Steak
Lamb Chops The Cheap meals are:

Chicken Soup
Minestrone Soup
Sausages In Gravy
Cauliflower Soup
Chicken Curry

Would you belive per serve the cost difference is a average of 77%.

From the above example you should be able to tell why cheaper meals are so important. Now you don’t have to live like a vegetarian monk just to save money. However, if you can find a few cheaper meals to slot into your weekly budget, you will be on the fast track for saving in no time.