Stretch Your Food Budget To Your Next Paycheck
College students and young adults may be the ones to experience a mistake in budgeting, and be tempted to opt for the Burger King or Ramen diet for a few weeks, until they get paid to make up the shortfall. While you can easily get a payday loan to help tide you over for a few weeks, if you’re working, the problem has more to do with a lack of knowledge either in cooking or food storage skills and proper nutrition, than it has to do with a lack of money. To stretch a food budget, it’s important to take into account the necessary nutritional needs so that you don’t end up incurring imbalances in your body that later can cause medical problems, sticking you with more medical bills to boot.
Waste Not, Want Not
In a throwaway culture, when you’re taught to buy ready-made or convenience food, the natural tendency is to throw the rest away if it’s not eaten that day. Some take-out food can be very healthy, but it’s still wasted. Learning how to care for leftovers, freeze uneaten foods you’re tired of, and pack your pantry with items that have a high shelf life can easily stretch your food budget without spending any extra a week. Instead of throwing out bananas that are over-ripe, freeze them and use them in smoothies. Have a stash of rice and beans in the pantry to cook up, whenever, as a healthy substitute for Ramen. Learn to freeze things and use them later. Learn to use dried foods in your cooking, as they have a long shelf life.
Learn To Cook
This skill is one of the most frugal skills that anyone can learn, yet few do. It may be easier to jump to the nearest restaurant to buy your food, or buy pre-packaged convenience foods at the grocery, but you will pay a sharp premium for these foods. In addition, they are loaded with salt, sugar, and preservatives, things easily avoidable when you cook at home. If you don’t have time to do this on the weekdays, do it on the weekend and freeze in batches to use during the week. If you learn how to cook, you can stock your fridge with milk, eggs, butter, flour, and a few veggies and fruits, and have plenty to eat for weeks in the form of omelets, pancakes, breads, pies, puddings, shakes, and more. Even in the Great Depression, a family could live off one chicken for an entire week, when all parts were cooked and used.
Use Your Local Food Pantries
If you’re able to locate a free food source, like a local pantry, and you’ve gotten into a bind with your budget, check them out. You may be able to obtain free or low cost groceries from a source that helps to feed the community. When you’re done and back on your feet, be sure to give back yourself by donating items they need when you can.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Saving Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
