Tips for Making Your Dollar Stretch at the Supermarket
Posted by Jill Panichelli on Thursday, January 27, 2011
With so much focus in our office about the Food Stamp Challenge, our Cooking Matters team has drawn up a list of tips for stretching your food dollars at the supermarket.
If you’re not familiar with the program, Cooking Matters teaches families at risk of hunger (70% of whom receive some form of federal food assistance such as SNAP, commonly known as “food stamps”) how to prepare tasty, healthy, and affordable meals. We believe that with a little planning and some key cooking, food budgeting, and healthy decision-making skills, you CAN make the most of your food dollars, even on a food stamp budget.
Some key tips to making sure your meals are not only tasty and healthy, but budget-friendly too:
- Plan to purchase key ingredients. These are ingredients you can use in multiple dishes. Peanut butter can be combined with bananas and tortillas for a morning breakfast quesadilla, and then later with noodles, veggies, and soy sauce for an entrée of Asian veggies in a peanut sauce for dinner. Beans can be mashed as a sandwich spread, cooked into a chili, or rolled into a tortilla for a quick burrito. A little planning before you shop will help ensure you are making good use of all of your ingredients throughout the week.
Examples of ‘key ingredients’ that can be combined in multiple dishes:
- Tortillas
- Beans (dried)
- Rice
- Eggs (a dozen will last you all week!)
- Canned tuna
- Frozen veggies on sale (frozen at peak freshness and just as healthy, if not more nutritious, as fresh)
- Long-lasting veggies like sweet potatoes, cabbage, onions, greens. Usually at 89-99 cents/lb, they’re great in soups, sides, etc.
- Know your prices. Check your store circular to see what’s on sale. BOGOs (Buy One, Get One Free) can get you 2x the food for the money.
- Be creative. Recipe calls for Kale? Use spinach or cabbage. Bell peppers too expensive? Add carrots for crunch.
- Make a shopping list, using the plan you created above. This will help you stick to what you need and avoid expensive or unhealthy impulse buys at the store. Allow yourself flexibility for catching sale items or less expensive produce, but for the most part you should stick to your list.
- Choose alternate protein sources. Beans, eggs, and canned fish are all tasty, inexpensive protein sources that will keep you satisfied.
- Look for store brands when available.
- Pack your lunch. Bring your leftovers for lunch, or make a larger meal at the beginning of the week and divide it up into small portions to bring for lunch each day.
- Compare unit prices. Look for opportunities to to buy a larger package with a cheaper unit price if you can use up the ingredient over multiple meals.
- Avoid convenience items. Buy a whole head of lettuce instead of bagged lettuce. Buy whole carrots instead of baby carrots. In general, avoid convenience items and do the rinsing and chopping yourself!
Try using these tips next time you go to the store, and consider taking the Food Stamp Challenge yourself! Whether it’s for a week, a month, or longer, taking the Challenge can give you a real sense of what families at risk of hunger experience day to day.
And be sure to check out our Cooking Matters Recipe Book for recipe ideas, tips and tricks. (PDF)
January 27, 2011 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: Cooking Matters, food stamps
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