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Budget Challenge

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Can you really cut your food bill in half - and still eat healthily?

Recently, Healthy Food Guide challenged their reader panel to answer that very question. And they were delighted when tips, suggestions and budget secrets poured in by the hundreds! There were some fantastic suggestions, and here are some from their readers.

1.Know that shopping close to closing time doesn’t always work out. I had heard that shopping close to closing time could save you quite a bit on ‘marked-down’ items. However this really worked against me, as the cheaper bread I usually buy and meat specials I was after had both sold out! Some veg was also hard to buy at that time too, as there wasn’t much left and what was left wasn’t of the best quality. Though I did have a small win – I got one bag of rolls marked down.

2.Have a backup plan for your menu. With some of the items I had planned to buy sold out, I suddenly had to make changes to my menu plan without the benefit of being able to consult recipes or sit down and do a rough costing for them. This made it hard as I was unsure if I would have all the ingredients needed to make the new ‘replacement meals’. I will certainly make sure I have a separate list of ingredients for a replacement meal or two with me in future to save the stress.

3.Keep track with a calculator as you shop. This saves unpleasant surprises at the checkout – although it pays to use a calculator that doesn’t turn itself off, if not used for a certain period. Yes, I got caught on this one too! I ended up switching to the calculator function on my mobile phone, which avoided this happening a second time.

4.Choose the most necessary items first. These things (such as meat, vegies and dairy) can often be the most expensive, so once you have them in your trolley you can see how much of your budget is left over for items you can do without, or items you can find a cheaper substitute for.

5.Include one vegetarian meal every week, to reduce cost.
I didn’t think this one would work too well with my meat-loving family, but it was a great success. It will now be a regular thing.

6.Buy whole cuts of meat, and dice or mince them yourself.
It’s cheaper than paying extra for the butcher to do it for you.

7.Bulk up with extra vegies and pulses. This actually gained us an extra dinner and an extra lunch, so I got a night off cooking without doing what I normally do – getting take away!

Find out the rest of this article and more in the May issue of Healthy Food Guide, out now!

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Healthy Food Guide - May 09 Edition