Financial Team

Looking for a real way to cut that grocery bill? Tired of spending hours every weekend cutting coupons for frozen, pre-packaged, processed food? I know of a much easier way – buy yourself a good cookbook and learn to cook. Don’t believe me? In the last 3 weeks I have bought only fresh fruits and vegetables to cook with and have significantly cut my grocery bill. And that is with buying from Whole Foods! For years I always bought a ton of organic prepared foods and then some raw vegetables to do some cooking with, but now that I have switched away from that entirely and am buying “raw” food every week, my bill has really gone down by quote a bit. Plus, the colors look nice:

I am now under $200 for a month, and at this rate I should be able to get it down to about $150 once I really learn to buy only what I need for the week without anything going to waste. Prepackaged and processed “food” might seem cheaper, but when you really do the math they are anything but…especially if you are buying the stuff filled with all sorts of crap. Poor eating habits can lead to higher doctor bills! Most everything I cook is veggie only and occasionally I get the hankering for some chicken or turkey, which does add a little to the bill, but mostly my grocery cart is a sea of greens and yellows and reds, which leaves more money in my bank account every week.

Once I decided I was going to cook food for myself from scratch every night, I picked up a couple decent cookbooks from Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay is one of my favorites, and his book Fast Food has become my cooking bible here at home. The food is amazing, easy to make, and easy on the wallet – and healthy!

If you don’t believe me, try it for a few weeks. Go to the library, get some good cookbooks, and start writing down the ingredients you need to make some of the dishes. Head over to the grocery store and buy only what you need to make those meals for the week – no packaged/pre-made foods at all – and see what your bills start to look like. I never really thought I could get my grocery bill lower than it has been for the last few years, but now I know that raw and fresh fruits and veggies with an occasional piece of meat is a LOT cheaper than buying food that only needs to be heated up. I think that if you give it a shot you will also be pleasantly surprised. And come summertime I plan on saving even more money once the local Farmers Market opens up!

That all being said, I ALWAYS have a frozen pizza in the freezer…just in case.

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Tags: Food, Grocery Bill