It is no secret that cooking at home saves you money. Budgeting and eating out are not the best of friends. When I was younger, one of my hobbies was to try new restaurants and experience different cuisines. The younger me used to think that cooking at home was difficult, expensive and time-consuming. As I grew older, I decided to learn how to cook on my own (mostly because I was sick of the restaurant’s foods). Let’s see how meal prep save me money.
BREAKFAST
Planning what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner is the key to success. In the morning, it is usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (PB&J) with a small portion of fruits. Peanut butter is an excellent source of protein. There are two grams of fiber in two tablespoons of peanut butter, which keep my digestive systems healthy. Peanut butter also carries potassium which helps kidney filtering blood and balancing our nervous system. Both peanut butter and bread contain calories that give me lots of energy first thing in the morning. Jelly makes my sandwich less boring. My fruits portions are varied from a banana, an apple, or some grapes. Breakfast with PB&J sandwich with fruits cost me about $2.00 a day.
Related: 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO PAY OFF DEBTS
LUNCH
Americans, on average, spend around $3,000 a year on lunches. That is a mix of eating out and eating in when at work. If you are not aware, this lunch spending can creep up on you. It can contribute to your credit card debt.
I make myself a sandwich every day. My sandwich is a little boring because it consists of just meat and bread. When turkey breast lunch meat at Vons is on sale, a pound is $5.45. A load of bread is just around $3, which last me for roughly seven days. By making sandwich for lunch, it only cost me $1.21 ( [ $5.45+$3] / 7) a day. I also have a small portion of fruits as well. By consistently following this method, my daily lunch expense comes up to be $2.45 a day.
DINNER
To make a simple yet delicious dinner, I often groceries shop for at least a week worth of foods. Between my fiancé and me, we average around $100 in total. This amount includes both our breaks fast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Even though we are relatively smart by using coupons and selecting sale items, I still felt like I’d overspend sometimes.
Cooking is more natural when you have the right tools. The tools do not need to be expensive, but you want to stock your kitchen with a few essentials. I save more money in the long run when I invest in my kitchen instruments. By spending a tiny bit more, I can produce minimal waste, replace the tools less often, and prepare a better meal in my kitchen.
Here are some of the best kitchen gadget that I recommend to anyone:
· Good knife does make a big difference when chopping fruits, vegetables or meat: https://amzn.to/2NrMNxs
· Big skillet: trust me you want a size large because you need to be able to make meal for more than 4 days https://amzn.to/2wvCrFz
· Deep pot for when you have to make soup or cook the whole chicken https://amzn.to/2PlFYy9
· Set of mixing bowls equipped for serving fruit salads, marinating for the grill, and adding last ingredients for dessert. https://amzn.to/2Ph1XGg
· A baking pan for making delicious homemade treats https://amzn.to/2wrjbdf
· A set of measuring spoons when you want to follow the recipe correctly https://amzn.to/2MAPpNc
We often cook our meal in bulk. For instance, when we bake chicken with vegetable, we make enough for six days. We eat one tonight and package the extra in the containers. We now have meals ready to go in just minutes for the rest of the week. By just warming up the food in the microwave and toss together a green salad, dinner is served. Here are some examples of the meal prep we have made in the past:
For both of us, $100 for six days’ worth of groceries comes out to be $50 a person, which equals to $8.30 ($50/6) a day. By consistently doing this, I would spend on average $250 ($8.30 x 30 days) a month on groceries alone. To put this into context, people who make less than $24,000 annually spent an average of $271 per month on their grocery budget according to GBR. As income increase, so does grocery spending:
· The annual salary between $100,000 and $149,000: 36 percent more spending than those making $24,000 or under with an average grocery bill of $369.
· The annual salary of more than $150,000: spent $450 per month
TAKE AWAY POINTS
It is easier said than done. If you want a better result, practice meal prepping will yield a higher rate of success. I would recommend starting small buy figuring out what would you eat for breakfast every day and stick with it. Start cutting back on the ritual morning coffee run because those $4.45 Grande Caramel Macchiato can run your wallet up to $1,625 a year.
Footnotes
Thank you Time, Mensjournal, Businessinsider, Dummies, Makingsenseofcents for helping me writing this blog about meal prep.
