More Ways to Reduce Your Grocery Bill (part two)

This is part two of the three-part series on more ways to reduce your grocery bill. We will give you five more tips and tricks to save you money, and time to help while times are tough! If you missed out on part one here it is.

In part two, you will learn more ways to reduce your grocery bill

• Shopping in Season
• Freezer Meals
• Taking a list
• Shopping your Shelves
• Cooking from Home

These simple yet effective methods will help you to learn how to reduce your grocery bill. While bringing up my family of 9 children over the past 31 years, I have learned a few tips and tricks along the way. It hasn’t always been easy. With times being rather tough currently with rising home prices, petrol cost rising and the general cost of living increased, we are all trying to find ways of cutting costs.

1. Shopping in Season

How can shopping in season reduce your grocery bill?

Well, I am sure this question can pretty well be summed up easily. Shopping in season means you can buy when the produce is at its peak nutritionally and at its cheapest. It also means you will be helping the environment because when you shop in season, you will most likely be buying locally or at least within your country.

I try to buy only what is in season whenever I can and we preserve as much as we can while it is in season. It means I am buying it at its lowest price and it also means that it will be the most beneficial to my health. It will be in its prime for antioxidants, phytonutrients, and nutritional values. They will also taste nicer too.

You can buy in bulk while in the season and preserve, which will also help you reduce your grocery bill. Buying in bulk was covered in the first part of the series, so make sure to check that out too.

Growing your own supply

Of course, you don’t have to just buy all the fruit and vegetables in season. You can also grow them! We have 4 feijoa trees on our farm and they are just coming ripe now. So I see a lot of feijoa jam and chutney in my future. You can watch me make some feijoa jam here.

I also just scoop them out of their skins and pop them into a freezer-safe bags to process later. I find in the wintertime we have more downtime to process them. It’s also handy to have them in the freezer to make a quick and delicious feijoa fruit cobbler. Recipe coming soon! So don’t forget to join my email list so you don’t miss out on all the Farmers Wife Homestead recipes to come, the link is found at the end of this post.

This topic not only includes why you should buy in season, but it also should be mentioned how to store them once you have brought your fruits and vegetables. I have used jars for storing fruits and veggies for many many years. It really does help keep them at their peak freshness.

2. Using Freezer Meals to Reduce your Grocery Bill

Yes I LOVE FREEZER MEALS

I will be writing a post all on its own about this subject! Freezer meals you may think sound not so appetizing and you probably don’t think you have time to invest in making them either. However, there are several ways to make freezer meal cooking work for YOU.

Some of the reasons why we love it is the pure convenience of them. Just imagine having 20 or more options of ready-made meals you can just take out of the freezer. Pop them in the fridge overnight, or on the bench to thaw. You can also cook most from frozen but you will have to factor that into the timing of your cooking length.

Even better choose one from your Monthly meal planner calendar, cross it off and you are good to go! You can get your free seasonal calendar here.

Some ideas for freezer meals

The list of meals you can pop into the freezer is never-ending. Here are some ideas that you could put in your freezer. Either use tin foil trays and top with foil, freezer-safe containers, glass jars, reusable silicone bags, or glass trays to name a few.

• Mac and Cheese
• Lasanga
• Pasta Bake
• Stuffed Pasta
• Baked Potatoes
• Nacho Mince
• Taco mince
• Pizza ready to go
• Pizza Kits
• Marry Me Chicken
• Soups
• Vegetarian Meals
• Curries
• BBQ Chicken
• Pulled Pork

My list could go on forever! All these are good go to for freezer meals. I still make most of my meals from scratch of course but these are handy to have. They are great for those nights when I am at work and I want to leave hubby something quick and easy to use for the family’s dinner.

Also, we make easy breakfast freezer food that is quick to grab on the go on those school mornings. Simply grab the pre-prepared breakfast out and heat it in the microwave or toaster. You can even use your air fryer if you have one.

Some fast and easy breakfast ideas

• Breakfast Burritos
• Bacon and Egg Mac Style Muffins
• Bacon and Egg Bites
• Pancakes
• French Toast
• Potato and Egg Casserole
• Frozen Yogurt and Fruit Cups

To name again just a few and can also do the same for lunch-type foods. However, I tend to just use leftovers for lunch but do like making up sandwiches that are ready to go for the toasted sandwich maker. Simply add your favorite fillings, wrap in baking paper (unbuttered) and pop into freezer bags. You will have toasties ready and waiting for a quick lunch, snack, or lazy dinner night. You can freeze many flavors! Look out for some recipe ideas in the future!

Here are some videos I have on making freezer meals

FREEZER MEALS for a Month | This has HELPED me SO MUCH

Five Budget Chicken Freezer Meals | Getting Ready for Surgery

Filling my Freezer with 11 Homemade Meals from Scratch in under 2 Hours!

12 Chicken Breast Freezer Meal Ideas | Under 2 HOURS | Plus Canned Chicken

3. Make Lists

For more ways to reduce your grocery bills

Lists are so important to keep our lives running more smoothly, well for me they do! I make them to motivate me when I am doing housework. I love to use this method, make a list of tasks, and the pure satisfaction of seeing them getting crossed off just appeals to me!

Using a list of your pantry inventory staples will help keep you on track. It will let you know when you are starting to run low on items and it will remind you to watch out for those specials coming around. You can try to be super organized and cross off inventory lists as you take things out of your pantry, but that unfortunately would never work in our house.

So at the end of every month, I just make a new list of all the things I may need to top up for that month. You have options these days of having paper lists, list books, a diary, a personal planner, and even Apps. The app ones work quite well as you won’t forget the paper ones on the kitchen bench on shopping day.

You could also have a whiteboard on your fridge or wall so people can add to it over the month of anything that is running low.

Inventory Lists

These are great for keeping track of your fridges and freezers. It is very important to go through your fridges/freezers every 3 months to take inventory and see what you have on hand. I like to use the change of seasons to do this. I have my own inventory list that I use and coming soon I will release them for free to you all as well.

Keeping on top of your inventory is crucial in helping you save more ways to reduce your grocery bill. This is because if you are rotating your stock you have fewer chances of wastage! If you have a super organized family you can tape the inventory to your freezer. This way you can see what you have on hand at just a glance and take away things you’ve used as you go. However I’m not sure that would work with us, teenagers are a little less inclined to stop for 5 seconds to complete this simple task! That is why going through seasonally works well too.

4. Shopping your own Shelves

Why is this important?

More ways to reduce your grocery bills have to include shopping your own shelves first. My husband as he sits here looking over my shoulder states “doesn’t that mean you are just checking your shelf?”. Well in a word Yes! That is exactly what you are going to do. Checking your shelf or ‘shopping them’ will help you save money.

Making sure that you rotate and use what you buy is so important. There is no point in going to the expense of stocking a pantry if you are not going to rotate and use what you have. So make sure when you are sitting down to plan your menu, be it weekly or monthly, that you check regularly what you need to be using up.

Keeping a good inventory is super important to make it that much easier. Also, make sure to keep an eye on the use by and best dates. Tinned food can last a lot longer than the best by or use by dates, so check the guidelines HERE

Having a fully stocked staple pantry means during hard times, or times that you may wish to save some money, you will be able to use what you have without needing to spend additional money.

I like to have mini-challenges and in the Month of July, I will be doing a NO SHOP month. I am hoping to go into the month of August as well. This is going to help ensure that I am using up some of my preserves.

I watch a youtube channel called ‘Three Rivers Homestead’ and Jessica has a challenge every Jan/Feb in which she does the same called the ‘Three Rivers Challenge’. She has a lot of people join in. I am keen to do the same this year, although I don’t follow hers as we are in our summer months when she is completing hers in winter. You can find Jessica’s channel HERE

5. Cooking from home and Fakeaways

Save by eating at home

Just like the previous idea, making your own is super important if you want to keep saving on the grocery bill. We hardly ever get takeaways, we live so far out of town that they would be cold by the time we got them home anyway. Also they just never seem to fill the tummies of my hard-working farmer or growing teenagers.

Fakeways are my answer to this. I make copycat meals to keep everyone happy and satisfied. Look out for my many recipe ideas in the near future! They are sure to please your family and also your wallet.

Likewise, cooking all your meals from home will help with

• Saving money
• Use what you already have
• Healthier options
• Fussy eaters
• More convenient
• Time-saving
• You know what is in it
• Less wastage

Getting a fully stocked pantry is hugely important if you are wanting to save money. Currently, I am working on a ‘feed a family of 5 for $125 for a week’ challenge. The meal plan I have come up with has servings for 5 people for breakfast, lunch, dinner, baking, and loaves of bread, well over 100 servings all for $125 in today’s financial climate.

I will be sharing this with you all in a youtube video and a follow-up blog with all the recipes as well. I am hoping to make this a regular challenge for myself in the hope that it will inspire you and also help give you ideas. Make sure you sign up for the email to let you know when that is ready for you.

Look out for Part Three

Part three of this series is coming soon so please keep an eye out for that! Thank you for joining me and I hope to see you back again soon friends.