The Secret to a Successful Bare Bones Grocery Challenge
Can you really feed your family for just $30 a week?
What’s the Secret?
The secret to surviving on a $30 a week grocery budget is creativity. Start with your pantry, fridge and freezer. Do an inventory and make a list of the ingredients you have on hand. List everything – flour, sugar, condiments, tins of beetroot, peas, corn, packets of noodles, the jellies hiding in the back of the cupboard, soup mixes, crackers, cereals, bread, meat, fish, chicken, fruit, vegetables, butter or margarine, eggs etc. so you know what you have to work with. You may find you won’t need to go to the supermarket or corner shop at all.
Once you know what you have to work with you can meal plan. Start with ingredients you already have and try to plan meals that use those ingredients without having to buy anything extra. For example if you have a tin of salmon, an onion, eggs, flour and milk you can make a Salmon Impossible Pie to have hot or cold for lunch or dinner. Make it in a large pie dish for dinner, in smaller muffin pans for lunches. You haven’t spent a cent; you already had the ingredients on hand.
Keep going, making a list of ingredients you may need to buy. If you have mince, cheese, onions, garlic and spaghetti you have just about everything you need to make a spag bol or pasta bake. Add tomato soup to your shopping list and you have another meal. For this week, try making your spag bol with tomato soup at 89 cents a can rather than a jar of pasta sauce at $1.69. You’ll have 80 cents to spend on something else.
What’s the Secret?
The secret to surviving on a $30 a week grocery budget is creativity. Start with your pantry, fridge and freezer. Do an inventory and make a list of the ingredients you have on hand. List everything – flour, sugar, condiments, tins of beetroot, peas, corn, packets of noodles, the jellies hiding in the back of the cupboard, soup mixes, crackers, cereals, bread, meat, fish, chicken, fruit, vegetables, butter or margarine, eggs etc. so you know what you have to work with. You may find you won’t need to go to the supermarket or corner shop at all.
Once you know what you have to work with you can meal plan. Start with ingredients you already have and try to plan meals that use those ingredients without having to buy anything extra. For example if you have a tin of salmon, an onion, eggs, flour and milk you can make a Salmon Impossible Pie to have hot or cold for lunch or dinner. Make it in a large pie dish for dinner, in smaller muffin pans for lunches. You haven’t spent a cent; you already had the ingredients on hand.
Keep going, making a list of ingredients you may need to buy. If you have mince, cheese, onions, garlic and spaghetti you have just about everything you need to make a spag bol or pasta bake. Add tomato soup to your shopping list and you have another meal. For this week, try making your spag bol with tomato soup at 89 cents a can rather than a jar of pasta sauce at $1.69. You’ll have 80 cents to spend on something else.
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