Saving on food but keeping your family healthy

If you make things with rice, potatoes, and even chicken instead of other kinds of meat, you will find that you are saving a lot of money.  Save coupons and make a shopping list before going to the store, and don't buy anything that wasn't written on your list.  I would say that about $50 per week is reasonable for buying food.

Most definetly make a list before shopping. My family of four also makes a menu for the week. If your family sticks to the menu, you will find that you save quite a bit of money. Also, avoid snacking, this will dwendle food quickly. Portion your food more reasonably also. If you cook a meal and have quite a bit of food left, downsize your recipe portions. Use coupons!!! Try to make the smarter buy, less name brand products. Most generic brands have just as good of quality for less cash. My family saves quite a bit fallowing these.

Hi Stephy123, You can also check which stores have double coupon days, and do your shopping on that day. It seems like double coupon days have been gone for a while, but they are making a big comeback now. I believe WalMart has a double coupon day. Check around in your area.

Rose Red

For our family the first thing we targeted was juice and drinks. Starting there, you can save a lot. You don't need coffee, and especially not starbucks, or Monsters, or soda pop, etc. If you do fast food, skip the drinks, and ask for water if you really need something. The drinks are usually unhealthy, so if you calculate the true cost of soda pop for example (including the eventual dentist bills), it's pretty expensive, even if it seems cheap.

Second thing to target is food waste. We were really having a problem with food going bad because it would get "lost" in the back of the fridge, or we'd lose interest in those breadstuffs and they'd grow moldy.

Another thing you can try, it's inconvenient and I have not yet done this on a regular basis, but have an envelope where you put allocated food money from the budget. When you shop for groceries use the cash, not a debit card. You have two things working for you: 1) you can't spend more than you have in the envelope, so it forces you to stick to the budget, and 2) they say when spending cash rather than a debit card people have a much easier time saying no to an impulse and hanging onto the cash. You really feel the outgo if it's cash, and you don't if it's on a card.

Here's another insight, and we have just started doing this: try to have a designated shopper. I can't count the times that I bought a few groceries on the way home only to see that my wife had done the same thing. we bought different things but we were buying more overall than we needed. Decide between you whos doing the shopping, and eliminate those surprises.

Last one. We find that if one of the kids needs something and we have to take time out of our day to go to the store, it's hard to not buy ourself something too. For years I did this till I started to see what I was doing to myself. If my daughter needed something that cost $10 then I'd get myself somthing too, because "why should she get everything?" Now I try to tell myself if I really must go get something for the kids, I don't "treat myself" which also make it easier not to let the kids add a treat for themselves to the purchases.