Keep a substantial snack in your car and desk.

Keep a substantial snack in your car and desk. Ever have a ten-minute errand take two hours? You end up super hungry and don't want to get fast food, but at this point you're starving! Plan ahead with a packable snack each day. Even better, plan ahead with long lasting snacks that you can pack once a week and not have to think about again. Even storing a gallon jug of water in your car can save an unnecessary purchase, be cautious of the material from which the jug is made for possible health reasons, though. A "just in case" bag of almonds or a protein bar could be all it takes for that had-to-work-late evening at work when you are hurry home to eat a late meal with your spouse or roommate. Make it an absolute priority to have something you can eat so you have no excuses to cheat on your budget (or your diet).

Crispy Granola Bars (or not so crispy - you choose)

This recipe makes 32 servings, whatever that really means! Bag them up in Ziplocs and keep them handy. If you bake BIG you can freeze some of them and save time, too. I have even heard of people carrying granola bars to hand to homeless people asking for money/food!

2/3 c vegetable oil

1 1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c honey (or corn syrup)

2 t vanilla

4 eggs

2 c wheat flour

2 t cinnamon

1 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

9 cups “stuff”: I use about 3 cups oatmeal, 3 cups Rice Krispies, 2 cups Cheerios, 1 cup chopped nuts; I've also made a dumpfest by using all the end bags of cereal that were accumulating. Flax seed, raisins - you name it!

Combine oil, brown sugar, honey, vanilla, and eggs.

Add flour, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt.

Mix well.

Add 9 cups of “stuff” and mix well.

Spray your baking dishes and press into pans. For crispy bars I press half into a large jelly roll very firmly. I actually spray the bottom of a glass 9 X 13 and use that to press it down. For our softer bars I use a glass 9 X 13, don't press so firmly and it is thicker since it's a smaller pan.

Bake at 300 for 40-50 minutes. For our softer bars I take them out near 40; for hubby's crispy bars 50 is about right.

Cut these into your desired size when they first come out of the oven, they will divide much better this way. Travel bars are easy to package and save in a Ziploc. We keep our bars in a sealed storage box.

If you MUST have something, buy it intelligently.

If you MUST have something, buy it intelligently. Must have a daily candy bar? Buy a bulk pack rather than individuals at the vending machine. You know your temptations. If you buy something every day at work because you have to have it (or want it), buy it somewhere other than a vending machine or a gas station where the prices are lethal. You will also be able to think through other options consciously like bags of snack-size packs and healthier choices.

Mock Lunchables

Keep a Ziploc bag with sliced cheese and pepperoni in the corner of your fridge door and Ritz cracker half packs ready to grab and run. This mini meal could really help you make it through a busy morning and save stress, time, and money along the way. You could also add various preferred items and needs to make it an even more appropriate grab on the go with a few baby carrots, almonds, or celery and a bottle of water already chilled and set to go. You could even stow a piece of dark chocolate for that got-to-have-one moment.

Take your lunch.

Whether you are going on a play date with kids or to work or the zoo, consider taking your lunch. Lunch out is almost guaranteed to be more expensive than taking your own lunch. If you plan your dinners well enough to always feed double, everyone in your house could have a lunch prepared for them in a snap. Spaghetti, tacos, fajitas, burritos, lasagna, burgers - just make a bigger meal once and you've done 95% of the work!

Avoid fast food breakfast by preparing breakfast at home

Buying Jimmy Dean sandwiches for the mornings will help you avoid McDonald's while you’re scrambling to work. They are a fraction of the cost, mighty tasty and don't take the extra time of the drive through. Say no to fast food. Whether you are making bulk batches of freezer breakfasts or cooking a scrambled egg each day, make the commitment to your future not to overpay for breakfast.

Place small portion desserts in the freezer.

There is no reason to eat an entire cheesecake but an entire cheesecake is much cheaper than buying a slice every few days. You know your habits and preferences! If you need something of an indulgence, find a way to stock it more cheaply. Take a cheesecake, divide it into portions, and wrap each portion to freeze. Now you can even cut calories by making the portions just a bit smaller; one thing at a time, though. 

Swap cooking with a neighbor.

If you have friends who live nearby, see if they would be interested in swapping dinners. This would mean possibly for a week at a time or every other night, alternating families (or moms, we can be real here) cook the same meal for two homes and take it next door. By making bigger recipes you can more easily take advantage of bulk prices and you only have to cook half as often. This can also be a great way to get children to try foods that they might not otherwise. You might even agree to eat together for a social evening once a week, perhaps an hors d'oeuvres night where everyone brings something.

Make dinner at home.

If you don't cook at all, even buying frozen pizza is cheaper than having it delivered or eating out. But the best option for your health and your pocketbook is to learn to cook and use foods that are as unprocessed as possible. Consider the cost difference of a can of Chef Boyardee compared to cooking noodles yourself and pouring on a jar of sauce. Way healthier and much cheaper (and tastier).

Frozen standby meal.

Keep something quick in the freezer so you don't order out. You get home from a lousy day, you had a meal planned but you just can't cook tonight. Don't use excuses! Have a backup plan in the freezer. Stouffers is a great small package-big meal in the freezer section. Save one or two meals out of the way in the freezer and don't eat them when you just want to be lazy. Save them for when they save you from ordering delivery or going out. This meal also needs to sound good most of the time so pick carefully.

Bake your bacon!

Yep, I said bake your bacon. There are folks who pay top dollar for packages of a couple of sticks of crispy bacon, already cooked for them. They pay 10X what you pay for a pack of uncooked bacon! So here's the deal. Get out a jelly roll pan or a high edge cookie sheet, the edge here is necessary. Take some aluminum foil and cover the entire cookie sheet, making a bowl that will not leak onto the pan. If your foil is not wide enough, forget this step all together. Now take about 12 inches of foil and twist it into a snake. Get two more pieces so you have 3 snakes. These snakes are going to lie across your pan. Now take your bacon and drape it across your pan over the snakes. You can nudge the edges as much as you like to get nice hill and valley bacon.

Now place your nicely bacon-buried snakes in your COLD oven. Turn the oven up to 400 degrees and walk away. Come back in about 15 minutes to see if it's to your liking. If they are not crispy enough, leave them in longer. Personally I like my bacon soft and floppy but my husband and kids like theirs glass shattering crispy, so I take mine out early and keep theirs in for a bit longer. Then when you are finished you have one pan to clean BUT if you lined your pan with foil, carefully pour out the grease and you should be able to reveal a clean pan - NO DISHES!

Prepare breakfasts once a week to refrigerate or freeze.

 I know I'm really harping on breakfast, the poor thing. It does not need to suck the life out of your wallet or the time out of your morning, though! If you like Eggos, buy them. If you can do better, make them yourself and freeze them (just like an Eggo). Make muffins, pancakes, and all sorts of easy big preparation foods and freeze them. Keep them where your kids can serve themselves, too. You can make a casserole dish of eggs or farmer's casserole, bake it until it's finished, and then divide the food into separate servings. Breakfast burritos are super easy and you can customize your ingredients to your liking. Just wrap in plastic wrap and freeze in a gallon freezer bag. Then there is bacon. I'll make bacon its own tip.

Once a month cooking.

The other system that is out there is to plan your month of meals and cook, prepare, or half-cook most of your meals. One major grocery list, one shopping day, and one cooking spree and frozen dinners are waiting for you all month. You can easily put a large amount of chicken in a Crock-Pot and make several storage containers of pulled chicken for chicken tacos, burritos, or anything in which you might add chicken. You can even make breakfast burritos all wrapped up for the mornings. Consider making egg, bacon, and biscuit sliders or muffins for the kids to freeze for crazy mornings. This can also be done with a social group, with each person or pair in charge of prepping one or two meals for each family. You co-make 10 lasagnas and ziti then go home with 10 different meals. 

Cook once/Eat twice.

 This concept is fabulous. The idea is that you make parts of meals that are usable in various meals. If you make a rotisserie chicken, perhaps you are already using the bones for making broth, but buy a chicken that is a bit larger than your family will eat in a meal and you can have extra chicken to use in a soup, salad, or dish the following day. If you are having tacos tonight, you could make extra stuffing to have with taco salad tomorrow. It's enough different that you are not necessarily having the same thing.

Rachael Ray took this idea a step further with this awesome article where she has you create the time-consuming building blocks once and you have a MONTH of food to toss together. http://www.rachaelraymag.com/food-how-to/grocery-shopping-tips/one-month-of-make-ahead-meals. We tried this meal series and really enjoyed it.

Freezer meals - double duty.

This sounds really weird but stay with me here, this can be done a variety of ways. One option is to make doubled meals and freeze one for later. If you are making a lasagna, is it much more work to make a second right next to it to toss in the freezer for next week sometime? Make two lasagnas side by side. The one you are going to keep you should double line the pan with aluminum foil. Instead of baking the second, place the entire pan in the freezer. Once the meal is frozen solid, lift the edges of the foil and remove the meal from the pan. Now finish covering the lasagna with foil and wrap again with plastic wrap if you expect to wait more than 10 days before eating it. When the day comes to eat, place the lasagna back in its pan and set in your fridge during the day to let it thaw before cooking in the evening.

Shop at farmer's markets or CSA.

Farmer's markets provide great prices for locally grown produce that is sold without big store brand marketing. CSAs or Community Supported Agriculture may also be an option for accessing the same product at an even better somewhat bulk price. In a CSA, typically, the farmer provides you with a box or a specific amount of weight or percentage of the share of the harvest each week.

In some areas, joining a co-op is a similar option in which you can choose to “contribute” (money) for a particular week’s offering of in-season produce. Each member who contributes that week will receive basically the same selection of produce. In addition, the co-op may offer for an additional cost bulk packages of seasonal canning fruits and vegetables. If the regular weekly selection is more than you can use or freeze, find a friend to share the expense and bounty!

Buy from a wholesale club

 (Costco, BJs, Sam's Club). Become familiar with your major purchases, even designing a one-month menu to repeat every month; this can really help you to be able to buy bulk products at a wholesale club. If you only use one avocado a month, buy that at the grocery store (or farmer's market). Watch for things on your list that you use repetitively, such as bell peppers, which can be chopped and frozen. But don't overbuy just because it's there and "It's a good price. Right?"

Give all stores a chance. Some stores with a lesser appearance and more of a warehouse feel can be equal to big name stores. ALDI did not appear to be a store for our family. Eventually we went and were frustrated to have to search for a coin to use a shopping cart. ALDI turned out to be a very good investment of our grocery dollar after we learned what to expect. You insert a coin for a shopping buggy and when you return the buggy, the coin is returned. This helps them to keep costs low by not having to corral the carts. They sell limited brands that appear rather generic but the quality was almost always very satisfying. Their limited brands and under-marketed products are great for keeping the prices extremely low. Be ready though to bag your own stuff!

Use your Crock-Pot!

 Imagine all the savings you get from this one device:

Use a Crock-Pot on busy days to make sure dinner is ready. Load it up the night before and stick it in your fridge - pop it in as you leave for work. No-fuss dinner and no need to eat out.

Restaurant style meals at a fraction of the cost. Two or three meals plus leftovers or lunches means no grab-and-go or meal worries.

Crock-Pot to avoid extra summer heat. By using a Crock-Pot during the summer months, you can avoid turning on your oven and further heating your house up, saving money on electric bills and providing comfort. Slow cookers seemed so old fashioned to me growing up but this is one AMAZING kitchen tool. You can load it in advance, fill it with two, three, or more family meals, AND it cooks cool so it doesn't heat up your house!!!

You can use lesser cuts of meat (also cheaper) but still get a wonderful dish.

You might be saying "that's nice and all but where do I get a good recipe?" Personally, I blog-stalk the Crock-Pot Lady because, well, she rocks!

http://Crock-Pot365.blogspot.com/2007/12/alphabetical-listing-of-recipes.html

Rotisserie chicken http://Crock-Pot365.blogspot.it/2008/10/Crock-Pot-rotisserie-style-chicken.html

Smoked brisket http://Crock-Pot365.blogspot.it/2008/12/Crock-Pot-hickory-smoked-brisket.html

Recipe Key website to help clean pantry.

 This website lets you put in all items throughout your kitchen and gives you the most appropriate recipes and how many ingredients you may be missing for each. http://www.recipekey.com/

Be creative in selecting meals.

 Identify ingredients that are not getting used and plan meals around those ingredients. When the week or month is over, take a paper sack or box to your pantry and take everything out that you will never use or may expire before you do. Take that box to your local food pantry, church, or neighbor.

Pantry clean out

Every few months (or every month) make note of what's in your pantry and freezer and use everything up. The last week of the month or for every 6th month cook without buying anything. Like all tips, don't think this is a police regulation. If you look through and have enough of X, Y, and Z but need meat for this and this, go buy what you need. It's the concept! The goal is to spend $0 on groceries.