Save Money on Dining Home

Saving money on healthy meals while dining home

Dining home is one way to ensure that your family eats foods with the best ingredients possible. Dining home allows you to control the fat, sugar and salt intake of meals. You are also able to serve more of the items that are good for you. While it make seem faster, easier and often times cheaper to go through the drive through in the evenings, it is most definitely not healthier. With a bit of planning ahead of time you can make cooking and dining home as easy at take out and it can be less expensive when put some thought into shopping. You also get the added benefit of knowing you are doing something good for your family. Dining home on healthy foods is a wonderful gift to those you love.

Step 1

• Buy extra when items are on sale. For example you may find boneless skinless chicken breasts available for $2.99 per pound, the price often drops if you buy three pounds, you may be able to buy the chicken for only $1.99 per pound in that case. Buying ten pounds of chicken can knock the price down to $1.69 per pound. Making the ten pounds, the best option. You can then separate the chicken into meal sized portions and store it in  your freezer. You can do this with ground beef, steak, pork chops and other cuts of meat as well. Canned and frozen vegetables are another item that you can stock up on when you find a good sale. Having these items on hand will make cooking and dining home easier. You have what you need at the house and will not need to run to the store.

Step 2

• Cook extra and freeze a batch. Another good idea to make home dining easier is to double up when cooking. For example cook two lasagnas, or two meat loaves. One for dinner and one for the freezer. This way on busy days or when you just do not feel like cooking, you simple take a dinner out of the freezer, heat it and serve it.  Be sure to put a tag on the meal so you know what is inside. Also note the date that it was placed in the freezer. Having these meals in the freezer is a good way to stop the drive through or take out habit. 

Step 3

• Use less meat and more beans and vegetables. You can often cut down on the meats in casseroles and other dishes without it being missed. Use beans, pasta and vegetables more. These ingredients are cheaper and will save you money. Cutting back on meat and using more vegetables while home dining is a good way to get good for you vitamins and minerals into your families dinners. In many dishes the fact that you are using less meat will not even be noticed.

Tips

Planning out a week or more of menus makes cooking and dining home easier. Part of the battle when dining home is figuring out what to make. If you make it a point to sit down and write out a week or two of menus at one time, you will always know what you are going to make. The actual cooking part is easy.

Keep your pantry stocked. Items such as pasta, beans and spices should be stocked and replaced as you run out. Having everything you need is another way to make dining home easy.

Take a shopping list with you when you shop. Keep a running list where you can easily write down items as you run low. This will help ensure that you have everything you need when it is time to cook.

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