I’m always looking for great dollar stretcher tips for our grocery budget and thought I’d share some of my favorites with you. These are great ways to make simple grocery items go further, therefore saving you money on your grocery budget. I love being able to feed my family great meals they love, but still stay on budget and meet our financial goals. 🙂
Dollar Stretcher Tips For Grocery Budgets
Add powdered milk to your milk.
If you’re feeling more adventurous this idea may be for you! (However, you may find you get used to the taste pretty quickly.) Split your 4L jug of milk into two cartons. Prepare a gallon of powdered milk and divide between the two now half gallons of milk. Mix together and use as normal. Powdered milk is much less expensive and mixing like this will still taste the same while saving you money on one of the most often purchased and used items for a family budget.
Add beans to more than just soups and chili.
Dry beans are always super cheap and easy to cook in a slow cooker or Instant Pot. I love making large batches of pinto beans, kidney beans, black beans and garbanzo beans then putting them in 2-cup portion bags to use in everything from soups and chili, to mashing into my ground meat for spaghetti, tacos or casseroles. They take on most flavors they are seasoned with, and their texture is great for all kinds of dishes. This can make one pound of ground meat go twice as far in a casserole or soup!
Don’t fear using carbohydrates.
Starches and carbohydrates tend to have a bad reputation, but as long as you are including a lot of great nutrient-dense vegetables into your diet as well it’s not a bad thing to include things like rice and potatoes as a base for casseroles. Rice and potatoes are a great dollar stretcher for almost any meal. In fact, roasted potatoes, green beans, and roasted chicken is one of the easiest and cheapest meals you can make for your family. It’s healthy, satisfying and easy to manage. The potatoes add bulk to the meal without being high fat or unhealthy, and they are so cheap it makes your meal very affordable.
Batch cook your meals.
You may wonder how or why this can be considered a dollar stretcher for your grocery budget, but it really is a great way to save. When you buy larger quantities of meats and produce, you often save a significant amount of money. Next time you find chicken, pork or beef on sale in large “family sized” packages don’t hesitate to grab them, then cook in simple ways and portion to freeze. Chicken can be roasted and cubed for everything from salads and soups to casseroles or fajitas. Pork shoulders can be roasted and pulled for use in BBQ, casseroles or tacos. Batch cooking meats, produce and even whole meals and freezing for future use saves you time, money and tons of frustration each evening when you need to throw a simple meal together fast.
These are great dollar stretcher ideas for your grocery budget. Just a few simple changes can save you hundreds of dollars in grocery expenses over the course of a year.
How do you make ordinary grocery items stretch further? Let us know in the comments below!
One thing I’ve gotten used to doing is having a plan for all leftovers. When we clean up after eating (depending on how much is left), I either put together a plate for lunch the next day for my hubby, OR make up a plate or two in a freezer container and stash it away for later. This works for me especially if it were something that everyone wasn’t crazy about, but would be willing to have again in a couple of weeks. The meal is ready for a lunch which saves money and time! Enjoyed reading your article!
Having a plan for leftovers is great! My husband often takes leftovers to work for his lunch. Thanks for sharing your tips!
This is terrific. I fnd that you are quite right with the beans. Once we had my daughter my wife started expanding her cooking abilities and started adding beans (especially black beans) to everything and I find those m are much more filling .
I also grew up with mixed milk. My parents might get whole or 2% milk but it was mixed powdered lf the time, but how do you get a wife that has never had powdered milk to accept that when all she ever wants to drink is Whole milk? (but will at least settle for 2%) Love the recommendations, Thanks
Maybe use powdered milk in cooking etc.and save the normal milk for your wife to drink.
Eat less meat!
I recommend this cookbook, “Every Grain of Rice” by Fuchsia Dunlop. She studied traditional Szechuan cooking in Chengdu, where meat is only for flavouring – an ounce per person is often enough if you know how. Even if you don’t like Chinese food, you can learn to use spices and meat to add flavor. (If you’ve only gotten takeouts with numbered meals, you haven’t had Chinese food.) Get one of her books from the library. It’s amazing. Her memoir was so fun to read.
You can get cheap dried protein chunks from Indian stores to substitute meat in curry and stews. I recommend thinning it out, start with half the meat you usually use so you still get the meat flavor but cut your cost by half. Eggs is so versatile and a nutritious low cost protein, Micheal Ruhlman’s “Egg” is a must-read cookbook to up your egg game. Mushrooms can be used to “pad” a dish as well.
Thanks for the recommendations!