Savings In The Kitchen

home

about us

newsletter

monthly tips

TAKE CONTROL AND MASTER YOUR KITCHEN

Most people don't realize how significant a role the kitchen plays in our lives. Even if you just happen to make breakfast and dinner at home, you would spend about 2 hours a day in the kitchen. That averages out to about 14 hours a week or about 728 hours a year!

Since so much time is spent in the kitchen, it's a good idea to take control of it as best as possible. Not only will you save yourself a ton of precious time and energy, BUT you'll also be saving money which is always a good thing.

First: Inventory and Organize
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before you can have any success in the kitchen, you must first find out what you have, and then organize everything so you will have all your kitchen materials at your immediate disposal.

Most people only use about 20% of their kitchen's potential. These infrequent visitors only use the kitchen for the microwave or to cook macaroni and cheese. While there is nothing wrong with this scenario, these type of culinary practices leaves little to the imagination, and more than likely, puts a hefty dent in the pocketbook since many restaurant outings are needed.

First, go through each and every cabinet space in your kitchen. Clean out ALL those cupboards, shelves, racks, pantries, etc.... At some point, you'll want to do the same to your refrigerator and freezer. You must! This is VALUABLE storage space that will save you hundreds off your grocery bills if they are properly put to use.

Kitchens were designed to act as 'mini-supermarkets'. Everything you need to prepare meals your family can enjoy morning, noon, and night. Once it is setup, you can accommodate quite a number of meals, without having to go to the market (or restaurant) every other day!

Once The Cleaning Is Done
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that everything is cleaned and your current supplies are organized, you'll need to inventory what you have. What this means is to list out what you actually have on hand, and what you need to get.

Ideally, you should have at least 2-4 weeks of meals available at your disposal. Why? This will reduce the number of trips to the market (save gas, time, & money) and help minimize overspending and impulse buying.

What's really helpful is if you list foods and meals you know your family likes to eat. These are the items you need to stock your pantry and refrigerator with.

With this approach, you'll be using your cupboards, pantries, and shelves to your advantage. Whenever you come across great bargains on items you use, buy more than usual and simply store the rest. Cans of tuna for 40 cents each, buy a lot. Boxes of macaroni and cheese for 50 cents each, buy a lot. 10lbs of ground beef for $6, buy alot. Just remember to divide the meat into portions, wrap, and freeze for future use.

Sugar, cheese, spaghetti, rice, pasta, bread, meat, cereal, fruit, chicken, sauces, potatoes, canned foods, vegetables, boxed foods. These are just a few examples of items than can be stored in your pantry, refrigerator, or freezer (depending on what it is) for a reasonable amount of time.

You know you are running low on an item by simply opening your well organized pantry and determining what needs to be restocked.

If you need some recipe/cooking ideas, here are a few links to some great websites offering tons of assistance and relative information:

fabulousfoods.com/recipes/
Over 2000+ recipes you can immediately access. What's even better, all the recipes are organized into topic specific categories

http://www.betterbudgeting.com/frugalrecipelist.htm
A devoted section for recipes that are easy to fix and easy on the budget.

Online Community Forum
http://pub64.ezboard.com/bfrugalcooking
Frugal cooking forum with a variety of topics and threads. A little bit of something for everyone.

Once A Month Cooking Approach (OAMC)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may have heard about this somewhat popular cooking method amongst frugal advocates. It is the "Once A Month Cooking" approach. Simply put, this is a practice where one actually plans out meals for an entire month and then spends 1-3 days cooking all that is planned. Once all the meals are cooked, they are carefully stored in the appropriate location (ie: freezer) and simply thawed/reheated when needed.

Note: If you are planning to start using this method, it's recommended to take it in smaller time allotments the first time through and work your way up to a whole month. Start out planning and cooking meals for a week or two and see how it goes. What's important to keep in mind is to review and evaluate how well the process went afterwards. What did you like? What needs to be reworked/revised? This way, the next time you plan and cook your weekly/monthly meals.

If you're interested in learning more about the "Once A Month Cooking" (OAMC) approach, take a look at the following Internet websites:

realfood4realpeople.com/freeze.html
Freezing guidelines and suggestions for those interested in the "Once A Month Cooking" approach to kitchen mastery

pub46.ezboard.com/fchefmomcomfrm13
Another online forum specializing in OAMC: Once A Month Cooking hints, tips, and suggestions.

home