Save 50% (or more!) on fast meals at home!
Eating in is an easy way to save— if only you had time to cook! Here, four budget-friendly tips to make home cooking quick and delicious
Cut costs and prep time with discount meal kits
In theory, those meal kits that get delivered to your door, complete with premeasured ingredients and an easy-to-follow recipe, are a lifesaver. The trouble is, the expensive subscription plans are a pain in the wallet. Now there’s a better option: Chains like Costco and Walmart have started offering meal kits priced at about $ 4 to $ 7 per serving. You’ll get a restaurantquality meal for up to 50% less than mail-order kits—without getting locked into a pricey subscription! Find them in your supermarket’s refrigerated foods section.
Save on specialty goods with the salad bar
Experimenting with new recipes makes at-home meals more exciting, but buying costly ingredients, like specialty cheeses or diced veggies, can send the per-serving price soaring. The surprising saver? The supermarket salad bar! You’ll get the amount you need and won’t pay for extras you won’t use. Plus, you’ll save prep time since these items are often pre-shredded, diced and ready to use. Just compare the “unit price” on the salad bar to the packaged food’s price per unit— you can find savings of up to 50%!
Score deals on meat with a butcher buddy
Not only can the butcher in your local supermarket tip you off to the lowest prices on fresh meat and the best days to buy, some will also remove the fat and bone from a roast— all you have to do is ask! And since you’re paying by weight, this trick not only saves you cash, you’ll have less prep work when you get home. Also smart: If your recipe calls for a costly cut of meat, ask your butcher to suggest less-expensive substitutes—you could save $ 2 per pound!
Flavor food for less with a spice-aisle swap
Herbs and spices are key to creating quick and tasty meals: Just a few shakes delivers instant flavor. But stocking the pantry can get pricey. To the rescue: the supermarket’s bulk aisle, where you can save more than 90%! A Tiphero cost comparison found paprika cost $2.75 per ounce in the supermarket spice aisle and just 24 cents in bulk. And no need to worry about flavor: In a
Consumer Reports taste test, people couldn’t tell a difference between brand-name spices and discount ones. No bulk bins at your grocer? Swing by the dollar store or ethnic grocer (or the ethnic aisles at your supermarket) for savings.