Until recently, we were getting the Hello Fresh meal kits at $69 every two weeks for three meals. I canceled that and started making a weekly menu.
We were also ordering on Uber once every one or two weeks.
Now, I try to cook things that we can have for two nights in a row, because I don’t like to cook much. If I can cook enough to freeze for an extra meal, that’s even better.
So far, we’ve spent $50-60 on groceries each week. This week, our weekly groceries were $30.48—and we even had steak.
I figure we’re spending half of what we were spending before.
A couple years ago, I bought a wok, some oyster sauce, and fish sauce. I buy value packs of chicken thighs when they are on sale and split them into 8 ounce portions. I chop the meat, vacuum pack them, and freeze them. It’s real simple to shop up some carrots, bell peppers, garlic and onion and stir fry them with the thawed chicken in a simple homemade stir-fry sauce. Make some rice and it’s a great meal. I can make lots of variations on that simple recipe, too.
I bought a sous vide machine and tenderize cheaper steak cuts like flank with a fork and let it marinade overnight in homemade marinade. Six hours in the water bath, then a quick sear on all sides on a hot cast iron frying pan and you have a wonderful steak dinner.
Yeah, me too. Kept the recipe cards, you can find them on-line too.
“Copycat Recipes” by Lina Chang. It gives you the recipes for everything from Applebee’s Bourbon Street steak to Olive Gardens Zuppa Tuscano, many other franchise signature dishes and desserts. A lot cheaper than going there, tip yourself.
And consider a small air fryer oven, Oster makes a good one. Heats faster, less energy, doesn’t take up more space than a good microwave. whew lad
I guess you’ve had to economize now that the USAID payments have stopped.
If you like Pasta that freezes really well. I’ll make the giant family size Spaghetti Bolognese, Pesto Spaghetti with chicken and Pine nuts, Chicken Tortellini Alfredo, Mushroom Cavatappi and a few other pasta dishes occasionally. Then put meal sized portions in ziploc bags and toss them in the freezer for whatever is left after I’ve had dinner that night. Its always a lot. That way in the future I can just grab one bag out of the freezer and defrost it in a few minutes.
One big batch of pasta can easily amount to 6-8 meals and you only had to cook once. When you divide the cost over that many meals it turns out its quite cheap.