I have helped a friend cut her family food budget nearly in half this summer by teaching her how to make some of the family favorites (like lasagna) at home instead of buying frozen ones.
I took the amount of money she was going to spend on frozen lasagnas and purchased meet, cheese, pasta, onions, and tomatoes and a couple of disposable foil pans. We then spent a day putting together the pans of lasagna she then put in her freezer. The same amount of money she would have spent on 3 meals of frozen store-bought lasagna provided her family with 9 meals of homemade.
What a wonderful gift you gave your friend!
My one food splurge that has gotten out of hand is snacks. I find having the prepackaged granola bars etc. very convenient for football practice days, etc. But, boy, the expense.
I'm going to get resituated so I can start making more snacks at home. They will be a lot healthier and certainly cheaper.
I'm saving a fortune by making my own pizza from scratch, including the sauce, crust, and cheese. I've got the routine down to about 20 minutes, as much time as it would take to go to the Hut and back. To make the cheese just boil a quart of milk, dump in the juice of a lemon, strain and there it is, rivaling fresh mozzarella. The dough requires a food processor to do it fast, but you can save enough from not doing takeout and frozen pizza to buy one pretty quickly.