Saving Grocery Money by Cooking from Scratch

If you are new to this series you may want to start at the beginning HERE.

Saving grocery money can be tough. People like certain tastes and sometimes those tastes cost money. One simple change you can make to save some money is by cooking from scratch. This has always been something I have loved to do. I never realized the benefits it has to my family or to my pocketbook until I was married for a few years.

I was saving grocery money each time I turned on the stove and started tossing whatever was on my shelf into the pot. This was something that was very therapeutic for me. When I began calculating the savings, I was even more excited!

We spent way too much money on processed stuff that was doing nothing for us. When I decided to start cooking regularly, I was able to dramatically shrink our bill.

It is strange because I think one of the most common misconceptions is that cooking from scratch costs a lot of money. For most people the opposite happens. When they begin to cook from scratch you actually spend less.

How Cooking From Scratch Is Saving Grocery Money

One of the biggest ways you are saving grocery money is because cooking from scratch keeps your pantry simple. – When you cook from scratch you tend to use the same basic ingredients. This means you buy less items to stockpile in your pantry.

You use the same recipes often but do variations of them – I find when I cook from scratch I have base recipes of things that I then can add things to. When we make muffins we have a few items that make the base muffin mix and add the fruits or other items to make them different.
The basic items cost less – Buying base items in bulk cost less then being food pre-prepared, so it saves you money.

There are many other benefits to your family as well. Cooking this way has less additives and preservatives. This means your family is getting more of the bulk and goodness of the vegetables and fruits. It helps your family to maintain a healthy weight and to have a healthy lifestyle for life.

Saving grocery money can be hard. But making a simple change to cooking from scratch even a couple days a week can make a huge difference in your pocket book and you will start to see big ways you are saving grocery money to be used in other parts of your budget!

If you are looking for some great recipes to help you start to cook from scratch for your family, check out my Frugal Recipes!