I believe in saving money where it counts. For most young people this means that we need to pick one or two problem areas and then work on them. This beats trying to save money in general. Most of us spend a majority of our money on food. We don’t even think about it. We all need to eat. We justify the expense by saying that we need the food to do be productive.
This leads into my question for today’s post:
Is it even possible for a young person to save money on food?
The answer is obviously yes because everything’s possible. Just the other day I shared how you can get in shape without going broke. The problem is that we just have a natural tendency to spend more money on food because we don’t plan for this expense throughout the day. We all know that we need to eat. We all know that we need food in our systems. For some reason, we just don’t bring food with us. We think about actually buying food when we’re already hungry and desperate for a meal.
Allow me to share a quick example on the topic of healthy eating and saving money on food…
Every single time when I work at my part-time job, the same dude comes up to me to ask the same question.
“What are we doing for food today?”
Almost all of the time I have to tell him that I brought food. While I’m in no position by any means to start sharing healthy eating guidelines with my friend here because I’ve been known to enjoy a junior chicken sandwich or a slice of pizza. However, I prefer to bring my own food because this helps me keep costs down and I control what I eat (usually fairly healthy).
Healthy eating and exercise is what makes you feel damn amazing about yourself. When I don’t have time to bring food (sound familiar?) I can find myself stuck and desperate enough to eat McDonalds. I’ve noticed that fast food is more expensive and it makes me feel pretty lazy afterwards
Back to the original point, this same friend always complains about how he can’t save money because he spends so much of it on food. I don’t want to give unsolicited advice because that’s a quick way to lose friends, but I wish he would just realize that he needs to stop eating out every single meal.
Now it’s time to answer the big question.
How can a young person save money on food?
In my experiences, saving money on food all comes down to preparation. You need to plan your meals out a little bit in advance. You can’t just start hunting for food when your stomach starts grumbling and you have an uncontrollable urge to eat anything that you can get your hands on. At that point money is not an option. We’ve all been there.
Now before you run away, please don’t worry. You don’t have to learn how to cook or how to become a master chef. Preparing your meals doesn’t mean that you have to cook your own food or spend two hours in front of the oven.
Here’s my little trick for preparing my meals and saving money: I grab the ready to go meals at the grocery store. These are usually a good bargain and are good to eat right away. If I’m not in the mood for one of those meals, I pick up food that’s easy to put together. For example, I’ll get a bag of chicken and vegetables. These don’t need any further preparation.
I’m not sure what sort of food you’re into so I’ll stop there. If you want to save money on food you just need to prepare a little bit in advance. You can stop at the grocery store on your way to work or load up once a week. You’ll find yourself with some decent savings this way.
How do you save money on food?
You do know that “If You Can Read, You Can Cook” right? Compared to making it yourself, most of those ready to go meals aren’t that good of a price or even that healthy. But I firmly believe that simple cooking is, well, simple. If you can read the directions on the back of a box of Hamburger Helper or spaghetti, then you can cook that box of Hamburger Helper, or make yourself a nice pasta meal.
I agree man. I personally have come to enjoy cooking. I’ve even noticed that it’s less time consuming to cook your meals in the morning so that you have food for the rest of the day, as opposed to going for fast food a few times.
The quick meals at the grocery store are a last resort. At my local store, I usually grab some sort of prepared chicken meal.
It does make perfect sense to cook though.
Another great way to save money is to skip getting soft drinks when you eat out. By getting water you are saving money, not to mention it is much healthier.
I love water. Soft drinks are a waste of time!
Hey Martin. You have no idea how timely your post is! Thaks for this by the way. Even though I’m not a student, I’m definitely budgeting myself right now. And I was just thinking of how I can eat at work on a budget. And you’re right about preparing in advance. Fail to prepare, and we prepare to fail right. Thanks for that. And meat and veg always sounds great to me: salads instead of veg during the summer.