One of the few ways that you are able to control how much money you spend is by paying attention to what you eat. Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch instead of spending money on food can save you hundreds of dollars a month. If you are spending money on lunch everyday, you might not be broke, but just spending all of your money on food.
I’m not going to go full Dave Ramsey and tell you to eat beans and rice every day, but you really should know how to make beans into an amazing meal. The best investment I’ve made in the past few years was buying an Instant Pot. I’m not trying to make money getting you to buy one, but it’s made cooking on the cheap a lot easier and faster for me. I’m a terrible planner, so being able to throw frozen food in there and having dinner finished in less than half an hour makes a huge difference.
If you can’t afford an Instant Pot, you can always pick up a crock pot at the thrift store for dirt cheap. It’s a slow cooker so you aren’t going to get the quick and easy method, but you can make some amazing meals on the cheap. I fed myself for years by throwing food in a crock pot in the morning before work. Nothing beats coming home from work to a delicious dinner all ready to go.
There are lots of great cookbooks that you can get for free at the library. Every cooking device has a cookbook or website dedicated to it, so you can be a pro in not time. Good Cheap Eats is a site that gets right to the point with tasty recipes for the budget minded. I like that they even give you the price per serving. In the future I plan on having weekly budget friendly recipe posts. If we can eat good at home and save a few bucks, we can avoid the temptation to spend money on eating out.
