Food money balancing act

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Ok so after having a discussion about how i got to where im at with bulk food preps and saving money with food on the air On Pirate Radio i though it would show you guys how it all started for me. Now the thing to understand is that there was a time when things were so tight money wise at home that we could not afford to eat properly or even heat the house. As they say necessity breeds creation, and so i set out to discover a way we could make ends meet and have a decent meal. What i found was a way to save money, eat better and have more food than ever before. It did take a couple of years for the process to become streamlined but the math is solid.

The main thing people tell me is that they don't have money to bulk buy food and i have been in that situation myself, but where there is a will there is a way, and this is how i started.

As you can see here in the picture i have compiled the ingredients to make spaghetti (minus the meat but its there, lolz), this as a standard meal would be around 10- 15 dollars to put together and according to the bolognese sauce serves 4 people. what we have done here is add a tin of diced tomatoes, a carrot, an onion, and some capsicum to beef up the sauce, we will also use all the pasta to make more food for less.

All the additional ingredients being added are cheap end of the scale when looking at the costs, tin of diced tomatoes 70c, carrots $1.50 for 1kg bag (so lets say 20c), onion 40c, half a green capsicum 40c. these ingredients combined are more than 1kg extra food for less than 2 dollars and will double the output of total food according to the serving's suggested on the sauce container.

There are a number of ingredients you can use to beef up the sauce and its really up to you what you want to use. it should also be noted that you can double the beef up ingredients for even more savings on the meal. The pasta itself is also cheap around $1 per 500g and can be beefed up too depending on how you like your pasta to sauce ratio.

The method is to follow the instructions on the bolognese sauce, add the raw ingredients with the meat and the diced tomato when the sauce is added.

The result is much more food for your hard earned bucks, below is a picture of the final results. There are 3 double servings and 2 standard servings, this is because we have some big eaters around for dinner... alright im one of thebig eaters :) ok so that's a total of 8 servings without even trying too hard. As you can see there is also a plastic container being used, this is for freezer storage. the total comes in at $1.80 per serving of this particular meal, plus it tastes great and you know exactly whats in it.... cos you put it there.

When we dont have people around for dinner there would be more containers and we would have more frozen meals to eat for lunch at work, or dinner if we dont feel like cooking. What this does is cut down on many other elements which cost money. lets have a quick run down on just some of those things.

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Less

less power/gas used to cook due to bulk food prep, less water detergents used to clean up pots pans and dishes, less long term effort cooking.

More

More food to eat, more time to do as you please, more money in the bank, more health benefits.

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These are but a few of the kinds of positive impacts which can occur from making the shift to this kind of lifestyle when it comes to food. It may not seem like much of a saving now, However if you consider that a shop bought meal is generally around $10 plus we start seeing the math unfold, THEN we multiply that by days in the year and the picture starts becoming much more clear.

A difference of 8 dollars a day for a year is almost a 3k saving annually, all which can be used to get a bulk buy and cook set up to save even more money. This is how i started my journey, making small improvements to my food situation, saving time effort and money, with only a small broken down fridge/freezer combo on its last legs, and now i have transformed that situation into two functional fridge/freezer combos and a chest freezer all full of foods that are easy to prepare, home made, health tasty and super cheap.

I hope this article helps anyone wanting to make such a change in their life, but is uncertain of how to go about it when budget is tight. If anyone has any question or wants to know more please feel free to leave your questions below or DM me on discord. I am more than happy to discuss more and help out where i can. much love in all your directions.

~ Cope