Of course just planning out your meals is the BIGGEST tip I could ever give but here is a tip that will help save a little money. Pick one ingredient from a favorite meal and use it several times. This won’t always work but it does pretty often for me. For instance, this week I wanted to try Parmesan Chicken Subs. They turned out great but did take me about 40-45 minutes to prepare & cook. I used chicken tenderloins, which did help on the cook time of the chicken but I still couldn’t get it done in the 25 minutes they said! Anyways, this chicken sub calls for spinach. And since you can buy spinach pretty reasonably (a little over 3 $) in large bags, I thought I’d just find another recipe that uses spinach. So, tonight we’ll be having Turkey Sausage and Spinach Pasta, which calls for quite a bit of spinach. Then we will be having ham and veggie omelets later and I’m planning on saving a handful or two to throw into our omelets. Instead of the pasta and egg dishes I could have planned a spinach pizza or spinach lasagna rolls. I love spinach salads too but the Hubs prefers it cooked! It’s healthy and can be put into many dishes.

From that same chicken sub meal, I also used about 1/2 cup marinara sauce. So, what do I do with the rest? Make spaghetti! The pizza & lasagna rolls would work here too! You can also freeze jarred marinara/pizza sauce. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made a pizza and only used a little sauce, only to put it in the fridge and then have to throw it out later! Just make it a habit to pour it into a freezer bag in 1/2 cup increments!

Edited to add- While making the Turkey Sausage Pasta last night, I was reminded that I’m also using the turkey sausage in 2 meals this week! We’ll be having turkey sausage in our spaghetti, too! The 16 oz of turkey sausage was $2.88, I believe, not too bad to get two meals out of it! I browned it all with garlic and halved it. Then, I froze the one half to throw into the spaghetti sauce this weekend!

By putting a little thought into your meals, you can save a little. And a little here and there adds up!