The more processed the food is the more it costs
The grocery store offers you convenience in many areas of your food life, but with that convenience comes a price tag, often a high one. If you want to save money on groceries, and free up some money for your cash reserve, you should learn to do the "work" yourself, and buy your food as close to the natural state as possible.
The cost to have someone else wash your food, cut it, or portion it out can be astronomically high, especially when you consider how long it is actually going to take you to do it yourself.
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Let's look at just a few examples:
Lettuce. This is a prime example. Many people buy their lettuce pre cut and washed, and sealed in a bag. It is very convenient to simply open the bag and grab a handful out when you want a salad. However, you almost always pay 50% more for the lettuce when you buy it that way. A head of lettuce costs less than $1.50. A bag of pre washed and cut lettuce is going to cost $3 or more, depending on the time of year, type of lettuce you buy, and whether or not there is a sale.
Lettuce is not the only example. Have you ever considered how much more per ounce you pay for applesauce, pudding, yogurt, fruit etc, when you buy it in the little cups, just because it is pre-portioned out? How hard is it going to be to portion it out yourself into your bowl, or into a tupperware container?
What about things like cake and cookies. To buy a pre-made cake you will spend $15. To buy a cake mix you will spend $1, and about the same on the eggs, oil, etc that goes in it, and another couple for frosting. This means if you make it yourself, you save $10.
Canned foods costs more than fresh, and fresh is better for you, so buy fresh rather than canned whenever you have the chance. You will save money, and you will have the added benefit of not eating the preservatives.
If you buy a whole chicken, and cut it up yourself you can save up to $1 per pound. The same holds true for other meats, why pay someone else to cut for you, to cut up your stir fry meat, etc.? You can do it yourself and save a lot.
The effort it takes to portion, cut, and wash is inferior to the price you pay someone to do it. If you can save 20% on your food bill with half an hour of work to cut, wash, and portion, would it be worth it? Yes! And, it would give you several hundred dollars a year to put into your cash reserve. By choosing to portion, cut, wash, beat, prepare, etc. yourself, rather than have someone else do it for you, you are going to save between a month's worth of groceries. How much do you spend in a month?
