Category: Food

It was only a matter of time. The coronavirus is wreaking havoc with our health, our jobs, and now it’s busting a big hole in our grocery budgets. The prices on groceries for April were actually the highest they’ve been in decades!

Prices at your supermarket are rising sharply because coronavirus has disrupted the food supply chain. You’ve been hearing for weeks that there are cracks in the supply chain even though the government has tried to deny it. It is just starting to reach into your pocketbook and the score for now looks like we are in trouble. When you are out of work, as over 30 million Americans are right now, the last thing you want is to have prices on groceries busting wide open!

If you can’t remember the last time you joined your family and friends for a big shindig down at your favorite local restaurant, you are not alone. I can’t either and neither can millions of other people these days. With the coming of COVID-19, restaurant dining rooms are closed and any of the ones that are open are being forced to serve take-out or delivery only. Frankly, that just isn’t the same thing to me. You do lose a little of the “flavor” (pardon the pun) carrying home a brown bag. So that makes it a real challenge to make your dining at home in any way special or fun. That raises the question: “Can it ever equal dining out and be your new normal dining out experience?”

There Are Adjustments

You have always had to prepare dinners at home, haven’t you? Sorry, if you are one of the ones who always did pick-up, delivery, or constantly dined out for reasons which I will never I understand and neither will your wallet! For now, those days are over (which may actually be forcing you to save some money), so what will you do?

It may be something that you thought was totally unthinkable a few short weeks ago, but the reality of the coronavirus pandemic is facing everyone right now, and for some it is both a health and a financial nightmare. If you recently lost your job, are not getting any unemployment compensation, haven’t received any stimulus check yet, or have no emergency funds to back you and your family up, you may now need and qualify to get food stamps.

The “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” and Food Stamps

In general, people usually need to meet some kind of work requirement to be eligible for SNAP (otherwise known as food stamps), but those rules under the new pandemic guidelines are now in suspension so that losing your job and not being able to find work right now will not disqualify you.

Grocery shopping should be a very simple task, but it isn’t. First of all, it’s pretty much a requirement for you or someone in your family to do it—every week. They should be making a list, heading out to the store, buying what you really need, then coming back home to unload and put it all away. It’s very similar to washing your hair, according to the instructions, repeat the process, and do it all again next week…forever.

You may think you’ll be making a quick trip to the grocery store, but two hours later, you come home with tons of grocery bags and hundreds of dollars gone from your bank account. So then, how can anyone suggest that big name elite supermarkets (like Whole Foods or Wegmans) can ever be a way to save money?

Let’s get right to the point here. Is there anything that you spend more on every week than food? It’s the number one thing that we all spend money on every week and it involves a lot of thought and care if you want to have money left over for other things you must take care of. That’s why cheap meals are such a good idea no matter your budget. There’s no avoiding food forever, skipping it entirely for a while, or thinking of it as the very “last thing” you need to concern yourself about. If you do that and it works for you, write to me and let me learn something new please. Having said that…

Today I’d like to talk about some great meals that you (and even I) can plan and prepare that don’t break the bank or budget. Yes, these are meals you can plan, cook, and enjoy on the cheap. I have tried them all and although I don’t want to eat all of them over and over every week, they can be mixed in with other food choices and help really cut your food bills. So let’s get right to it and begin: my top five money-saving meals that cost under $2.50 each!