Use Grocery Ads and Simple Recipes to Plan Out Your Meals For the Week

Food can be extremely expensive if you have a hard time with cooking. Recipes often call for so many ingredients that would go to waste if you only used them for one meal. With a little bit of planning, however, you can make a variety of tasty meals while only using a handful of ingredients.

Most people throw out the grocery ads stuffed in their mail boxes but if you're living on a budget, you should try to keep these on hand. If you don't get them in the mail, most major grocery chains have websites that show their deals for the week. Use these to plan out your meals for the week. Have a budget in mind for how much you want to spend for the week and use the sale items to get the most out of that constraint.

Once you've found the ingredients that fit within your budget, go to http://allrecipes.com/ and search by those ingredients. This will give you some ideas what you can make. If some of those recipes require a perishable item you don't have on hand or can't afford, see if you can work around it. In most cases, you'll be able to sub in some cheaper ingredient based on the style of dish. Canned tomatoes, for instance, can work in Italian, Mexican and even Indian dishes. Rice can be used as staple in almost any type of dish. Canned beans can often take the place of some meats as well.

Also keep in mind that most meats are largely interchangeable in dishes, especial if they're ground. If a dish calls for ground beef and it's too expensive (as it often is my area), sub in ground chicken, pork or turkey. You probably won't even notice a difference.

You should also experiment with different spices on your own and find out what you like. If you develop a taste for spicy foods, red pepper can cover up some mistakes if you go a little overboard with spicing. You can also throw in some extra rice or pasta to balance out flavors. You'll probably want to invest in some inexpensive food containers in case you make too much food.

The most important thing to remember is to not let cooking intimidate you. It's not that difficult to throw some ingredients together and make it taste good. You'll save a lot of money and eat healthier if you cook your own food rather than eating out or buying frozen food. You might even have some fun with it.