Follow my blog with BloglovinSaving money doesn’t usually happen with large cuts in your budget. You can often save tons of money by making small adjustments to your grocery list. Here are 15 foods that you should stop buying right now to help save money.
Spice Mixes
Most spice mixes (like taco seasoning) are just a combination of spices that you already have at home. Save some money and just mix them yourself without wasting money on extra mixes.
Lunch Kits
Things like Lunchables and other lunch kits may be handy but they’re really just a waste of money. Have your kids make their own lunches or make them the night before and you’ll save tons of money. Plus, it’s a lot healthier this way, too.
Brown Sugar
You can make your own brown sugar by mixing molasses and sugar together. It requires no other ingredients and takes less than a minute to make.
Pasta Sauce
Not only is store-bought pasta sauce full of all sorts of chemicals you don’t want in your food, but it also can be easily made at home. In fact, if you have your own garden it may cost you zero dollars to make it!
Pre-Made Sandwiches
Why buy pre-made sandwiches when you can just make your own in a few minutes? Pre-made sandwiches have all sorts of preservatives in them, too, so making your own is also the healthier option.
Buttermilk
If you’re anything like me, you buy a half gallon of buttermilk only to use a quarter of it and the rest goes bad. Stop wasting money and buttermilk and just make your own. Vinegar or lemon juice mixed with milk makes buttermilk.
Juice
You can definitely make your own juice (which is probably a lot healthier), but that’s not always the fastest and most efficient thing. For sure, though, you should make juice from concentrate instead of buying it already made. It may take a few extra minutes, but the concentrate is essentially the same thing as bottled juice.
Yogurt Cups
Instead of getting pricey individual cups of yogurt (or applesauce or anything separated for that matter), just buy one big container and then divide it into reusable containers when needed.
Pancake Mix
There’s no need to buy pancake mix from the store. You can find tons of recipes online that only require a few ingredients. This way, you save money and you know exactly what’s going into your pancakes.
Fruit Bars
Fruit bars can get pretty expensive, especially if you buy name brand. Instead, just make your own fruit bars by freezing juice in molds! Add chopped up fruit, too, if you want to get the chunky texture.
Chips
It may seem smarter, but buying packs of individualized chips is actually more expensive in the long run. Just buy a big bag of chips and divide them into smaller bags for lunches as necessary. This also allows you to control the portions your kids eat.
Pre-formed Meat Patties
Meat patties and ground beef can actually differ greatly in price, and the only real difference is that the meat patties are already pre-formed. Save yourself the cash and make your own meat patties with ground beef and shape it yourself.
Bottled Water
Water literally comes out of the tap in your homes. Don’t throw money away on bottled water, but just drink the water from the tap. If needed, get a filter to make the water fresher and safer. Get a reusable plastic bottle that you can take with you. Less disposal at the landfill and much more cost effective.
Granola Bars
Granola bars are a snack staple in virtually any household. But with that comes a high price markup. Instead of buying them, save some money and make some instead! Make your own granola bars using this great recipe from Pop Sugar. Plus, you can make this in bulk and freeze them!
Pre-Cut Fruits and Veggies
It may be a little tedious, but if you decide to just buy whole fruits and veggies and cut them up when you want, you can actually save a lot of money. Plus, they’ll stay fresher longer since they won’t be cut up until exactly when you want them.
You can’t drink New Jersey tap water. It’s nasty. Sorry, I’ll take my chances with bottled water.
Or you can invest in a Brita Personal water bottle, it has a filter and you aren’t wasting so much money on water bottles and filling up the land fills.
I’ve heard that frozen vegetables are actually fresher than “fresh” ones because of the time delay in getting the picked vegetable to the consumer. The frozen vegetables are frozen almost at the source. Why do you say they have fewer nutrients?
Your correct only a few of these are accurate – I think it is misleading in the wording but not purposely it’s just the authors opinion and take on what they have heard or read. I also wondered about the bottled water because I find it hard to believe that pinpointing anything on the plastic bottles is impossible especially when fake butter is a molecule away from being plastic so Lord knows what else is out there, I’ll take my chance with the water bottles too loo
You can’t turn refined white sugar into brown sugar, it’ s not any healthier or anything, you just have to buy ecological and real brown sugar.
While she throws in a few comments about this or that being healthier, the authors main intention here is to suggest how choosing these options can be more economical. As far as the brown sugar suggestion, she never said it was a healthier option, just cheaper.
I disagree with you on two things. 1: simply adding molasses to table sugar is NOT the same thing. It’s a good “in a pinch” sorta thing, but not the same.
2: I live in North Chicago and our tap water is NOT drinkable. It comes out smelling like a swimming pool and dead fish and it tastes even worse. It makes me physically ill consuming it. I have had to buy bottled water ever since I moved here. I always made fun of people who bought water in a bottle, but ya know I kinda understand now.
Oh and YES I have tried 4 brands of water filtering and it doesn’t remove the smell or taste.
Good article! I agree completely. We love fruit popsicles but they are loaded with sugar and chemical dyes. Will definitely make our own this summer. We only drink bottled water when we are traveling and the water tastes bad.
Creating buttermilk by souring milk is okay for recipes where buttermilk isn’t a major ingredient, but won’t taste right in recipes that need real buttermilk taste. A better option is buying powdered buttermilk, which you store in your fridge and make up when you need it.
Dear Rusty…
I personally was raised by a Depression Era parent. I do most of the things you suggest, and frankly, more.
I was flabbergasted when I saw a selection of Cinnamon and Sugar premixed at the Grocery store. I can not imagine that anyone would not be able to mix their own! And now that cinnamon is such a big health craze, making it yourself, certainly makes it possible to mix more cinnamon and less sugar!
Nutrition wise, if anyone with eyes and a brain read the fat and cholesterol in a Lunchable, then surely, that would convince them that is very often the cause of overweight children.
It is the beginning of the next overweight generation. Parents truly think they are being good and loving to treat their kiddies to them, but just read the back of the box and see the percentages of fat, sugar and carbs you are treating them to. Plus how expensive they are……
One thing you did not mention, how much plastic goes into landfills. and how many plastic bags and extra convenience things are purely wasteful. I do use plastic ziplock bags. But I wash them out, and let them dry, inside out and reuse them several times. If I use them to pack up raw meat from a larger package of chicken, I usually will toss them. But, that is also where a still useful recycled one comes in. It has lived its life and is ready for its final job. Gross? maybe but how do we know what the circumstances of how that meat was treated, before we got to it at the store? But if I just packed some cookies in the bag, or something not potentially spoil-able, or dangerous…why not reuse as much as possible?
When I was much younger, in the ’60s all the rage was colored toilet paper. we wanted pink to match our bathroom…. Mom said no, because the dye would kill the fish. Follow my thought s, pink toilet paper, flush, sewage system, waste water, flow back to nature, and low and behold, my Mom was one of the original Environmentally Conscious Consumers! God Bless my Mom! Many people will not believe this, she washed out bread bags and reused them and reused aluminum foil as well. But the topper was she rinsed our ice cubes in the summer and put the plastic cup into the freezer for the next time we were there asking for another drink. I understand….we had to MAKE the ice cubes in the aluminum tray and it did not freeze for a few hours. Aluminum Trays….what does the Alzheimer Association say about aluminum? And think about the antiperspirant with Aluminum products. Never let them see you sweat. While your brain rots away. Yes, my Mom did die with Alzheimer’s Disease for over 10 years…
Folks, it is a give and take. we all pick and choose. I would just ask that we all think about what we buy and use, and do it responsibly. And, yes, I think I am a Closet Hippie. Peace out!