During the week or even on a weekend, life can be rushed and busy causing you to not plan for a food budget. Oftentimes, you may end up eating out at restaurants more or spending money on expensive groceries when it is not needed. It would be ideal if we could all take a couple of hours every week and create a detailed our food budget. Unfortunately, life can get in the way of doing this.

With that in mind, there are ways for you to cut down the cost on your weekly food expenses! In this article, we will detail three tricks that will save you and your family money every week. These methods are simple and quick, allowing you to save time and stress!

1) Meal Prepping

While saving time may be your goal in reducing food prices, you may discover that it's actually more worth it to dedicate a solid block of time once a week towards preparing your meals. "Meal prepping" is a popular fad nowadays where you buy groceries in bulk and spend 2-3 hours on one of your weekends making meals for the week.

In order to meal prep adequately, one may need a variety of leftover containers in order to refrigerate and store their foods. Typically, people who meal prep will buy some sort of meat, vegetable, and grain product in bulk since it is cheaper and more cost-effective. They will then take 2 hours and create enough lunch and dinner dishes to last for the week. This way, they are spending less time and money on the idea of food and enjoying the rest of the time with money to spare!

2) Family Orders and Leftovers

Oftentimes when people choose to eat at a restaurant, they enact to buy one meal to be consumed immediately as part of their outing. Many do not consider the benefit of spending a little bit more money for a family sized portion of their favorite meal at a restaurant.

Some Singaporean restaurants, for instance, offer big, family sized portions of their seafood and noodle dishes. When looking at the White Restaurant Menu for instance, one could order many dishes cheaply for delivery which can then be refrigerated as leftovers for the rest of the week. This is like meal prepping only the food is made for you!

3) Coupon Websites

One of the most immediate and best ways to save money on your food purchases is to utilize the many available online coupons available for most restaurants and grocery stores. Many food stores feature connected mobile apps that allow you to save and hold onto coupons for use in your grocery shopping.

If there is not a related app, it is worth using internet search engines to look for coupon codes at your favorite food place. Searching online for coupons will connect you to coupon databases as well as internet browser extensions that automatically search and try to apply coupon codes to your purchase. This is all the smarter way to shop and will greatly help you reduce the cost of your food!