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Eat Healthy Without The Cost
Grocery shopping
Really eating in general, makes your budget explode, doesn’t it?
The thought of having to pinch pennies and put stuff back at the cash register makes you want to vomit
What if there was a better way to be smart with your budget in the kitchen without feeling so restricted all the time?
Well, there is. Here I’m sharing all as you’ll find the 4 things that I do to set us up for success in the kitchen.
Yummy Food + Healthy Choices + Budget-Friendly = Winning
Watch the video below for the inside scoop
Prefer to read? Keep scrolling, I’ve got you covered
YOUR ACTION STEP FOR TODAY – Create your kitchen inventory then make sure to grab the Budget Makeover Guide.
Want to see what it would be like to master your money? Or what tools for success I recommend? Head over to the Resources Tab!
Read It! Eat Healthy Without The Cost
0:02
Have you ever gotten to the cash register at the grocery store and they bring everything up and you’re like, oh my goodness, how did I spend that much money?
0:11
I feel like the grocery store is probably like one of our top expenses under mortgage slash rent your taxes of course he’s number one and then it’s grocery budget.
0:22
So what can you do to set yourself up so that you have savings in the kitchen without sacrificing the yummy food and the food that is good for you as well, because I know a lot of us are on a health journey also. We want to make sure that we’re having yummy food but without blowing our budget. So, if that is you and that has been a struggle for you I know that this strategy is going to be a game-changer. Before we dive into that though going to quickly introduce myself if we haven’t met before my name is Aimee Cerka, and I’m the Money Confidence Coach and founder of Money Mastery Inner Circle. So I help moms like you to master your money by creating confidence in your ability to be able to solve money problems so you can stop living paycheck to paycheck, and instead create option security and build wealth.
1:21
The kids have been kind of crazy today so hopefully, they will not be too loud and not interrupt us but I’m forewarning you. So if you were just joining us, we are talking about how to set yourself up for savings and success in the kitchen, especially when it comes to budgeting, so we can still have that yummy food that we want, and have those options but not spend all of our money at the grocery store, right? So let’s go ahead and dive in, I’ve got a couple of tips for you today.
1:55
The first thing that was probably the biggest game-changer is something that I do, once a month now. So, the biggest game-changer for me and was creating a kitchen inventory now this is part of what I call my month-end now. My kitchen inventory is part of our month, so what a kitchen inventory is a kind of self-explanatory but you’re taking an inventory list of everything that is in your fridge, your freezers, your pantry.
I have a sheet that I created for this and this one is customizable so you can do this on your own, but I know you’re busy like I am so if you want a copy of that sheet, just let me know I don’t have that up on the website yet, but I have a custom order that I take for that because we have different fridges freezers pantries all of that stuff we need a different amount of space and so like for myself, I have two different fridges full fridges with fridge and freezer, plus two deep freezers, so I need more space to write all that stuff out, plus our pantry space.
3:19
Making a list of that and you’ll be surprised with the stuff that you’re able to find that you didn’t even know that you had. I mean I’m sure we’ve all had stuff that showed up, either in the back of the freezer in the back of the pantry and we didn’t even know we had it sometimes expired. Creating your kitchen inventory once a month again, ideally is going to be part of your month is going by is going to help solve some of that problem because once you have the kitchen inventory that is working for you. You know what food you have, when you implement the rest of this strategy that I’m sharing with you, you’re not going to have duplicate food and you’re going to use the stuff that you’ve already had so you’re saving even more than in your budget. That is our kitchen inventory that’s our number one thing that I recommend that you do.
4:08
The second thing that we need to do. Is our meal planning and really to improve your working into there. I personally plan six meals a week, we typically only need five, because one night a week is gonna be leftovers, and then typically the other night of the week we are doing takeout of some sort, but I plan for six. That way I know that we’re covered and I’m not having to scramble, so I kind of have a theme that we go through for each day of the week so we’ll get to our go-to meals is our third one, but with our meal planning, if you have a strategy a way that you know that the meals that you’re going to make so we typically do an Italian night we typically do a Mexican night, ends up being something for tacos nachos, something like that. We have what I call a simple night. Then the others kind of rotate we do a seafood night at least every other week, a chicken night, and then the other one’s kind of an other so be for other types of meats, so we’ll rotate between those.
5:30
When you create your meal planning, if you plan out your meals ahead of time then you of course can create your grocery list what you actually need we’re going to utilize our kitchen inventory to help make sure we’re not buying duplicates, and then you’re going to the store with intention on what we actually need now grocery pickups can be a lifesaver, especially for those of us who tend to like pick up extra things. My husband does this a lot, so he has a limit that he gets one extra thing when we go to the grocery store together.
6:03
If you can’t do grocery pickup, make sure you eat before you go to the store. It helps eliminate some of the need to pick up some extra stuff. So when you have your meal planning, yes you can plan out your six meals for the week, but maybe you’re sitting down thinking like okay I don’t know what to make like I don’t have a list. So what you do is you have a meal inventory, which is kind of what I have here.
6:31
I have mine broken down into different categories so feel inventory is just a checklist that I created. So I have a second category so all the meals that I make with chicken are under that chicken inventory then I have a beef we have pork and other, seafood, Italian, Mexican, and then the simple category. So then I can go through and I’m just checking off for this up once a month like okay these are my options what I need to pick something from my meal plan.
6:57
It’s already there and you know what you have and what you typically make, and then your family approved meals, so I try and mix it up add something new.
7:05
I’ve got a folder for new recipes and pull something in from there, but you’ve got your main list that makes it simple so we’re trying to conserve and make this as easy as possible because if we set this up so that we have a lot of mental energy that’s needed for our meal planning for our grocery list. We’re gonna get frustrated. And we’re gonna go grab takeout or we’re going to spend too much at the grocery store.
7:31
When you have that checklist set up, it makes it easy to go through it. Now, I said I keep a lot of similar stuff on there so if you make things different way like I love the parmesan pork chops are probably my favorite way that I make pork chops, but I have two, two to three different ways on there and you can add more to the checklist. And you don’t have to use every single line item on your checklist before you print it off again.
7:55
But you know what you make and we’re just making it a simple transition from this to this to this without having to use a bunch of brainpower so that we know that we just keep the process simple. So when you have your kitchen inventory.
8:23
Then we have our go-to meals. Those are things that I always keep stocked at the house that we can have because maybe I plan for something that takes a little bit more work, and we’ve had a crazy day like today, I don’t know if it’s the rain or the cold or what we have been lots of energy here. Those are our go-to meals so that’s something that we make sure that we always have some simple ones that I make sure that I have our like chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. Love salad so I try to make sure we always have stuff for salad. Honestly chicken nuggets some mac and cheese are really my go-to meal.
9:10
Keeping it simple and realistic here is something that we can eat and it can make it quickly. Let’s see what else do we have. Spaghetti is another go-to one because we can put that together pretty quickly. I do try to limit when I do that because I don’t know about y’all kids get messy when they eat spaghetti so William knows that if we’re eating Italian is typically a bath night because otherwise, I’m doing my work twice because they always need bass whenever they have Italian, they just like make a mess. So those are some go-to meals that you can have to fit together, frozen pizza would be another good one and a lot of those are on my simple categories so I plan for those once a week.
9:55
When you’re meal planning, we have our days written out so your six meals that you’re planning for the week and write them down on a schedule like this is when you would like to make them so I don’t know Monday, could you meatloaf Tuesday tacos. Um, Wednesday can be the pizza I’m trying to go through our list this week but have some flexibility that it doesn’t have to be set in stone.
10:16
So if something happens and Monday was a crazy day and you need to move stuff around that part can be flexible so you’re just planning for those six meals in one week. But if they need to be switched around or rotated to make it work for what the week actually looks like we have that flexibility there because we have our stuff that we need.
10:36
Our kitchen inventory is going to help us make sure that we’re utilizing the most of what we’ve already got, and then meal planning so we have a grocery list that we can stick to. We are using a grocery pickup system, or we’re making sure we eat before we go, and if you are going to the grocery store limit your extra purchases, to just one, and then having some go to meals stuff that is already at the house on a consistent basis, make sure that you already got it again that’ll be kind of part of your kitchen inventory.
11:07
And I have recently taken my kitchen inventory, up to the next level this is going to be kind of a bonus for you so earlier this year. I think this is still going on somewhat, but there was a run on the food there was some food shortages people were making sure that they were prepared.
11:28
You can do this in a way that you’re ready and prepared, without having to kind of be crazy so when you have your meal plan and your go-to meals and your kitchen inventory created, you can start to create your food checklist so when I do my kitchen inventory I have two different sheets. I have my main sheet that includes everything that I want to make sure that I have to make a month’s worth of food. So if I already have that there. Let’s use the pork chop for example so if I’m making pork chops this week. I’ve already got pork chops in the freezer so I pulled those out and use those. And then pork chops to replace my stash that I’ve already have goes back on the list so I’m replacing what I have.
I’ve got about six weeks, roughly worth of food at the house that if something were to happen, we can make it work I mean we still need our fresh fruits and vegetables obviously but you can start to be prepared, so if something happens, you can take care of yourself and you’re not going to be stressed or paying higher amounts when there are prices being increased because there is less supply and more demand.
12:43
If you set up your kitchen inventory to make it work for you, so that you have enough food like it’s almost like your staples your go-to meals, but your go-to kitchen inventory the things that you use all the time, on a monthly basis like you know that you cook with. So spaghetti sauce or spaghetti noodles mac and cheese is a big staple for us, and like the meats how much ground beef, these are good to use in a month how much chicken do you typically use in a month. The pork chops, pork tenderloin breakfast sausage. Eggs. Eggs are perishables so we have to replace that all the time.
13:19
But if you start, you can start small and just buy like one extra thing a week, so that you can start to be prepared and have that much more security if something were to happen again you know that you’re taking care of your family, but you’re still using your stock it’s not that you’re hoarding it, you’re just being prepared if something were to happen you have a month to six weeks for food to take care of your family.
13:55
Quick recap here because I know I covered several different things so the first thing that you need to make sure that we have is a kitchen inventory that we know what we have to utilize.
The second thing was to use meal planning and be flexible with our meal planning.
The third thing was, make sure that you have a go to meals stocked and ready to go so when the craziness happens, you have something simple, fast, easy to make that you can still use, and not just go grab the takeout.
And then the fourth thing was our extra bonus tip here was to start to prepare and be ahead, so that you can have four to six weeks’ worth of food ready to go at all times and then you just replacing what you’ve already got.
You’re set up for success there because you are more prepared if prices start to be increased.
14:54
So, if you are thinking this sounds great. I’ve got tons to implement, but I need to start saving I am tired of being stressed about money there I know that I’m working hard and you’re have a lot of your hard earned money but you want to make sure that it’s going to be the best use possible, because you’ve work hard for it, right?
15:15
Then you need to grab the Budget Makeover Guide. Now, part of what we covered today is in the Budget Makeover Guide but there are seven tips to help you discover the extra that is hiding your existing personal finances starting today. This is where I recommend all my moms to start because it is a great starting point for us to start to have a win for you so you can start to master your money because you know what you are working hard for it and you deserve to have it working hard for you, too. So, if you would like the Budget Makeover Guide make sure to comment money in the comments, and then that’s all I’ve got time for today.
15:55
Hey there, I hope that you found this training helpful and what’s next for you. We need to make sure that you grab the Budget Makeover Guide so what the Budget Makeover Guide is going to do for you is it’s a PDF guide that’s going to help you walk through how to uncover the money that you already have in your existing personal finances that you don’t know. It’s just waiting to be found. Crazy, right? So, you’re really working hard for your money. Let’s make the most of it, make sure that your hard-earned money your time, your effort, your sweat equity, that you’ve worked hard for is going to the places that you want it to go. If you want to be spending it great but let’s make sure that it’s not missing.
16:39
If you’re ready to find the extra money that is hiding in your personal finances no additional income required just waiting to be found. Grab the Budget Makeover Guide what you need to do is go to https://aimeecerka.com/bmg, and you can grab the Budget Makeover Guide. we’ll see you next time. Bye for now.
YOUR ACTION STEP FOR TODAY – Create your kitchen inventory then make sure to grab the Budget Makeover Guide.
Want to see what it would be like to master your money? Or what tools for success I recommend? Head over to the Resources Tab!
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