Sometimes no matter what you do, there just isn’t enough money.
How do you make your food money last as long as you can?
How do you save money and get everyone filled up?
Getting enough to eat is most important. Nutrition comes later. You can have both, but to enjoy life and do well, you must get enough to eat.
Maintain the structure of sit-down meals and sit-down snacks.
- Structure keeps you in charge of the menu, keeps down cravings for expensive snack foods, and helps you and your children eat the amount you need. When you have “snack” foods, have them at these times.
Choose higher-calorie forms of your usual foods.
- Whole milk fills you more than skim. Canned peaches in heavy syrup are more filling than fresh fruit or frozen fruit with no sugar. Fry meat, put butter and sauces on vegetables, make fruit cobblers and pies.
Include high-fat foods: butter or margarine, gravy, and regular salad dressing.
- Fatty foods fill you up and stay with you longer. Let everyone eat as much as they want.
Serve one each of expensive foods, all-you-want-to-eat of others.
- Meat, poultry, and fish may cost too much to fill up on. Starchy foods are less-expensive fillers.
Stretch meat, poultry, and fish. Use cooked dried beans.
- Put meat, poultry, or fish in a stew, soup, or casserole. Use a bit for flavoring bean dishes.
Introduce new foods in small amounts – just enough for each a taste.
- It takes a while to learn to eat new food, and you will waste less.
Buy foods that don’t spoil.
- Canned vegetables and fruit are just as nutritious as fresh (or maybe more). Frozen are good, too, if you have the freezer space.
Teach children to take many small helpings.
- Give them strong permission to take more as many times as they want.
You may fear that choosing higher-calorie food will make you and your children eat too much and get fat. Not so. Being afraid of going hungry makes you overeat and gain weight.
Knowing you will have enough to eat lets you go to meals hungry, eat until you are satisfied, then stop. You will know that another snack or meal will be coming soon, and you can do it again.
