15 November 2007 No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

There is no denying that the cost of food is rising. Looking back through the past couple of weeks across any number of personal finance blogs, I can find posts about the higher costs of foodstuffs from bread to powdered milk. There are any number of factors that have affected various food production, but there’s been a sort of domino effect that started with less corn and grain available for sale to consumers.  This inflation of food prices is only going to get worse, too. All those green energy resources everyone keeps talking about? That’s the corn and soy that was previously going to your dinner table.

What does that mean for us, the everyday consumers?

We have exactly two choices: we can buckle down and pay those higher prices, or we can try to find ways to make our food budgets a little leaner. I’m not necessarily advocating starting a garden in the back yard and becoming self-sufficient. Personally, I like all the conveniences a modern grocery store offers. Take chicken. I make a lot of chicken — it’s the basis of a bunch of super easy dishes. I always buy the kind that some guy back in the meat room has de-boned and trimmed up for me. Sure, it is overall cheaper to buy a whole chicken and dissect it myself, but I feel it’s worth the added expense.

Without going to the super frugal end of the spectrum, though, there are a few steps I take to keep the budget down to a reasonable level: I buy in bulk, I stretch ingredients and I limit the amount of fast food I eat. The fast food trick offers a surprisingly big boost to my budget. I haven’t stopped eating out by any means, but even if I’m going to pick something up and run home with it, I’d rather stop at a real restaurant. It may take me a little longer, but for only a slightly higher price, I’ll essentially get two meals, because of portion size.

If you are in a position to make more of your own food from scratch, then, good for you. Not everyone is ready to make that kind of change to his or her lifestyle, though. There are still plenty of options for controlling your food budget. I don’t stress over mine, beyond a few minutes spent planning a shopping list, but I still manage to eat regularly.