Considering The Long Range Costs

Frugal grocery shopping sometimes presents an interesting dilemma. Between sales and coupons, it's often hard to decipher the best way to spend your money. The convenience, pre-packaged items are often so cheap that they seem like the best route to conserve the grocery dollars. But are they really?

Sometimes, these convenience items will be the least-expensive financial choice up-front. But, at least for our family, frugality goes far beyond actual dollars spent and focuses more on an overall lifestyle. A made-from-scratch meal that initially costs a few cents more but keeps us healthier and our bellies full longer is ultimately the most frugal route.

On top of that, when you get used to cooking from scratch, you learn tricks to stretch foods and get the most nutritional impact for the least cost. For myself, it has become an almost addictive hobby.

It may cost more upfront to purchase all of the ingredients to cook from scratch, but once that initial investment is made, I guarantee you will start seeing the savings.

I will be writing on this topic more in-depth over the next few weeks. I hope you'll join me.

For today, stop by Crystal's blog for more Frugal Friday.