Planning, preparing, and portioning your meals ahead of time is one of the most effective tools for keeping your food budget in check. Check out other useful tools to know what steps you can take to help save money in the kitchen.

• Create a menu of every meal you know how to make and use it as a reference for planning your monthly and weekly meals.
• Take inventory of your fridge, freezer, and pantry and use up what you have before buying new ingredients. This can help you avoid food waste and save money.
• Shop with a list: You've heard it before, but shopping with a grocery list really can save a lot of money. It helps us stick to what we need and avoid impulse buys that can rack up the bill. Learn some new strategies here for organizing your grocery list.
• Find budget-friendly recipes with beans, lentils, eggs, rice, pasta, and seasonal produce.
• Do your own prep: Pre-sliced veggies and fruits are easy and certainly have their place, but if you're trying to stick to a budget then it's better to do the slicing and dicing yourself.
• Buy in bulk: Check the unit price and buy in bulk whenever possible to save money. This is especially true for spices, which can really add up on your grocery bill. If it's a spice you won't use very often, buy just a little bit in the bulk section to save pantry space and money.
• Research: Check out sales in the newspaper and on the grocery stores' websites to see who has the best deals. It takes a little extra time, but it can pay off in the long run.
• Choose store brands: When making your grocery list choose store-brand items whenever possible. This small switch can add up to big savings over time.
• Embrace leftovers: Cooking a pot of beans or roasting a chicken to have for the week is super helpful because they're easy to transform into new dishes. Check out our 25 recipes that make great leftovers for more ideas.
• To make your meals more varied and exciting, you can try different cuisines, spices, sauces, and herbs. You can also use leftovers creatively by making soups, salads, sandwiches, or casseroles.

Finally, you can save money and time by shopping smartly. You can use coupons, discounts, sales, and bulk buying to get the best deals. Check out this list of seven coupon apps for groceries to get healthy deals!

Interested in learning about similar topics? As an OSU Health Plan member, you have access to a wide variety of health and wellness classes and recordings such as The Thrifty Food Plan: Meal Creation, Avoiding Grocery Store Pitfalls, and more. Visit this page often for new recordings added each month.