I found we were spending about $1,200 a month on food. We were eating out two to three times as week. To pay off debt, this had to change. Here are a few things we did to reduce food costs. One thing I make is pork chops. I use a nice cut of meat on low in a frying pan, marinated in lemon pepper. I learned that I could flip it every five minutes and it would be done in exactly 20 minutes, or three flips. This was about the same time the rice cooker needed to cook a half cup of rice. Frozen veggies in steamer packs require 7 minutes in microwave.
The result was a great meal in 20 minutes that tasted great. This became chops Tuesday. The same was done with Friday but with frozen salmon from Aldi. Monday was normally some sort of pasta dish. All it takes is a can of tomato paste, a tablespoon of sugar, garlic powder, basil and oregano. We use ground turkey cooked in a pan. The result was a great meal for cheap.
This became the fire wood for our debt snowball because we stopped going out to eat but once a week for date night. This freed up about $600 a month to pay down debt. As debt was paid down more money was available to pay down more debt. The snowball had begun. You then begin to see what compounding savings looks like instead of compounding debt. With the food budget under control, next was transportation.
