Save Money on Food

Read something interesting in The Guardian today, due to the worsen economic condition, more and more austerity blogs popped out. In these blogs, the bloggers blogged about budget recipes, how to save money, how not to spend money, etc. The most famous is agirlcalledjack, she blogged how she survived with £10 a week and still managed to feed her child with nutritious food. Many articles were shown in The Guardian about families living just above the breadline too.

With the hike of petrol price recently, there is a possibility that ripple effect will cause more price increase in food, cooking gas, etc. Well, I cannot change the price of petrol, nor can I prevent the price increase of other stuffs, so what I can do is save more and spend less.

One thing that's very important is food. Some people argued that it's cheaper to eat out for a single person because it's just not economical to cook for one person. Some said that one can cook in a big batch and then freeze the rest. Well, I tried that before when I was in Japan, I cooked a big pot of chicken curry and for the following five days, all I ate for dinner was that chicken curry. It's still ok until third day. On the 5th day, I think I almost vomited out. When I told my friend about that little 'incident', she told me that no one do that, people will freeze excess food, but no one will eat it continuously for a few days. (^^ゞ


So, I guess that variety is very important too even when trying to save! I tried to find recipes under RM5 from Google search, however, most of the search results were cookbooks that cost RM5! Then, I tried with different keyword, "resepi murah" yields more results. However, not many breaks down the cost of the raw materials. 

difficult to find recipes with RM5

keyword 'resepi murah' yield more results in Google search

In Japan, it's easy to find cookbooks and websites dedicated for cheap food, meaning for 100 yen, a person can prepare a meal for him or herself. It's easier. Here's a list of websites (in Japanese of course) that provides 'austerity' recipes. (Can always utilize Google translate!)

1. Ajinomotopark
2. Ai's Dining
3. All about.jp
4. Naver
5. Gozaru
6. KinkiOsakaBank (That is interesting! Even bank provides recipe)

Mmmm, with some modifications to the recipe, I think we can all cook a delicious yet cheap meal if we have the time! Sometimes, time constraints just make cooking unfeasible. Plus, in Malaysia, there are too many eateries that operate round the clock, giving us excuses not to cook. Hahaha, now I am lucky though, I stay at home and enjoy mama's cooking everyday after coming back. 

100 yen recipes (Japan)

Since my mom is the cook in the family, she settles all the shopping. She buys her dried goods in a supermarket chain near our house, she doesn't drive, just walking or use the bicycle. Although there's a grocery store just behind our house, the prices are just too marked up, she would only buy sugar from that shop because sugar is a controlled item, the price is the same everywhere. 

For other fresh produces, she will buy the vegetables, fish, poultry in the wet market. It's not cheaper to buy in wet market though, sometimes supermarket is cheaper, but my mom said that it's not as fresh. Although my mom supports the local wet market, she will only buy carrots and tomatoes from supermarket because the price differences are too big. Other than that, my mom feels that the organic vegetables are not worth the price. As long as we have vegetables in our diet is enough. Sometimes, when the fish, poultry or pork is on sale, she would buy a lot and freeze it. For other dry stuffs, my mom is not a brand conscious person, sometimes she would choose the house brand because it's cheaper, however, she noticed that in a supermarket (with many chain stores), it hikes up the other brands prices to promote it's own house brand. Mmmm, that's not very good.

For me though, normally I wouldn't choose mee soup, beehoon soup, or any other noodle soups when I eat outside. To me, this kind of soupy dishes provide a very good profit margin for the vendor, plus it's easy to cook at home. At the very least, instant noodle is widely available for cheap, it tastes good too. The only noodle thingy that I would ordered from outside is the Kuey Teow Goreng because it's difficult to recreate at home, great skills are needed to fry Kuey Teow Goreng! Other than that, I seldom order drinks when eat outside. It's just damn expensive! Nowadays, a lot of eateries even charged for plain water, ridiculous! My friend told me that she went to a restaurant and she asked for water, the restaurant served her bottled mineral water and charged RM5.50 for that. I bring water bottle to work and for short outings, it saves money.

Food plays an integral part in our lives, no matter how bad the economy is, people still need to eat. There are cheap ways to fill our stomachs and there are many expensive gourmet food outside, it just depends on how we spend our money. Bon Appétit!