Moncel - Budget bytes: over 100 easy, delicious recipes to slash your grocery bill in half

I m not cheap. I like quality things, especially when it comes to food. I also like to pay all of my bills on time without having an anxiety attack the day before payday. The tough part is figuring out how to have both. Having more while cutting back may sound like an oxymoron, but I think Ive figured out how to do just that.

In 2009, like many people during the recent recession, I found myself working for low wages and barely making ends meet. I was stuck in a run-down apartment that was smelly, old, and literally falling apart at the seams. Id always planned on it being a temporary living situation, but when the neighbors dog caused a building-wide flea infestation, I knew I had to get out, fast.

But despite desperately saving my pennies to make the move, student loans were eating me alive, and every time I managed to get a little bit ahead, an unavoidable car repair or medical bill would bring me right back down to zeroor sometimes below. Even everyday items like toothpaste and toilet paper were major expenses that had to be carefully managed to keep my delicate house of cards budget from tumbling to the ground.

Weve all been there. Household budgets are complex and when unexpected expenses arise, theres a desperate scramble to figure out which necessities can be trimmed. Its not easy, and it definitely isnt fun.

Food is one of the largest daily expenses, but many people feel helpless to cut back on their food budget because of their lack of kitchen skills or the assumption that cooking at home takes too much time or money. So, its all well-intentioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ramen noodlesat least, until that first real pang of hunger hits. Then its speed dial for takeout. After all, youve got to eat, right?

At that point, my food budget was already pretty meager. A self-proclaimed Budget Queen, I had just earned a degree in nutritional science for which Id spent considerable time learning how to create healthy meals on low-income budgets. I dutifully employed the basics, like brown-bagging my lunch, avoiding convenience foods, and cooking meals at home, but it just wasnt enough. Not only was I bored with the food that I ate, but somehow I always seemed to spend more money and waste more food than I meant to or could afford. Certain that I could do more to ease my money problems, I decided to buckle down and crunch the actual numbers... like down to the penny.

I had taken many foodservice management courses and, while I didnt particularly enjoy them at the time, the lessons suddenly flashed through my mind. I thought about how commercial kitchens managed expenses by planning menus, calculating recipe costs, and always repurposing leftovers. Maybe I could do the same thing in my kitchen, I thought. I knew it was going to take some effort and serious dedication, but hey, I love a good challenge and I desperately needed to save some money! I cant liethe data geek in me was a little giddy with excitement about the project. So, I started planning, cooking, and calculating.

I initially started with the goal of eating on less than six dollars per day, using Excel to track the cost of every single thing that went in my mouth. It was pure nerdy fun and I was totally into it. The calculations were extremely insightful from the start. I quickly learned which ingredients burned through my food budget and which helped stretch it. Putting my newfound knowledge to work, I was soon cooking twice as much food for half the cost.

At work, my delicious home-cooked lunches started to make my coworkers jealous. While they ate soggy submarine sandwiches, I indulged in stir-fried ginger beef and fragrant jasmine rice. The ooohs and ahhs that erupted as I heated my homemade lunches let me know that I was onto something. On one particular occasion I was so excited about my low-cost creation that I posted about it on Facebook. Friends started asking for the recipe and that got me thinking...

Should I start a blog?

Honestly, I barely knew what a blog was, but I did know that the economy had just tanked and I wasnt the only one who might need low-cost recipes. I also knew that the art of cooking had nearly been lost on my generation. When manufacturers start selling microwavable cups of macaroni and cheese because boiling water is too complicated, you know that there is a need for basic cooking instruction. Maybe I could help, by posting my simple, inexpensive recipes and step-by-step instructions. I decided to go for it. And thus, Budget Bytes was born.

I was lucky. I grew up in a packed household of seven, where cooking was an everyday event. Cooking for a large family on a tight budget wasnt an easy task, but my mother turned it into something fun and creative. I learned the basics at a very early age and never saw cooking as a grueling task. Instead, it was a science experiment, an art project, or, at the very least, quality time with my mom.