Contributed by member SwapSavers owner of www.swapsavers.com

Cook your own meals: The only way to truly know the calorie content of what you eat is to prepare the meals yourself. By cooking your own meals you can substitute for less fattening or lower calorie choices when necessary. Most recipes list calories, fat grams and other useful information to help you keep track of your daily intake. When you eat at restaurants or fast food places you eat more calories and fat grams since the portions are typically larger then what you would have at home. Furthermore it is difficult to keep track of calories or fat gram intake. Cooking at home is significantly less expensive then eating at restaurants or fast food places.

Drink Water: Tap water is free and free of calories. If you were to only drink water for a week you could probably save at least $20 or more depending on your current drinking choices. Most drinks contain 200 calories or more, whereas drinking water has zero calories. Water has numerous health benefits. By drinking water you eat less since people tend to think they are hungry when they really need water. Water helps your body to break down fat which increases fat loss.

Turn off the TV: If you eat meals while watching TV, you are often unaware of how much you eat. Research by Eliot Blass found, people eat between 31 and 74 percent more calories while watching TV. Most people watching TV are motionless which burns few calories. In terms of energy consumption, watching TV will cost you about $100 per year in your electric bill and your cable bill about $600 per year.

Workout with a friend: Working out with a friend will help you stay motivated and provides extra support or new ideas to keep your workouts interesting. You can carpool with your friend to the gym to save on gas.

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Tags: Cooking, Loose Weight, Meals, Motivation, TV, Water, Weight Loss, Workout
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Any way you slice or dice it, there are lots of ways to turn your leftovers into culinary delights. You’ll save you money in the long run by finding creative ways to cut the waste in your kitchen! Take a look at these five items:

Bread: In my mind, bread is anything made out of flour. The heels of loaf bread can be easily used to make croutons, be toasted for French onion soup, or in our house, we simply spread the peanut butter on the heel side and flip the softer bread side out so the sandwich looks like a sandwich. There are five of us and hamburger and hotdog buns come eight to a package. Use the leftover buns for garlic bread to serve with another night’s meal. One package then covers two nights worth of meals and the buns don’t go moldy in the breadbox.

Meat: You’ve got a half a steak left over from dinner; by itself, it won’t make a meal. If you’re like my family, half a steak is tossed in a ziplock bag and gets lost in the back of the fridge. Instead, chop it up and use it in a steak and egg omelet for breakfast or as a soup/stew starter for another night’s dinner. Or put it in a plastic container, top it with frozen mixed veggies and freeze for a lunch you can reheat at work.

Vegetables: You cooked a pot of green beans that didn’t get finished at dinner. Don’t toss them. Either put freeze in a Ziploc, or keep a big Rubbermaid container in the freezer for veggie orphans. When the container has enough assorted vegetables, make a veggie and rice soup, or use the vegetables for stir-fry.

Milk: Not enough left for a glass in the bottom of the jug? Don’t pour it down the sink. Put it in a zip-seal bag and freeze it for sauces and cream soups. When you’re ready to use it, melt it right in your pan from a frozen state—no need to thaw.

Eggs: Even if you don’t use all your eggs before the expiration date, they stay fresh for quite a while. Crack them in groups of three, scramble and freeze in a plastic bag to use later. Most cake and brownie recipes require three eggs so you can thaw the eggs in the plastic bag under cold running water in a matter of minutes. Or, thaw and scramble for breakfast.

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Tags: Cooking, Frugal Living, Left Overs, Leftovers, Meals
Posted in Articles, Cooking & Kitchen Tips, Frugal Living | No Comments »