Whether you are officially retired, looking to add savings to your retirement fund, or simply looking to scale down, you should start in the kitchen! There are so many ways for seniors to save time and money while preparing healthful, satisfying meals at home.
If you cook your meals at home you are already probably saving tons of money, but there are always more things you can do to maximize your savings. Here are our top 10 money-saving kitchen tips for seniors!
#1: Make Homemade Staples
Choose a few foods that you love to eat and learn how to make or prepare them at home. Foods such as soup stock, yoghurt, curd cheese, jams and dried beans are very simple to make yourself, and can save you plenty of money in the long run.
#2: Don’t Waste Vegetable Scraps
Are you always at a loss for what to do with your vegetable scraps? Try popping them into a sealable bag and storing them in your freezer. You can later boil up these scraps of onions, garlic, celery, carrots, mushrooms and more to make a nutritious vegetable stock.
#3: Dilute Your Dish Washing Liquid
Dish washing liquid can go a lot further than you would imagine. Decant some liquid into a spray bottle, filling it about a quarter of the way, and top it off with fresh water. Shake it up, and you can spray this mixture onto dishes and make your dish washer last for months longer than usual.
#4: Keep Fruit Fresh for Longer
To keep your bananas and other soft fruits fresh for longer, divide them so that they are not stacked on top of each other. Doing this will also ripen your fruit faster! Remember – don’t store apples with any other fruits, as they release hormones that will make them ripen and spoil faster than a session of NZ pokies online.
#5: Save Ziplock Bags and Tin Foil
Saving your used aluminium foil and ziplock bags is good both for the environment and for your budget. As long as the bags and foil are not overly soiled, you can easily clean them, fold them up and reuse them as necessary. If they are soiled, you can wash them with soap and water and dry them before use.
#6: Make DIY Cleaning Products
You can easily make your own cleaning products using a few pantry ingredients like baking soda, white vinegar and essential oils. There are plenty of recipes available on the internet. To make a basic all-purpose cleaning spray, combine 1 cup of vinegar with 1 cup of water. Add a few drops of essential oil, pour into a spray bottle and use as needed.
#7: Freeze Staple Foods
Do you find that your bread and milk go off before you can use them up? It might be a relief to know that you can freeze these items for later use. When bread and milk are on sale, stock up and freeze them to save even more money!
