Stay at Home Dad: Guide to Dinners on a Dime

Being a stay-at-home dad has brought on a number of challenges for me. Whether it has been keeping a well maintained home or maneuvering the intricacies of children, the business world never prepared me for what I had to accomplish next, eating on a budget. Don't get me wrong, I dealt with budgets day in and day out. My home functions on a budget, but take away a lucrative salary and budget planning is now more critical than ever.

I have discussed planning before, but planning is just one key to having dinners on a dime. To be business savvy, I hand to be able to analyze financial reports, find where to cut expenses, and make my business unit profitable. Take your home and put it in the same light. You will have to turn your home into a virtual checkbook, ensuring every dime is accounted for, and every penny is spent in a deserving manner. I am going to provide you with a guide to having dinner on a dime.

Smart Shopping

Smart shopping involves buying healthy foods at a great value. Many retailers have flooded the marketplace with deals, specials, and incentives to choose their business over others. But if you shop correctly, no retailer is above another. The first key to shopping is looking at the sales papers and review advertisements. Retailers generally will feature best of the best items to draw the consumer in. So if these particular items are on your shopping list, select the retailer of your choice. When shopping, don't always look for the name brand. Buying store brands or "off" brands will increase your savings. A key I learned in the grocery business is to look at the price label. In grocery stores, retailers will add the unit of measure. A unit of measure is the amount per pound, ounce, or each. The value behind unit of measure is if an item costs more, but has a lower unit of measure price, you have a value.

Weekly vs. Daily Shopping

In days of old, if I was tasked to make dinner, I would simply go to the grocery store and buy the nights meal. After dinner I would joke about saving money if I had included my purchase during my family's weekly shopping trip. All jokes aside, I would have saved money if I would have made a menu and made my purchased based upon my menu. Planning also take the guess work out of, "what are we having for dinner?"

So the key takeaways from dining on a dime is shopping smart and weekly shopping verses daily shopping. Budget constraints should never stop the 21^st Century Dad from Dining on a Dime.