Tips on Budgeting and Saving Money

Supplies such as aluminum trays or to-go boxes can be a lot cheaper if there’s a sale going on. 

Wait for items to go on sale instead of buying them right away, and look for coupons or other deals that decrease the cost of necessary items.

If a recipe calls for some strange ingredient that you’ve never heard of and seems to be really expensive, search up alternatives. 

For example, instead of buying a $15 bag of coconut sugar off of Amazon, regular brown sugar from Safeway will work just as well, for significantly less cost.

Be aware of which ingredients you’re spending a bunch of money on, and see if there are better alternatives.

Dishes with lots of ingredients get expensive to make, so avoid recipes that call for 30 ingredients or 15 different spices. 

Go for simple but delicious recipes. 

If you do want/need to use some specific ingredients that you may not have, make sure they’re ones you could reuse in the future. For example, if you never use fish sauce, don’t buy a whole bottle just to make one recipe. Instead, make food using ingredients you like and use often.

People will often go for name brand ingredients they see at the grocery store since they’re familiar with these brands already. 

These brands can often be more expensive, and usually there are less expensive generic-branded ingredients that are still great quality. 

Look for the healthy ingredients and the ones that are good for you, as well as those that are less expensive.

If there are good quality ingredients with a lower price tag, consider going for them.

 Shopping in bulk can often help you save money. 

For trays and boxes that you need to serve/store food in, look in restaurant supply stores; places like Costco or Sam’s Club may also have some of the supplies you need in bulk. 

If you’re planning to volunteer at the shelter multiple times, you can keep all of the items you bought in bulk so you don’t have to keep buying more every time. 

If you’ve only planned one warming shelter date, but you want to buy items in bulk to try to save money, you can share with or sell them to other volunteers, or donate them to the shelter. 

For to-go containers, if you buy and bring your own to the warming shelter, you can donate all of the extras you have, since the shelter can always take extra donations.

While prepackaged food can be easier to prepare, and we encourage you to use it if it’s easier for you, it can also be more expensive. 

Home-cooked meals can often be made with ingredients you already have on hand, which significantly reduces the overall price. 

When you’re cooking from scratch, you get to decide exactly how much of each ingredient goes into the food you’re making, for example, if you want it to be less spicy or have more garlic.

If you do have to prepare prepackaged food, such as a frozen lasagna, purchasing them from places like Costco can save you money, as they usually have good deals and the meals are more affordable.