These days having a full stomach has become a luxury. Especially with how expensive things are in the market. It’s almost like things add in price per second and it can be hard to keep up. The worse part is when you try to price food items, the seller would give you a sarcastic remark. Like the time I priced a buta of garri, the market woman stared at me in the face and said “Be like say your head no correct, you no dey see wetin dey happen for Nigeria?”
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It can be hard to manage the cost of food items and still plan proper healthy meals. Considering how limited our finances can be and the way commodities increase in price. There’s a way around this problem, the first thing to do is determine your budget for food. It’s easier to plan yourself when you have a budget for a thing. With the budget, you can now create a list of possible foods that can be prepared.
After budgeting, you’d need to ensure that the food you plan to prepare for that week or in that month are cost effective. You don’t want to be thinking of getting foreign rice when there’s a local alternative with a steady increase in price. Unlike the foreign rice that is heavily influenced by the unsteady dollar rate. There’s also the option of bulk purchase, you’ll find that you save more when you buy in bill that in small units.
Another hack to this is by doing a market survey, finding markets that sell food items at good rates. You’d find that certain market sell plantains at an affordable price compared to others. The same applies to fresh tomatoes, peppers, okras and a few other items. It’s better to ask questions and know the best places to buy your food items.
There was a lady living on my street, every two month she would be offloading food items form her car. I would see big Jos tomatoes that made me want to eat egg sauce. She would pull out large tubers of yams and a half bag of beans. I decided to ask her where she got them and if it was considerable cheaper than getting it around. She had nodded with a smile telling me that she had sent her friend a sun of money in the North and this was her food items that were way billed into the state. It was a smart idea and I just stood there admiring what she did.
Some of us may not have so much money to be able to achieve this. That’s why it’s better to cut your coat according to your size. Don’t go and use up your money on buying food forgetting other basic needs. You can find markets around where you stay that sell things less expensive. Another thing is to, remove certain food items that are not a necessity from the list of frequent eaten foods. Things like noodles and spaghetti are tasty but can be expensive. They can be substituted for other cheaper foods and kept to be eaten at least once or twice a month. It’s both healthy and cost effective.
Dinning Out
Sometimes we can be very lazy to cook, we may want to walk to the nearest Buka. If your like me with longer throat, you would prefer to visit high end restaurants like Kilimanjaro, Market square and Chicken republic to buy food. Although, some of them have affordable food but still nothing beats cooking at home. You can manage your money and still achieve something that can last a while. Imagine eating a big lap of chicken and fried rice paired with a big pack of Chivita juice, only to remain hungry for the rest of the week. Soaking garri steadily while you console yourself by murmuring “Last last everybody go dey alright.”’
Dining out can be quite tempting, but it’s safer to do that after planning out your feeding for the month or the week. When you prepare your food at home you’re sure of the hygiene and able to manage the items you plan to use without overshooting your budget. This allows you save money for other things. Also, it helps in the planning process for the Next budget. Now, you’d know what to add and what to remove from the list. This helps you save more and plan better.
The truth is you can still eat healthy and tasty foods while maintaining a budget. However it may cost you a lot of the things you enjoy, like eating out. Don’t worry you can always do it at least once a month. It may seem hard at first but slowly you’d get used to it. This takes discipline and it will help in the management of your finances as a family.
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