Day #9: Level Up Your Cooking Skills

This is Day #9 of “25 Days to Healthier Finances”, a series of blog posts where Frugal Pinoy readers and myself work on 1 task a day to make our financial lives better. Please stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which will be up tomorrow.

Here’s today’s installment:

After tweaking your budget in Day #2 of this series, you’ve probably noticed this: food is one of your largest expenditures, if not the largest. This is especially true if you have a family or if you usually eat in restaurants or order takeout.

So to minimize your largest expense, it’s time to learn more effective and affordable cooking.

Today’s Task: Level Up Your Cooking Skills

Note the keywords “level up”. This means that whatever cooking skills you have, take this as an opportunity to improve them. I’ve listed some resources below to help some of you get started.

Note that these are only suggestions. You’re the only one who can decide what you mean by “leveling up”.

For those who are inexperienced with cooking:

• Beginner cooking techniques from ReluctantGourmet.com, and don’t forget to try their basic recipes
• Random cooking tips at Lifetips.com
• Some helpful videos:
  • Tips to crush, chop, and mince garlic cloves
  • How to chop an onion the right way
  • How to measure rice proportions with your finger (which is why it’s funny to me to see foreign cooking shows talking about cups of water and cups of rice) and How to cook rice
  • How to debone a fish from InYourKitchen
    
  • How to portion a chicken from InYourKitchen

If you’re already an advanced cook, why not try to learn the following skills?

• Batch cooking
  • Batch cooking and freezing guide from Netmums.com
  • The Five-day Freeze: Batch cooking for the rest of us from Wisebread
  • A handy freezer storage chart that tells you how long food stays good in a freezer
• Canning and preserving produce – here’s a detailed guide
• Or, simply learn to cook 3 new dishes.

Also, check out The Insider’s Guide to Frugal Food and Fitness at Squawkfox.com. Many of the mentioned ingredients are expensive here, so I’m kind of tempted to write a similar free resource for Filipinos.

Why does this lead to healthier finances? If you’re the type who often resorts to dining out, by learning how to cook more efficiently, you’ll save a lot of money without much hassle. If you’re already experienced with cooking, new skills such as batch cooking and learning how to preserve food can also decrease your expense. Who knows, if you enjoy cooking enough, you might just end up with a small side business.

Image by lusi from sxc.hu