You know you are running low on an item by simply opening your well organized pantry and determining what needs to be restocked.

Planning Your Meals

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Now that your kitchen has been cleaned and well stocked, it's time to put it to use.

It works best if you plan following days meals, night before. This is not hard or very time consuming. Five minutes before going to bed, simply open your cupboards and see what you can plan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for following day.

Start off just planning one day at a time. Later, as you adjust to this style of living, you'll be able to plan whole week just by looking at contents within your kitchen.

What also is a must is creativity. Try to steer away from traditional hamburger and hot dog meals. Get creative with your meals. There are literally hundreds of different combinations that can be made to give you and your family variety they need.

For example, think of all combinations you can put together with rice or potatoes (ie: rice and vegetables, rice and beans, rice with chicken, rice and soup, rice with eggrolls, etc...) And that's just with rice! You have a ton of options. Take time to think of, or search for some.

Here are a few websites that offer a number of recipes and cooking ideas:

http://www.notjustbeans.com

http://www.recessionrecipes.com

http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/twarda/home.html

Conclusion

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The whole goal of this exercise is to eliminate unnecessary trips and excessive spending at market in addition to creatively using what you have in your kitchen to prepare meals for week/month.The more times you go to market, more chances you have of spending your money on foods you may not need.

Organize and master your kitchen, plan out your meals, stock your storage areas, and you can save $100-$400 a month (depending on your spending habits ;-)

Best of luck mastering your kitchen!

Learn Effective Money-Saving Techniques & Eliminate Your Debt At SavingSecrets.com. Hop on over and you'll find FREE money-saving articles, a monthly newsletter, and even a FREE Ebook download just for stopping by!

Soon, you will have your child(ren) deciding "Is a Quarter Pounder Meal worth $4.50 out of my savings?" or "Do I really need that new video game that cost $50?".

This "brand free" approach can be applied to all other shopping areas aside from supermarket example.

When you are shopping for clothes, ONLY buy necessities. Ignore most expensive and most popular items. Only buy what you, or children, absolutely need, ignore all rest.

Regarding toys and games, you can make it so that your children ONLY get "free" toys on Christmas and their birthdays. If they want something additional, they must purchase item with their own money.

Taking These Ideas One Step Further

Once you have inspired your children to participate in this money saving, "brand free" lifestyle, it's time to MOTIVATE them to help increase their success.

As with everything in life, having a goal to strive for greatly increases probability of success.

Goals help us stay focused on task at hand. Goals help individual strive for something tangible that's meaningful or important to them.

A runner's goal may be to shave 10 seconds off their lap time. This runner will then practice, workout, and time themselves, striving to run a lap 10 seconds faster than before.

In our "brand free" exercise, you may want to come up with a goal that you and your children can strive towards. For example, you could establish a short term goal that states, if your children can eat healthy and not ask for any "brand name stuff" for two months, you will take them to any movie they want to see.

Here are some more ideas for various goal ranges:

Short Term: 1-3 months

picnic, trip to beach, movie of their choice

Medium Range: 3-8 months

new game, doll house, Chuck-E-Cheese trip

Long Term: 8-12 months

Disneyland trip, Water Theme park, day at carnival

Sticking To Your Plan

Regardless what your decide to implement, remember that this is your plan. You are parent, so you decide what's best for your children. Don't take any negative remarks or any bad mouthing from your kids in regards to this new lifestyle. Stick with it!

Just keep in mind that these exercises and lessons will benefit your children in long run regardless of what they may think of it at moment.

Best wishes teaching your children to be "brand free" and money conscious.

--- Learn Effective Money-Saving Techniques & Eliminate Your Debt At SavingSecrets.com. Hop on over and you'll find FREE money-saving articles, a monthly newsletter, and even a FREE Ebook download just for stopping by!

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