Help! They're Stuffing Me!

Saving Money Through Portion Control

By Jill Cooper, Frugal Living Expert

I have discovered the secret of how to save money feeding babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Well, I can't take the credit for it really. My mom taught it to me many years ago, but I didn't put it into practice until the first financial crisis we had when my husband was laid off.

What I have been practicing for many years has become one of the new buzz phrases: portion control. Usually when we think of portion control, it is in connection with dieting, not with discussions of saving money feeding young children.

Most American parents serve themselves and their children huge portions of food. Their families eat only part of it, and then they discard the rest. Next time you scrape those half eaten plates of food into the trash, think about this: 30 percent to 50 percent of the food and drinks we buy, whether we eat at home or out, get thrown away. That means if you are paying $500 per month on groceries, you are throwing $250 in the trash each month. If you don't believe it's true, observe your own family this week. How many half full bowls of soggy cereal do you throw away? How many pieces of toast get tossed only half eaten? What about half empty glasses of juice, milk or soda? With young children this is usually worse, but adults often do it, too.

It is easy to forget that children under the age of 4 have only about a quarter of an adult's body weight. Often, we feed them adult portions, and when we do give them smaller portions, each portion is usually only reduced to about half an adult portion. Do you use that large serving spoon and dump a full spoon of food on your child's plate? Say you give yourself two spoons of green beans and your child one. That means you have given yourself about 24 green beans and your child 12 when in reality, that child needs only about six.

Want to see more?

• A Balanced Budget: Feeding Your Family Frugally
• Cutting Cooking Costs: Tips for Saving Money in the Kitchen
• Save Money in the Kitchen!
• Talk about it!