Here is your Daily Dose of Thrifty – a new feature here on The Thrifty Couple. We have tons of these ideas (and want to hear yours yours too!) and thought it would be fun to start sharing some of our tips on thrifty, frugal living.
Today’s Tip: Substitute Rice for half of your ground beef.
How? Well in many recipes, you can replace about 1/2 the ground beef a recipe calls for with rice! It is much cheaper than beef and keep many recipes tasting just as, well… tasty.
Meat can be one of the most expensive portions of your grocery budget, so finding little tricks that can help reduce the cost can have a great impact on your budget.
Our kids are getting bigger – the 6,5,4 and even 1 year old are really gaining some big appetites. So instead of increasing our taco meat or other beef recipes to 1.5-2 lbs. of beef, we just add rice and still use the same amount. Rice is significantly cheaper than ground beef, especially when purchased in bulk.
Here are some examples:
- Taco Meat
- Meatloaf
- Meatballs
- Ground Beef Fried Rice
- Recipes calling for ground beef
Use around 1/2 cup to 1 cup of rice uncooked in your recipes. This will give you more servings in your typical recipes or you can reduce the ground beef in your recipes. Either way, you can save money and not compromise on taste.
Finally, we all know that our meat portions should be cut down. We all look over our shoulder to make sure our doctor isn’t in the restaurant when eating our half-pound burgers. 
Not only is this our daily dose of thrifty, but its our small attempt at our daily dose of health (especially when you are using the long-grained, brown rice).
