I have done a lot of research on the net about frugal living during the past year.

I have learnt a lot of very interesting things, and change some of my cleaning and cooking habits  I already knew some of those, but others where new to me...

Frugal Cooking  Tips:

-Make your own salad dressing, mayonnaise and cake mixes, I have never ever buy one of those ready-made! I can share recipes if someone is interested, they are known by everybody in France

- I never buy convenience food, such as frozen pizza, or frozen meals, I make everything from scratch, of course most of the time I cook very simple meals (I only have 1/2 an hour to prepare dinner during the week), I cook better meals during the week-ends. 

- I use my  crock-pot all the time, I cook ahead some meals for the next week on sunday evening.

- During summer, we go to a "pick your own farm", and I freeze my own bags of veggies for the winter, we do this as a family, the kids help us and we have a lot of fun (the farm is just a few miles from home)

- I never buy take-away food, nor go to fast-food (it's expensive, unhealthy and a very bad eating habit for kids).

- About every other month we go to eat in a restaurant, it's a family treat !, we always go to same restaurant, because they have free kid's menu  on saturday lunch.

- I buy in bulk meat (I freeze it), potatoes, onions...

- I bake my own bread and I make my own yoghourt (in France, we eat plenty of yoghourt)

That's all for the moment, I'll post some cleaning tips later.

Feel free to share more frugal cooking tips in the comment section  I always enjoy to learn more !