$5 Dinners Week of 12/26

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My goal is to provide dinner for my family for an average of $5 except on special occasions. We don’t have to eat beans and rice to accomplish this goal!  I shop the grocery sales each week.  Then I plan my menu based on the foods I have already at home (at a great price). I balance more expensive meals with less expensive ones. We typically only cook a main dish 4 or 5 times a week. Each main dish cooked will serve 4-6, and the leftovers will be for easy dinners on the weekend, or to freeze for another week. This cuts down on cleaning, cooking, and meal planningsaving us lots of time!

This week I have no menu plan.  That’s right: no menu plan.  We’ll be eating hodge podge from the fridge and freezer, picking up a pizza, and enjoying some eating out with family.  Will our average be $5 per meal?  Likely not.  I guess you could say that we’re using up all of the extra money from the many weeks that we averaged under $5 LOL.

For 2012 I’m going to make some changes to my blog format.  One of those is the discontinuation of my $5 dinner plans.  I’ll still be posting the main dishes that we’ll be eating each week, but I won’t be including all of the sides and cost breakdowns.  Part of the purpose for my blog was to help me be accountable for things that I needed to do at home.  Having a dinner plan was one of those.  To make it applicable to everyone else I included the breakdown to show that you could eat for an average of $5 a meal, but not always eat rice and beans.  I think that after a year and a half I’ve proved it and have made meal planning routine enough that I can move on to a new challenge for myself as a stay at home mom.

With the extra time I’m saving I’ll be posting a simple weekly homemaking plan. I struggle with maintaining the house each week and would like to learn how to be more intentional about what I’m doing at home each day.  More details to come next week. In the mean time, enjoy your leftovers, family time, and holiday decor clean up!

Comments

  1. Thanks for posting what you have on the $5 meals. I really enjoyed seeing them and reference them often when planning my menu. I understand not doing anymore though. I think most people now have a good handle on how much their food costs are. I look forward to seeing your new blog format.