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 planning– saving at us lots of time!
This week we’ll be eating (in no particular order)
Chicken Biscuit Casserole with Green Beans
Taco Salad with Chips and Cheese Dip
Catfish Nuggets with Corn and Homemade French Fries
Chicken Enchiladas with Pineapple and Leftover Veggies
Season Salt Pork Chops with Mashed Potatoes and Sweet Peas
For 2012, I will no longer be showing
the cost breakdown for our meals. This is very time consuming and for
little purpose since I’ve spent the past 18 months showing that a family
of 4 could eat for an average of $5 per dinner. If you’d like to see
some $5 menu ideas, please browse my pages for $5 Dinner Plans.
the cost breakdown for our meals. This is very time consuming and for
little purpose since I’ve spent the past 18 months showing that a family
of 4 could eat for an average of $5 per dinner. If you’d like to see
some $5 menu ideas, please browse my pages for $5 Dinner Plans.
This is really interesting and encouraging at the same time. For the past three months I had planned what my family would eat each week and made a list of groceries to buy (without saving and coupons) based on recipes for each week. It would be at least three weeks worth of meals. I noticed more that as I shopped based on the list and nothing else that I did save a little big of money, however not as much if I had coupons. But I knew in advance what we were eating everyday and stuck with it. Two days ago I had decided that I wasn’t going to do it this month and boy, did I see the difference and ended up not coming close to be as organized. Seeing this post has helped me to realize two things. One that I was doing better when I made a list and it indeed helps one to be prepared, leaving time for other more important things. And two that if I apply the use of coupons with the lists for what I need then I will save even more. So I decided to use coupons and this is the first time so I am looking around at sites to help me with this. So thank you so much for the blogging about these things. Its very helpful.