Frugal $5 Dinner Menu Week 43 of 2012

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!

On their traditional father/son trip to visit Mr. Rick and Chef Tim at Brookshire’s on Saturday, my husband found ground beef on clearance. Even though it was 80/20, it was $.99/lb!  Needless to say he snatched up 13 lbs.  We froze 5 lbs in the packages,  4 lbs. he browned and 4 lbs. he browned then seasoned for tacos. Only the packages fit into the freezer, so now I’ve got to eat more freezer items to make room for the cooked meat. Too bad we ate at Texas Roadhouse Friday night and had leftovers

This week we’ll be cooking (in no particular order): 

Texas Roadhouse (last week) (we had a free kids meal & $5 credit so we ate for about $15!

Store bought pizza from the freezer with Apples
Blueberry Pancakes and Bacon from the freezer, Scrambled Eggs and Orange Slices

Soft Tacos/Taco Salad

Homemade Mac & Cheese, Green Beans and Grilled Pork from the freezer

For 2012, I will no longer be showing the cost breakdown for our meals.  If you’d like to see some $5 menu ideas with cost breakdowns, please browse my pages for $5 Dinner Plans. 

This post is being linked up to Menu Plan Monday over at OrgJunkie.