Frugal $5 Menu Plan January 2013

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This year I’m going to try a monthly menu plan.  We tend to get ahead of our menu plan at times anyway, so I’m hoping this will simplify my life a bit.  If it doesn’t work out I’ll try a 2 week plan instead!

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. Because we cook multiples of each dish, we spend less time cleaning, cooking, and meal planning!

Right now the best meat prices are for chicken, plus we have quite a bit of pork in the freezer.  I’m only including the sides that I have planned since we eat a lot of fresh fruit and won’t know what fruits will be on sale each week.

Dishes We’re Cooking (Hubby cooks a lot when he’s home)
Alfredo Chicken Helper, Sweet Peas and Bananas, Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
2x Chicken Biscuit Casserole
Chicken Quesadillas, Cheese Dip
2x Season Salt Grilled Chicken, Broccoli and Cheese
BBQ Chicken, Pineapple
Lemon Baked Salmon,
Mesquite Grilled Pork Cuts
Garlic Pork Chops, Homemade Mac and Cheese
Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
2x Smoked Turkey 
Planned Fast Food
2x Little Caesar’s Pizza
Dairy Queen Kid’s Meals (including free ice cream!)
Taco Bell

We make it a point to eat leftovers every few nights, so this should be plenty of meals to get us through the month of January.

I’d like to work in a few new recipes this year.  I’d love to hear your suggestions of things you haven’t seen on my menus before!

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

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Comments

  1. Delicious looking menu! The crockpot spaghetti chicken sounds really good. I’ll put it in my list of dinners to make.

  2. Looks great. You will be blown away how much you will save with menu planning. We keep our grocery bill to under $65 a week for a family of 5. :)All with meal planning!

  3. I’m curious as to what your family size is and what your weekly/monthly budget is. I really struggle to keep my grocery budget at $125 (including all toiletries) per week for our family of 10 – all but one with adult-sized appetites. I cook what we eat so we generally only have enough food left over for one night’s supper (also, much of it goes to my husband’s lunches) so I’m cooking 6 nights a week. I’m always looking for ways to save money…but I won’t coupon (it is not worth it for me).

    • Hi Kate, thanks for stopping by.
      There are 2 adults and 2 preschoolers in our family. Our budget is an all inclusive budget, covering all purchases (excluding gasoline and home repairs). Right now I’m challenging us to keep it at $400 a month. It’s been tight some months with gift purchases, but generally if we keep our wits it’s not too bad. You can read more about it here. http://www.thriftytexaspenny.com/2012/06/becoming-debt-free-step-4b-budgeting.html I understand completely about couponing. I do coupon, but I don’t do nearly as much as I used to, since we no longer eat as much processed food and I make a lot of our cleaning supplies. I do a *lot* of buying in larger quantities when the prices are low though. Kudos to you for having a $125 budget for a family of 10! Keep up the good work.

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