Thrifty meal planning ideas -
These plans, along with the money-saving tips they submitted, should help you lower food costs. Here are a few tips that allow me to feed my family of four inexpensively in Seattle, which is a pricey part of the country:.
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We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at any time. My number one recommendation for those who want to be frugal in their meals is to have a well-stocked pantry , fridge and freezer. For a frugal meal plan, I go online.
I tried a number of weekly plans I found. Saved the ones we liked best and ditched the rest. Tonight, I had ham and veggie linguini. The menu called for Italian bread to go with the linguini.
You can move things around and use dinner leftovers for lunches. Breakfast 1 — Oatmeal with raisins and walnuts Breakfast 2 — French toast and two slices of tomato Breakfast 3 — Cereal of your choice Breakfast 4 — Yogurt and fresh fruit Breakfast 5 — PBJ Breakfast 6 — Eggs and toast Breakfast 7 — Muffin and jam.
Lunch 1 — Black bean soup and tortilla Lunch 2 — Salad with nuts Lunch 3 — Veggie soup and bread Lunch 4 — Sandwich Lunch 5 — Chicken noodle soup Lunch 6 — Salad and tortilla Lunch 7 — Bean burrito.
Dinner 1 — Chicken and potatoes Dinner 2 — Pizza Dinner 3 — Pasta Dinner 4 — Burritos Dinner 5 — Stew Dinner 6 — Fish and rice Dinner 7 — Quiche and salad Krystyna. Cooking and baking from scratch would be required on any frugal meal plan that I am familiar with.
I do not follow a set meal plan. My plan involves using what I have on hand, purchasing items on sale, and volunteering at two food pantries so I am given a few food items in exchange for my labor each week. Holly in NH. Related: How To Read Your Grocery Ad Like an Insider. Perhaps these ideas will help.
We eat oatmeal a couple of times per week. We also have pancakes from scratch with homemade syrup , scratch muffins, scratch biscuits, or cream of wheat. The baked goods are generally made with mixed flours whole wheat and white. Sometimes, I make granola.
Another option for breakfast is a smoothie if the bananas are getting a bit over-ripe. We eat sandwiches or leftovers from supper.
We have peanut butter and jelly at least two times per week. Right now, the cherry tomatoes are finishing up in the garden, so those are going into small containers and into lunches. Sometimes, they have pickles or carrot sticks. See 14 Ways To Buy Produce for Less.
We have a discount grocery near us, so the sweet snack is made up of larger packages. When they get home, they have a snack. At home, we have milk, juice and water with yogurt and fruit for a snack. Beef is out of our league right now, but we have a grocer with great deals on chicken, so we stock up.
When we have company, we try to do something more fun, like a curry with lots of toppings or have pizza night. I freeze anything that is about to expire and use the produce in stir-fry and salad right away. I get organic food and special things I would not ordinarily buy. My family is grateful for the variety.
See: A Grocery Stockpiling Guide: How and When to Save. For thrifty meals, I recommend hot cereals for breakfast, including brown rice cooked with raisins. Also, I recommend smoothies made with peanut butter, powdered milk, and over-ripe bananas. We use chickpeas in salads and refried beans in tortilla wraps.
Mostly, I save on these meals with my reduced meats in the freezer. Whatever I find is what I use to cook up a variety of meals. I save all broth from canned vegetables or cooking water in a container in the freezer that I add to until I have a significant quantity. We also scavenge fresh food from any source we can find.
My husband recently stopped at a house that he passes every day while running and asked them if he could have the tomatoes that he observed rotting on the vines in their backyard. They even gave him a bag to collect them in! This year, we have enjoyed the less-than-perfect apples from the trees at our local membership resort, where we also picked berries from the woods in the summer.
With the savings that I realize from this frugal way of shopping, cooking, and eating, my family enjoys vacations and monthly frills that we would not be able to afford otherwise. We are not low-income, struggling, in debt , or unemployed.
Saved money is tax-free income to me. Robin in Illinois. If circumstances have put your family in debt, we can help you create a plan for conquering it. One that is personalized to your family's budget and lifestyle.
We use chicken breasts with the bone in, removing the skin. This saves money and helps us cut down on our portion sizes. When picking red potatoes, we buy smaller potatoes because they taste better, stretch to cover more than one meal, and cut down on portion control. Green beans are fresh and we usually drink water with all meals adding a straw and ice to encourage the kids to drink it , but we offer milk or OJ too, in small portions.
We use instant brown rice or regular white rice with sausage, which can feed more than four or can be used for leftovers at lunchtime. We no longer use cheese, croutons, ham, and other additives because they not only cost money but also add more than half of the calories in a perfectly good salad.
A cucumber salad is simple, healthy, and cheap. Fruit slices consist of fresh slices of whatever fruit we find on sale. The chicken pot pie is a simple recipe that uses chicken pieces, frozen vegetables, cream of chicken soup, and instant biscuits. The recipe saves money because it cooks quickly and because we save vegetables all week for this recipe.
This is £ a year per person. Spend £1 a day and it is £ a year per person, a HUGE saving of £1, per person per year. This means that a family of four would save a whopping £pa. This kind of figure would make a significant difference to sorting out any debts, or it could pay for a decent family holiday or maybe a significant dent in a deposit for a house, or it could buy a decent car….
Or what else? What could you do with nearly £6,? Meal planning on a budget for 2? I cook for just my husband and myself, so most of the meal plans are for 2, and very easy to scale up for a family. The meal plans for 2 people have enough calories for 2 adults, and per day. The plans for 4 people include 2 teenage children.
There are three meals per day, plus some cakey extras to fill hungry moments, and just because cake is lovely to have. It is disproportionately important to have something nice to eat if you are skint.
Many things will freeze, so you could make the 2 portions but split into, say, 3, and freeze the extra for another day. All the plans are within current Govt. guidelines for healthy eating and most contain significantly more than 5 a day. If there are 4 of you, buy 2 lots of everything on the 2 person plans.
If there is 1 of you, spread each day over 2 days, and if you have one, make use of your freezer for the fresh stuff.
Originally prepared Cheap grocery alternatives Nellie Hedstrom, Extension meql specialist, University of Maine Discount beverage deals Extension. Revised and thtifty by Statewide Nutrition and Mewl Activity Discounted bulk food Kate Yerxa, University of Maine Cooperative Extension. For information about UMaine Extension programs and resources, visit extension. Find more of our publications and books at extension. There are ways to provide nutritious meals for couples and small families while keeping food costs down. Frugal Sample size hand sanitizer planning lpanning one of the best ways to save money on plahning Discount beverage deals budget. We have Plannjng some great tips and tricks to create this Ultimate Thrifth to Frugal Meal Planning. Good meal planning can reduced stress levels, help you save money and eat better. You won't dread the "what's for dinner" question any more! So what is meal planning? Meal Planning is defined as the process of deciding in advance what meals you will eat over a specified period, typically a week or more.
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