I have read a couple of books on meals for under a dollar. Of course in Canada I know that would be a lot more :censor: When money is tight at your home what kind of meals do you make? Have you worked out the cost per meal? What is the lowest amount you have spent on groceries when you really, really had too?

With dh's income of $940 net a month {for a good month} we are always on tight strings.. we eat a lot of Wal-Mart brand stuff... The mac and cheeze {which is creamier and better tasting than Kraft} Is .28 a box, The big box of thin spagetti is .98, a gallon of milk $1.78, Echrich bologna {at W-M Supercenter} is $1.50, Salisbury steaks {Banquet family size} $2.00, ground beef $1.09 lb, Really, wal-mart super center and a few bits & pieces from Big Lots, Dollar Tree, & Dollar Stores/Family Dollar, are what keeps us going....

Dh is not working and were living on $$ below the poverty line right now and doing okay.

Many of our meals are under $$ and I live in Canada. That is only because I garden and freeze/can has much as I can, dh fishes and we were given a deer this hunting season.

Had we not prepared, your right - living in Canada you can't make meals for $1.00.

We do eat a lot of homemade soups and casseroles and I do all my own baking of breads, etc.

The lowest amount I've spent on groceries has been approx. $50.00 a month for a family of 5. I can't say enough about preparing for situations where finances are tight and for having a stocked pantry.

When times are tight, we live on pasta. They sell 5 pounds of pasta at our ShopRite for $2.00. 1 lb a night will last a work week. It's a LOT of pasta to swallow, but when you have to, you have to.

:) Money is always tight around here and with 3 teenaged boys and all their friends to feed (we seem to have a revolving door) we try to make food stretch as far as possible.
We do lots of casseroles, crock pot meals, stir frys over rice, stews, spaghetti, homemade soups, huge salads from our garden during the summer, homemade breads, ramen for lunch (they each eat 2 packages), pasta salads, etc.
Another thing we do is limit the milk and juice consumption. They can have 1 glass with a meal and after that it's water if they are still thirsty. During the rest of the day it's water. Saves us lots of money!
Our boys work at an apple orchard and we get lots of free apples from there so we eat lots fresh and make applesauce and dried apple slices with the excess.
We try to eat seasonally and out of our pantry to keep costs down.:cool:

Beans or oatmeal. Both good for your heart, too!

Deb

When money is tight I make grilled cheeze for '16' and '22'....tomato soup if we have it, chicken noodle (both of these only bought on deep discounts). I add a handful of noodles to the soup for '22'.

Omlettes for DH....Beany Wiennies. 2 can pork n beans with one package wienners (2/$4) and that is a meal for them....I add corn bread with a little cheese to fill 'em up if '16' has company, but I lavished '22' and his friends when they were '16's so they are all working and get their hands slapped if they get in my pantry.

I do quiches....with left over ham, or bacon or without and only cheese.

Hubby, he will eat anything as long as it has SOME meat in it, so Mac cheese and wiennies, or ground beef.

Spag is good.

I do stews with left over veggies and corn bread, and a chicken noodle soup I make with my stock, left over chicken and left over veggies

Same recipe above just thicker for pot pies with HM buscuits on top....

These are how I stretch the meat and fill em up.

I guess this is the lowest month for groceries ever....$369.44....but we did eat out a little $168.

Hubby is a big eater, '22' has reduced his intake, but sometimes eats for 3. '16' well, he is 16, a huge kid and his friends at least twice a week.

I am exstatic to have gotten it down from Novembers totals of $738 at G-store and $206 eating out. We won't even talk about October!

Planning the meals is what made it happen for me....:yippee:

What we ate on monday is leftover recycled on Wednesday, Tuesday for Thursday, etc. If I don't use a left over it goes in the freezer usually for my lunch, or to serve to DH.



HTH

I know a great site based just on this. Its has the meal plan and shopping list for:


Food Emergency Shopping List for any time that your food budget is severely restricted due to lack of money.

Bare-Bones-Empty-Wallet List for when you're really short on cash, and no food.

The Money Saving 100 Shopping List everything you need to make the recipes in this cookbook. Buy these useful and nutritious foods and save the big bucks.


The rest of the site is pretty neat by the way!
http://www.justpeace.org/better.htm
( To get started click on shopping list)

Oatmeal and farina (cr. of wheat)
beans
soups
stews
chicken any way except boneless, skinless (unless I bone and de-skin thighs!)
eggs

When money is really tight I make an upside down dinner- (breakfast for supper), such as omelets, or pancakes. Pasta is another cheap meal- sauce made from tomato paste in my stockpile, and sprinkled with a little parm. cheese- no one misses the meat. Lentil soup is another cheap, cheap meal. Feeding my 14 year old son and his friends that are always here is my challenge right now. They are always starving!!!

when things are tight here we always do soup, or stew. it goes along way, throw in some bisquits and call it dinner!!!!!!

I am in a different situation as I buy meat by the side once a year, so I always have meat in the deep freeze. My father always buys us a couple of bushels of potatoes each fall, so if money is tight, I just don't go to the store and we don't have vegies or fruit.
I try to stretch the meat as far as possible and bake lots of bread, rolls etc to fill in the meals.

Pasta, rice, tomato soup, and what we grow in our garden are main ingredents for our meals.

Beans
Cornbread
Rice
Pasta
If we eat meat, it would be chicken...the cheapest!
Tuna

Soups & casseroles. I buy a lot of meat when it is marked down & freeze it. I try to get as many dinners out of a piece of meat as I can. Ham dinner 1st night , pea soup using bone another, ham cubes in casseroles and omlets. Beef roast 1st night, stew or stroganoff another, hash another.

i use a lot of hamburg, when things are tight, I stretch that hamburg very thin. make bread, noodle, rice, anything that will go a long ways. If i get a roast, I use it for as many things as I can.:paw:

Dried beans prepared in the crockpot, rice and cornbread!

I know, I know, way too many carbs. As a matter of fact, ONLY carbs.

Beans, Rice, Pancakes

The biggest thing I've could ever do to save money, while feeding my carnivors was to buy meat from the butcher, fill a freezer with it, 2 times per year. That cuts down on SOOOOOOOOO many trips to the store and if you have meat and potatoes on hand you can always whip up a meal. B.T.W. if you buy 1/2 beef from a butcher it may seem like a lot at first but when you average out what you pay for it, you get steaks for the same price as your hamburger. Noone feels deprived eating at home everynight when they can have steak once a week.:D

These are some great tips!

I buy a whole chicken (on sale). Meal 1 roast chicken,carrots, potatoes, onions, and gravy. Meal 2 creamed chicken w/ peas over toast. Meal 3 stir fry over rice. Meal 4 chicken pot pie(leftover gravy, vegies, and creamed chicken) topped w/ pie crust or cheap biscuits. Meal 5 chicken and rice soup or chicken and noodle soup (made by boiling the bones).

I usually make S.O.S or as my ddad calls it s--- on a shingle.Its ground beef and gravy on bread.Pretty simple and cheap and will last us 3 nights

:bump:


We do a lot of breakfast type things for dinner - scrambled eggs or fried eggs, toast with jelly, pancakes, waffles, french toast, etc. Also, beans and cornbread.

When things are really tight, we eat out of the pantry and freezer exclusively. What we eat depends on what is in there. There's usually beans and rice, a variety of canned veggies (either home canned or store bought), canned or dried fruit, lots of sauces and condiments, lots of tomato products, pasta, ramen noodles, rice noodles, baking supplies, chicken leg quarters, pork steaks, turkey, ground turkey, hamburger, and whatever fish or deer we get or are given. Whatever veggies we had to freeze from the garden, whatever fruits/berries we could freeze. We pretty much eat the same way, regardless of the money situation. Meat portions get smaller when times are tight, that's about it.

We live on a tight budget and what I make a lot of the time are:

Homeade peanut butter banana bread, pumpkin chocolate chip bread, cornbread (made in small pans or muffins.) I always make a large batch and put them in the freezer for conveniece.

I make my own flour tortillias and make enough to put in the freezer as well.

For cheap dinners I make homeade refried beans and rice, serve them with the homade tortillias above and can be served with our without cheese, salsa, etc. Add any meat if you have it or want to, but you don't have to. I love to make mexican foods alot because they are so cheap to make from scratch and very versitile. You can also add almost any veggies you have to mexican as well and it always tastes really good.

Chili and homeade pasta sauces. Serve your chili with rice or pasta to make it stretch further. Whole grain rices with frozen veggies and beans. Add different spices and herbs each time for many variations of meals.
Make your own tortillia chips out of whole corn tortillia. They go with everything and make cheap and delicious nachos! Buy cheddar cheese in bulk and shred it yourself for all these meals.

A big bag of popcorn for snacks at night. We always drink water instead of sodas.

We eat a lot of beans & rice, spaghetti with very little meat( I
seperate 1 lb. of ground meat into 3 servings to make the sauce),
cheap chicken, 3/$1.00 mac & cheese, eggs, and lots of peanut butter.

Jean
mom to Ryan 7:bang:
and Samantha 22 mos.:angel2:
Married th Dh 13 years


Oct. grocery challenge:$200
Spent so far: $80.48

Emergency Fund: $25.00

:wave:

Oatmeal, french toast, pancakes and eggs and potatoes can be breakfast.

Sandwiches made with egg salad or tuna or grilled cheese for lunch. Soup and crackers is good too.

Beans and rice or stuffed baked potates could be dinner or macaroni and cheese or spaghetti.

Vegetable soups and chili with bisquits are good, too.

Make little pizzas with english muffins and a little cheese and tomatoe, onions or whatever toppings you like. I sometimes slice smoked sausage very thin and use in place of pepperoni (because pepperoni is more expensive).

The basic and cheapest foods to buy around my area are

Potatoes, onion, carrots and cabbage
Rice, Pasta, crackers and bread and tortillas
Eggs and some cheeses
Chicken
Bacon and pork
Tomato soup

I really limit my use of meats by cooking up small amounts and using them in bits instead of the main course of a meal. Like bacon or ham and smoked sausage. I almost never buy ground beef or hamburger.

We haven't been that tight for many years but when we were we ate things like: boxed mac and cheese .33 with brown and serve sausages .99 and a canned vegtable .25

meat pies: 4/1.00 biscuts leftover meat (any available) leftover or fresh vegtables (cooked onions celery peas carrots corn ect.) flaten your biscuts fill with meat/vegtable mixture, fold over, seal edges with a fork, and bake till golden. If possible zap some sour cream and chives in mircrowave (for about 20 seconds) dip pies and enjoy

like the others pasta pasta pasta... onions, celery, green peppers,and carrots were shredded and added to beef up the nutrition not only in the pasta but everything else I could put them in. lol

whole chicken 3 times: 1st day roast with potatoes and a vegtable 2 day casseroes, meat pies, open faced sandwiches (if there was enough) pot pie ect.... 3rd day soup I used leftover vegtables sometimes... pasta or rice again leftovers were fine if thrown in at the end and just heated through

Rotate or freeze till the end of the week or you will be sick and tired of eating chicken

breakfast foods: eggs, french toast, pancakes ect..

homemade alfredo : with leftover chicken, ham or just brocolli 1lb. cooked pasta, 1/2 stick margarine, 1 cup parmesan cheese, milk, enough to make creamy. Drain pasta while still hot stir in margarine till it melts, add parmesan and enough milk to make it creamy s+p to taste. If I use broccoli I just throw it in the pasta pot when I start the pasta. If you would like a little zip add 1tsp. garlic powder.

Cheap hot dogs (if we didnt have rolls we used bread) and beans (canned) souped up if I had the time.

Chili with little meat and lots of beans served with 3/1.00 corn bread mix or over rice

Canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches

Keep looking around for a variety of recipies, use your imagination, put foods together that make sense in casseroles.
If you only need one of something buy one. If you need a small amount of say ham for quiche, buy 1/4 lb. at the deli. The same for homemade pizza buy a small amount of sliced peperoni just what you need. I have bought this at the salad bar if cheaper per lb. than the deli. Snacks: anything I could bake, apple muffins, apple cakes, popped on the stove popcorn, 3/1.00 jello and pudding, peanut butter and snickerdoodle cookies. Lots of apples. Bananas that are on the day old cart are great for muffins and coffee breads. I freeze my browning but still edible ones in ziplock bags just for this purpose. I always kept on hand powdered milk. If I was running out of milk I would mix this with what I had left to make it strech. I didn't like to do this, powdered milk does not taste the same but, better than no milk. I rationed juice to make it last the week. We had gallons of sun tea for refreshment and plain ice water.

My grocery budget for a family of 4 was $25 to $30 a week. This fed 2 adults and 2 small children. I bought sales and I always kept an eye on nutrition , and not one of us ever went hungry.

Eating out was limited to a few times a year. We ate this way for a couple of years. I was not raised frugal and I learned how to be the hard way. It's a lesson I will never forget. I stock up now and my freezer is full with what ever I want. But still I look for sales and specials.

Omlettes, mac and cheese, rice and beans. I do a whole chicken and stretch it 3-4 days-ending in chicken and rice soup. Everytime I have celery I keep the tops and bottoms in the freezer, along with onion and corn bits to season the soups I also make a point of keeping a little bit from each bag of frozen veggies to put away for soup making, noone notices a few spoons missing, but it adds up quickly to a big pot of soup or stew. I am lucky enough to have fairly regular triple coupons here so I also have lots of convenience foods in my pantry that I get for pennies--rice mixes, cake and brownie mixes etc. so adding those things to the rotation kept everyone from feeling deprived. Because of the triples I can generally feed 6-7 of us on $65 a week-thats food, another $30 for diapers, cleaning, hygiene and other extras.

Pasta!!

I'm getting some more great ideas from this thread. Thanks Ladies!!! :grouphug:

Usually something from the pantry we haven't had in a while or some type of stew or soup

I like to make fried rice, it uses up any tiny amount of leftover meat and veggies and it's never the same.

All I add is an egg or two, rice, maybe a minced onion and whatever leftover meat and veggie and saute til the egg sets. Season to taste and serve with soy sauce. Yum

It's cheap to make even without the leftovers too. :hungry:

Originally posted by meeager
I know a great site based just on this. Its has the meal plan and shopping list for:


Food Emergency Shopping List for any time that your food budget is severely restricted due to lack of money.

Bare-Bones-Empty-Wallet List for when you're really short on cash, and no food.

The Money Saving 100 Shopping List everything you need to make the recipes in this cookbook. Buy these useful and nutritious foods and save the big bucks.


The rest of the site is pretty neat by the way!
http://www.justpeace.org/better.htm
( To get started click on shopping list)

Great site Michelle! Thanks for sharing. :)

:bump: this is a great thread and one I don't think I saw before.

I live in Canada and I went to a site that I had posted on a coulple of things that I do when things were tight and still make for my family;


one of my families favorite meals, which is a treat in our house, is fried bread dough with syrup on top....it is so filling a real stick to your ribs yummy meal. when you make up your dough for bread use half for a meal and the rest of the dough either make a loaf of bread or rolls or even just flash freeze the left over on a cookie sheet and then put in freezer bags for a future meal etc.
I take the dough and shape them into pancake sizes and melt some marg in a fry pan....fry them the same as you would pancakes oh but they brown and puff up, you may have to add a bit of margarine again when you flip them...again the same as you make pancakes.
For the syrup I make miss maggies pancake syrup it is truly awesome just make sure that if you have any foam to skim it off so that when you store it in your plastic bottle etc it won't crystalize in the fridge. Also if you don't have mollasses that is ok , tastes great without it and If i don't have maple flavouring I just use vanilla instead. Here is the link for miss maggies pancake syrup http://www.spam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typedspam! It is better fried than typed.com/pancakesyrup.htm

Try to make sure that in your staples you can always have on hand chicken boullion.....I always have this on hand to make my corn chowders (super easy) veggie soup (another super easy meal) and for gravies.
Sometimes I make french fries, and if i have left over meat like hamburger or sausage i put that on the french fries and top with the gravy...my family loves this and again so filling.
When i make up mashed potatoes I try to do extra and with the left over mashed potatoe , when it is semi warm, I use an ice cream scoop and flash freeze it and then throw it in freezer bags.....to make I preheat oven to 350 , and place on cookie sheets and heat in oven till brown and crisp on the outside....the insides stay moist and smooth....again...yummmmmmmm...lol about 5 minutes or so before you take them out you can add shredded cheese on top to melt...you can add before you scoop them to flash freeze , green onion, bacon bits, garlic....the sky is the limit.

I also buy chicken legs with backs attached and throw in a stock pot with water, some onion and celery for flavour ,bring to a boil and then I simmer for a couple of hours.....I cool the broth so that I can skim off any fat (easier this way for me) and put the broth in containers or freezer bags to freeze for future gravies,casseroles,soups etc....I take the skin off of the cooked chicken and take off all the meats and freeze in 1 1/2 to 2 cup portions (They just had chicken legs with backs attached at the IGA for .49 cents a pound).
I make all kinds of frugal mixes....if I do up a chicken casserole I will put in a bag of my frozen chicken, 1 1/2 cups of frozen veggies and pour my own gravy over it . For the gravy I just take 1/4 cup of flour, 2 tbsp of marg and 2 cups of broth....either the broth that I have frozen or I will use chicken boullion.....melt marg in a pan, add flour, stir till brownish over medium heat then add slowly your 2 cups of broth and whisk it as you add.....I have my biscuit mix that I made myself and I make drop buscuits with it so I don't have to roll them out...just drop by the spoonfulls.
Sheperds pie I use for a family of four 1/2 pound of hamburger(cooked), one can of cream corn and top with mashed potatoe, bake for about 35 to 40 minutes.
When I have extra money I try to buy a few extra pantry staples, meat that is a really good buy etc....I watch the flyers for sales.
I have made spagettie sauce with one can of tomato soup (the cheapest brand) one can of tomatoe paste and a can of water which i use the soup can size.....I always have spices so I add those ....if you have a bit of hamburger you can add that too but is not required.
I also saw posted somewhere , maybe here? someone takes 2 tbsps of their cooked hamburger and put in a container to freeze and it adds up quickly if you do it whenever you cook hamburger and then you have another meal in no time flat for the future.
what about fried bologna (Sp?) mashed potatoe, veggies , that has always been one of my favorite......
For a treat sometimes i will buy the noname english muffins which come in a pk of 18 and I will take 9 of those for a snack or friday night supper , cut each in 1/2 , one can of tomatoe paste some sliced peperoni , just spread enough tomatoe paste to cover your english muffin slice and put a couple pieces of peperoni, sprinkle some parmason cheese or any kind or you don't even have to if you don't have any.....bake in the oven the same as a pizza about 425 degrees but for only 10 to 15 minutes....till crisp......you can even add chopped onions to it etc.
The frugal mixes are a definate must for me though....I have made up right now one month of bread mix, biscuit mix, cookie mixes, tortilla mixes, homemade cream soup mix, pudding mix, seasoned rice mix I am sure I have more made up but it is late and I seem to babbleing. If i think of anything eles I will add to this.
P.S.....When I make a casserole, spagettie sauce, baked potatoe (for twice baked potatoes) etc I always try to make two or double etc to freeze for a future meal
Heather:)

chicken burgers at Save On foods here in BC come on sale between 1.49 to 99 cents on a super good deal for a pack of 8.

A dear friend, Strawberry, taught me to cut them up for a stir fry to stretch even further. Works great. Chinese noodles in the stir fry taste great.

She also taught me that they make a good mexican thing like a fajita when sliced up if Mexican works better with what's on hand.

Then I'm very fond of my chicken quarters which I can usually find a deal on so they are a routine part of my freezer stock. The parts we don't eat make chicken soup.

Reg ground beef is cheap and I can get 2 or 3 meals by boiling the crumbles, saving the broth and 2 cups of the crumbles go for spaghetti sauce, while the remainder with the defatted broth makes hamburger soup.

Leftover spaghetti sauce makes pizza.

Soup, of any and all kinds. chicken, and hamburg mentioned above, and although I can't have lentils anymore, they make a wonderful soup. So soup and biscuits with a little cheese.

Tinned fish on sale, is always a pantry staple so I have it, and pasta and tinned tomatoes on hand-- so I can always fix a nice tuna tomato noodle casserole.

Hot dogs on sale are a good deal, sometimes I can get a deal on ham.

Bread from the discount store makes french toast or egg sandwiches or cheese or bologna or tuna salad sandwichs. Soup and sandwich is good.

Leftover meat of any kind goes into a good stir fry or curry, served up on rice or chinese noodles.

Eggs make good meals when stretched into pancakes and waffles.

Oatmeal cooked in milk is creamy and filling and nice.

I plan meals for a week using the sales and my price book. i also buy a few things to add to my stock pile so that when the sales are bad i can use from that. I try to keep meals simple I also buy ground turkey for 79 cents a poung and mix it with ground beef to make the meat streach and i am not brand loyal what ever is cheapest and taste good i buy. i also save broth from roast and baked chicken to reuse in different receipes. I also learned to make homemade noodles cheap and taste good learing to make more from scratch

Quite often my family and I enjoy tuna melts on toast for dinner...with a nice hot pot of tea to go with it. Good comfort food.

I just mix canned tuna with a little mayo. Place on toast and broil until lightly browned.

We also enjoy Spam, fried eggs and home fries for supper occasionaly. We usually do this on busy work days. Breakfast for supper is okay - right?

:reindeer:

Things have not been that tight for me in years too but if they were I would eat the following ( a lot of what I eat now):

I would make mostly everything from scratch and for breakfast I would make some of the following: pancakes, biscuits, coffee cake, waffles,french toast, eggs and bacon, grits, oatmeal, polenta,cream of wheat, fried potatoes and onions .

Lunch I would make soups, homemade breads in my breadmaker, and sandwiches such as egg salad, tuna, chicken salad and grilled cheese. Ramen noodles also.

In the US turkeys are presently on sale for Thanksgiving and a lot of meals can be made from one turkey. Also for dinner I would buy very cheap cuts of meats less than $1.00 or $2.00 per pound and I would stretch and tenderize them by cooking in the crockpot roasts, stews,soups and casseroles. Jiffy cornbread mix is also cheap and I would go to the bakery thrift store for my store bought breads. If you like organ meats such as beef and chicken livers these are also cheap.Chili and Tuna noodle casserole comes to mind as being cheap as well as spaghetti with meat sauce, homemade bean dishes and rice.

Desserts could be custards or bread and rice puddings with raisins which could be baked in the oven or crockpot. Homemade pies, cookies and cakes could be made for special occasions. Jello makes a nice cheap dessert also.

In the past when I was strapped for cash I remember a friend I lived with laughing and saying we ate better when we were poor than when we had money because those were the times I became very creative with our meals. It helps to serve a number of these meals on your good china also, that way you won't feel so poor as you eat.

Lastly I would mainly drink water, koolaid and homemade iced tea for my beverages.

We eat out of the pantry and freezer. A lot of pasta with stewed tomatoes, mac and cheese, grilled cheese, baked potatoes.

I don't care for too many beans but I know people are eating a lot of them lately. Just remember the rice or bread to with them to make them a complete protien.

:bump:

Cool thread!

We're doing much better now than we were a couple of years ago but I still do a lot of these things.

All homemade with the exception of some store-bought pasta when it's really cheap.

Pasta. Lots and lots of pasta. Spaghetti, mac & cheese, asian style (garlic and soy or peanut sauce), pasta salad, etc.

Beans. Ditto. Refried beans, chili, burritos, nachos (homemade tortillas for both of those), etc.

Rice. Ditto. Stir fry, casseroles, Spanish rice, burritos, etc.

Breads. Toast, French toast, sandwiches (PB, jelly, pickles, tomatoes, cucumber, fried bologna), sweet rolls, pancakes, biscuits, etc.

Soups. Out of just about anything--water it down, season it up, add some corn starch or corn meal to thicken and make it stick to the ribs better.

Oatmeal, corn bread, corn meal mush, veggies and salads from the garden, quesadillas, hot pockets, pot pies, fried pies, eggs, SOS (I use those cheap little packaged meats that sell for 50 cents or so) etc.

Now why can I not think of this stuff when I need to? LOL

Right now we are going through a very tight period budgetwise. I make a lot of beans & rice, spagetti--I use just 1 pound of ground beef, and make it mostly sauce, and everyone still loves it--many different egg dishes, as we are lucky enough to get eggs free from a friend with too many chickens, LOL. I also make homemade tortillas (cheap!) with can be used to wrap up any number of leftovers. I make a lot of casseroles with whatever we have. The one thing that is a MUST in our household is salad, and even that can be frugal. A head of lettuce, a tomato, an onion. I make my own salad dressings because I hate storebought, and homemade is cheaper. I buy canned veggies when they're on sale, and use them in any number of ways. I have found that when you have almost no money, you have to cultivate your creativity, LOL :)

I am loving this thread! This is my biggest weakness, I am keeping a spreadsheet of menu ideas to go with my perpetual pantry. Thanks so much for sharing all your tips. Maybe someday I'll have some of my own to add. :)

our money is always tight. i'm a very big coupon shopper. if it wasn't for my coupons, we wouldn't have alot of food. i always buy meat when its on sale. for instance, i ahve about 4 packs of hot dogs in my deep freezer, but this week krogers ran them on sale for $.99 so i picked up a few more packs. that way i always have something to fall back on if money is really tight. the elats amount i ahve ever sepnt weekly at the grocery store was $30.00. a cheap easy meal to make is pigs in a blanket (hot dogs wrapped up in buscuits). my kids love them & they are so cheap to eat.

Great thread, and I don't believe I have seen this one either.. Thanks for the bump.... Great ideas here.

:bump:

Since there was such an interest in the $20 challenge, I thought I'd bump up this thread.

:bump:

Since there was such an interest in the $20 challenge, I thought I'd bump up this thread.


Thanks.

I noticed the beginning date and wondered where it came from, lol. Lots of great ideas here:)

For us we eat A LOT of beans and rice for dinners. Ground beef is not cheap here, i use Ground turkey when it goes on sale for 99 cents a pound, we eat chile which goes for a couple of days and then i freeze the rest. with chili we have it over rice, noodles, fritos(walmart brand is cheap), make chili dogs, etc.... i always plan all my meals right down to the snacks, and we dont buy alot of snacks, when its real tight no snacks. some nights its just a type of bean and rice and side veggi and tortilla. NOTHING GETS THROWN AWAY!!!! i reuse all leftovers. with chicken i most always buy boneless skinless thighs that i get for 1.67 a pound. WHY? well beacuse i most always chop one or 2 thighs into a casserole or the like, we hardy ever just eat the chicken pieces whole, like 2 thighs to a person, and i dont like paying for skin and bones that iam not going to eat. breakfast we eat alot of oatmeal and i dont mean instant with flavors, i buy my oats in bulk, i make cookies, bars,etc...
i also make alot of "giso" (SP?) which is usually a little meat (chix,beef, pork, whatever on hand) fry in a little oil, with seasoning add corn or pasta or green beans, rice,or whatever filler you have on hand and some tomato sauce, water cook down and wala! dinner!
btw you don't add all the ingredents, like i do chicken with the corn or chopped beef with green beans and tomato sauce, this goes into DH lunch the next day
when i shop the less packaging the cheaper its going to be, like i dont buy mac n chesse because a box at .33 cents here is not a buy where i live when i can get a whole pound of macaroni for like.50 cents and make sonthing with that. the less processed the better. hope this helps.

When things are tight...

We either have a pot of pintos in the Crockpot or a soup of some kind as the first part of the meal. With HM Bread.

After eating beans or soup and bread. Then we cook something else light. Such as an omelet or open a jar of Canned Fruit for desert.

An old time dinner during canning season would be whatever you are canning with one of the above for dinner.

If you were making strawberry jam - You might have Strawberry Shortcakes with homemade biscuits for dinner after a bowl of soup or beans.

If you were canning green beans then you might have 'leftover soup' (or clean out the frig soup) and a big bowl of green beans with some bacon grease cooked with it for flavor.

We always cook 2 times the amount of rice that we need for 1 meal. Then this becomes breakfast as rice with milk and sugar. Or added to so many other dished. Maybe as a treat Rice Pudding.

Instead of buying Potato Chips make your own crackers. You can control how much fat and salt and they taste great.

peacewithmyself, those are good ideas! do you have a recipe for homemade crackers?

Rice and frozen veggies. You just can't go wrong. Spice it up different, use different rices (I always use real rice, not that gross instant rice :yuck: ) and different frozen veggies. For about $10, you can make a lot of meals! :)

potatoes...mashed, potatoe pancakes-sprinkled with white sugar, homemade perogies with sour cream, homemade fries, homemade hashbrowns, baked potatoes, potatoe salad.

hamburgers, tacos, hamburger goulash.

pasta, mac and cheese, spagetti.

rice, fried rice, stir fry.

beans with toast, sardines and toast.

pancakes, homemade waffles, omlets.

soups, tomatoe soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade chicken soup and garlic bread, any soup and homemade biscuits.

bake more, cinnamon buns, homemade bread, muffins (i like to use up the leftover cranberry sauce from turkey dinners at x-mas and thanksgiving), buiscits, cakes (i freeze the bananas that are over ripe and use them to make banana bread)

salads and anything i can use from the garden.

tea and coffee, homemade lemonaide (from concentrated lemon juice), homemade ice tea.

even when things have been tight i've always tried to have milk in the house. it might have meant watering it down for receipes but never watered down for drinking. it's just always felt "okay" as long as the mortgage is paid and there's milk in the fridge.

oh yeah, and a friend of mine gave me a meatless receipe that costs very little. you'll either love it or it'll be just okay. here it goes...

black beans (you'll have to soak them overnight, then cook them...slow cooker works well for this)
rice
sour cream
salsa

cook the rice and beans
serve the beans over the rice
top with salsa and sour cream

simple. four food groups. filling and nutricious.