Low Cost Menu Plans (Only $55!) Work for Me!

I'm excited this week because I have a low cost menu plan worked out. And it's good food, too. Not only does this save me a ton of money, but it also helps so much to know what we'll be eating. For years and years I just bought all kinds of ingredients to have in the pantry/freezer, and would decide what to make each day based on what we had. It worked most of the time, but didn't save any money and took way more time. And when we are all busy going different directions, having a plan means one less thing to worry about. We also tend to eat out less when the menu is pre-planned.

One of the biggest savings comes from it being actually easier to eat at home when meals are planned than it is to eat out. Eating out now takes more time, more money, is more stressful, and generally is not as good. We do still like to eat out on special occasions or when we are away from the house for an extended period of time.

To buy all the ingredients this week would be around $55 for my family of 5. However, I had some of the stuff already. The menu plan and grocery list with prices are here.

To see what is working for others, go here.

A Week's Menu for $50! (included shopping list)

Usually, I don't include lunches in our menu plans because we eat most of our lunches at school or at work and we don't all eat the same things. See this post about packing lunches for examples of the lunches we pack. This weeks dinner menu below will cover most of our lunches for the week since all the recipes will have a generous amount of leftovers after our family of 5 eats dinner.

For breakfast, we eat a lot of cereal (purchased free or nearly free when Safeway has it on sale and I have coupons), oatmeal, pancakes, homemade bread, and homemade muffins. We'll limit this to only a few items for this week to keep the cost down.

This week's dinner menu is fairly kid friendly. My kids will eat most dinners, but these are some of their favorites.

Most items should be easily found at Walmart for this price. If not, pick a few items at Dollar Tree if needed. It does end up being a little over $50, but most of us will already have at least a few of the items on hand. For an entire week's groceries, starting completely from scratch with nothing in the pantry, $54 is pretty good!

Breakfasts
eggs
homemade bread
muffins
milk (from powdered)

Lunches
leftovers with carrot sticks, fruit, pretzels

Snacks
applesauce
pretzels
crackers/chips
bread
muffins
leftovers

Dinners
Sloppy Joes and peas, $4.70
Chicken -n- Dumplings, $5.50
Chili, $4.50
Homemade Pizza and applesauce, $6.75 (including 3 big cheese pizzas)
Scalloped Tuna/Potato casserole, vegetable, $2.75
Spaghetti, Corn, $4 (with 1/2 lb. ground beef, $3 without)
Brown beans, homemade bread, vegetables, $2.50


Shopping List, $
eggs, 2
flour, 2
powdered milk, 4
yeast, 4
salt, 1
pepper, 1
chili powder, .50
margarine, .60
baking powder, 1.10
large bag carrots, 2 (for carrot sticks and grate up the rest to add to the recipes, will also add any leftover veggies in the freezer if they mesh well with the recipes)
fresh fruit, 4
pretzels, 1
canned, fresh, or frozen veggies for 5 meals, 3 (my family doesn't eat a *ton* of these, so I usually make sure there are veggies included in the main dish as well)
2 packages chips/crackers, 2
applesauce, 2
2.5 lbs. ground beef, 5
1 lb. chicken thighs, 2
2 16 oz. cans tomato sauce, 1.50
2 cans spaghetti sauce, 2
spaghetti noodles, 1.25
peas, 1.50
onion, .25
cream of chicken soup, 1.25 (one large can)
4 pack refrigerated biscuits, 2
dried chili beans, .90
dried brown beans, .90
mozzarella cheese, $5
tuna, .75

Total, $54!!!

For more menus, visit Organizing Junkie.

Complete Weekly Menu

Dinners
Creamed Tuna and Peas with noodles, applesauce
Butter beans, cornbread, applesauce
Impossible cheeseburger pie, creamed peas
Meatloaf, Carrot and Raisin Salad
Sloppy Joes, peas
Homemade pizza
Cheesy hamburger maccaroni, carrot sticks

Breakfasts
Oatmeal
Biscuits with Jelly
Homemade raisin bread
Oatmeal
Biscuits with Jelly
Homemade raisin bread
Oatmeal

Lunches
Tuna Sandwiches, carrot sticks
Maccaroni and Cheese, peas
Canned soup, crackers
Leftover meatloaf, carrots
Scrambled or fried eggs, toast
Leftover pizza
Mini pizzas

Snacks
Pretzels
Carrot sticks
Raisins
Applesauce
Bread or toast
Oatmeal Cookies
Applesauce Muffins

Check out more menus here!