On Friday, I talked about how to save money on a food budget – just in case you didn’t get to read it you can check that out here A change in our food budget – tips to help.

A change in any budget can be hard, especially the food budget. So, I thought I would share some $$$ saving meal ideas to show that saving money doesn’t mean you have to eat boring food, I also thru in a sample menu- Bon Appetit!

• Pancakes/waffles – try making homemade mix for extra savings. any extra batter can be put in the fridge for use the next day. Also, another tip – if you have extra pancakes or waffles already made, you can freeze them and when you want them pull them out and pop in the toaster or warm them up in the oven.
• Loaded baked potatoes are easy and everybody can make it just the way they want. If you have extra chili you can use it up by putting it on top.
• Chicken strips/nuggets and potato wedges – I buy chicken in bulk and make our own, the rest gets put in the freezer. I also take advantage of a great buy on potatoes and make homemade potato wedges.
• Bean burritos – I make a big pot of beans and we have bean burritos. I will have cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion on the side. Any leftover beans get put in the freezer to be used at a later date.
• Tacos
• Beans and cornbread – I use dried beans, this helps save the budget. I also use any beans that are left over to make chili with.
• Salad night – we grow a lot of our vegetables – some year round. We head out to the garden to ‘get’ dinner and end up bringing in lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, green onions, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini/yellow squash – really whatever is in season.
• Soup/chili – homemade soup and chili isn’t very hard to make and can easily be doubled. The extra can be saved for a later date. To make the soup more filling add some rice, pasta or beans to it.
• Spaghetti, salad and garlic bread – We use veggies from the garden and only half a loaf of garlic bread (if not less, then the other half a day or two later) and make homemade sauce. Sometimes with meatballs, sometime without.

Here’s a sample dinner menu plan for a week:

Breakfasts and lunches usually are fruit, cereal, eggs and toast, leftovers or salad. Or I rummage thru the freezer or pantry to see what we have. For the meat during the week, I only use about a pound or two (absolute tops) of each hamburger and chicken. I don’t make meat the main feature of the meal, which allows us to have a little at every meal – thus stretching our budget a little extra. It also helps to buy meat when it is on a super good sale, then I buy it in bulk and freeze it. I will also note that we have a garden that is in use all year – even in the winter I am growing a part of what we eat. I also can and dry summer veggies to use during the winter months which helps also.

My main goal is to use as up as many leftovers as possible.

I hope this helps you!

• Sunday – Breakfast for dinner – pancakes are a family favorite at our house
• Monday – Chicken and Rice bake (made with cream of chicken soup) – also make extra rice for later in week
• Tuesday – Tacos – cook extra hamburger – without seasoning, and cut up extra veggies
• Wednesday – Homemade chicken and rice soup with salad – make a double batch of soup and pull half out before adding the extra rice from Monday, use the extra veggies from the night before for the salad
• Thursday – Spaghetti, salad and bread – use the extra hamburger meat in the spaghetti sauce. Use any veggies up from the previous night and use only half of the bread.
• Friday – Homemade chicken noodle soup (using up the extra soup from Wednesday and adding noodles) with grilled cheese
• Saturday – Baked chicken on a salad with leftover bread from Thursday

What are some budget friendly recipes that you use?

-D