Budget Friendly Meals - Day 1

Budget friendly recipes can be hard to find, and when you do find one your family turns their nose up to it.  It's my goal to show you how you can cook from scratch on the cheap, and in this case your family will be begging you to cook it again.  I was searching online trying to see what the average budget for food cooked at home was.  I stumbled across a report from the United States Department of Agriculture that list the average cost for a family of four down to a single individual.  This report has four categories dealing with budget amounts.  The first and least expensive is called the Thrifty Plan, 2nd is the Low-cost Plan, 3rd is the Moderate Plan, and 4th is the Liberal Plan.   For the blog we will use the family of four Thrifty Plan, and keep all our recipes titled "Frugal" within this dollar range.  I must tell you that in doing this research I noticed that the USDA, classifies the Thrifty Plan for a family who depends on Food Stamps for all their food budget and the Liberal Plan was considered for the Department of Defense employees.  Well our budget amount is $141.90 a week for 2 adults and 2 children (under 11 years old), and all 3 meals have to be cooked at home.  Let's see if I can come up with a menu for seven days and 21 meals for under $141.90.  That is $20.27 a day and $6.75 per meal.   Boy, I have my work cut out for me!

Day 1


Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 slices of toast, and 3/4c.of grits.
 Farm fresh eggs, homemade bread, grits bought in bulk

Lunch: Toasted Turkey sandwich with mayo, 1 slice of cheese and 1 1/2c. of Kettle Potato chips.
 Homemade bread, standard lunch meat, Kraft cheese, Kettle potato chips (cheese & chips couponed)

Dinner: Cube steak, white rice, broccoli & cheese, yeast rolls.
Cube steak was bought at the butcher shop so it is top of the line meat, rice bought in bulk at Sams, broccoli & cheese was couponed  and yeast rolls were homemade.

 Did I make our daily target of $20.27?  Lets see!

Item Per Person	Cost per person	Family total	Meal Total
2 farm eggs	.84	3.66
2 slices of toast	.10	.40
¾ c. grits	.9	.32	4.38
2 slices of bread	.10	.40
Slice cheese	.06	.24
Mayo	.05	.20
Turkey	.38	1.52
Chips	.22	.88	3.24
Cube Steak	1.00	4.00
Rice &	.05	.20
Broccoli & Cheese	.19	.76
Yeast Rolls	.10	.40
Homemade Gravy	.15	.60	5.96
Daily Total			13.58

Woot! I did it, and so can you!  

Notice that we had water for our beverages and I didn't include extras such as salt or butter.  I did have a remaining $6.69 so you could certainly add some juice, milk, or tea and still come in at the target amount.

Maybe you have a budget friendly recipe you could share or you know a tip that can stretch the food in our pantry.  I would love to hear it!

Have a great day and I will see you tomorrow....