If your grocery budget is very small...

[Mother of Sons]

What do you eat? Putting meals together is much harder when the budget is low so I thought we could share ideas.

[light of mine]

All my kids (except for my sensory extra-picky eater) and DH and I all love Lentils and rice , and we eat it once a week usually. Very healthy and super cheap. We also have started recently doing an Omelet night once a week for cheap protein. We also have the Southern stand-by of pinto beans and cornbread very often . Any meal that uses ground beef I usually do half/half beef and lentil mixture, healthy and a big money saver (tacos, meatloaf, sloppy joes).

[Mother of Sons]

Tonight we ate beef fried rice. It's a pretty cheap meal at about $3 or 50 cents per serving. I've been going back to eating mainly Chinese and that helps. I think most of the meals average $5-6

[Aerynne]

We eat lots of beans and grains- rice, pasta, etc. I make beans from scratch in my crock pot. I focus on produce that is the cheapest but also provides the most nutrition (purple cabbage is one of the best deals in terms of antioxidants per dollar) and I buy what produce is on sale and a good price I grind my own wheat to make into pizza dough, rolls, etc. I do buy bread, though, at a bakery thrift store. It's 20 miles away so I go once a month or so and buy a whole lot of loaves (10 or so) and freeze them. I go to Costco every other week and buy certain things and try not to impulse buy. The things I buy at Costco are cucumbers, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, frozen fruit (expensive per pound, but high in antioxidants and we put them in smoothies), cocoa powder, flour, rice, pinto beans, vanilla extract, almond milk, toilet paper, maple syrup, jam, peanut butter, and applesauce. I don't buy meat, poultry, fish, etc, for ethical and health reasons but I also don't see how they would fit into our budget. I look for opportunities to pick fruit for free in the summer and I preserve it.

Today I had:

breakfast: smoothie with almond milk, pb, banana, cocoa powder, romaine lettuce

lunch: vegetable sandwich (bakery thrift store bread with lettuce, red pepper, avocado (on sale), cucumber, mustard, oregano, salt and a side of homemade pickled red cabbage (German food- aka Rotkohl)

snack: Asian-style noodles with mushrooms

dinner: bean and potato tacos with lettuce and homemade cilantro lime dressing

snacks: my friend bought me a bunch of buttered popcorn jelly beans for my bday and I have been munching on them

[Mother of Sons]

Anyone want to add in what their monthly budget and family size is? We are 6 with 3 teenage boys. Right now I'm trying to stick to no more than $400 a month but I've had many months where it was $200. At $600 I think I could handle meals with no struggle but at the moment I'm not willing/able to go that high.

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

I think the department of Agriculture lists several types of budgets from very frugal to somewhat liberal. At a glance, yours is significantly lower than their most frugal budget. Can you apply for TANF?

[mamacat]

Def shop the weekly ads too for basics like fruits and meats and veggies ,eggs- everything.Ground beef here is usually 4.00 + a pound.One store has it here fo 2.99 lb every Tuesday as well as chicken breasts same price,not organic but heathier kind.Oatmeal is inxpensive and healthy and filling.We get rollled oats.I always check the weekly ads and try to base shopping list around the sales.Bananas on sale can be frozen for smoothies.Butter goes on sale quite a bit.I like to get a certain kind of frozen Vegetable at Sams because nonGMO and use alternative pest control.I usually have a big bag of the frozen peas in the freezer that I thaw and eat that way instead of steaming.they can be added in to other dishes or eaten just plain thawed

[Aerynne]

My budget is about 2/3 of the lowest USDA category (thrifty plan) which is why I posted here, but we spend $550 or so for a family of 6. So maybe I don't qualify as having a very small budget. I do fine on the amount I have. There are things I wish I could have more of, and I sometimes wish I could be less careful, but overall I feel we have enough and it's not overly stressful. Sometimes I'm sad at Costco when I see all the yummy produce I shouldn't buy (the more expensive stuff) but for the most part we are fine and have a nutritionally-balanced diet with enough variety to enjoy it. But you're working with a smaller budget than I am (quite a bit smaller) and your kids probably eat more. Your budget would be hard for me, too. I second looking in to any help you can- from your church or from the government, wherever you can get it. If I had only $400 a month to feed my family, I wouldn't hesitate to go to my church and ask for a little help.

[mamacat]

Yes if you are in need can look into local food banks.We worked with a ministry volunteer but full time for awhile that got lots of food donated and fed lots of people including our family.Maybe over the summer one or more of the boys can put in some volunteer time and glean food that way?Having a household member who works at a grocrey store and gets a discount can help too!

[Mother of Sons]

We are doing ok really! I wasn't trying to make us sound bad off. I have lots of low cost meals in my arsenal that are pretty filling so usually it's not a problem. I like to think of it as a challenge so generally even in those really low months it can be kind of fun.

Our favorite meal is pierogi which is very very cheap, just labor intensive. Basically anything with potatoes lol.

[light of mine]

My budget is around $600/month. My only option for shopping is a Wal-Mart so the prices aren't the best, and I'm not really able to plan my meals around sales.

This is a very good blog post about a family of 6, using $300/month, but I don't think she counts lunches as her kids are in public school. http://www.lifeinthecircus.com/how-i...r-300-a-month/

She uses Aldi's mostly for her groceries and does a rotating menu for 2 weeks. We have been doing better with our budget since I've been using a rotating menu. I thought we would get bored, but so far no one has really minded and it makes my life so much easier besides just saving money.

[Mother of Sons]

I was very disappointed in aldi this week. I bought 3 packages of berries and all three had mold. I also bought apples that turned out to be nothing but mush and a bag of peppers that was also moldy. I returned the berries yesterday and their return policy is pretty awesome but I tossed the receipt now and I don't know if I can return the peppers and apples. Also my asparagus that I got there feels like pee but I already washed and cut that.

I bought 3 packages of chicken breasts on sale today for $21 and that should make 12 meals so I feel pretty good about that if I can manage to get them cut and in the freezer today.

[Soliloquy]

My budget is roughly $650/month for a family of seven (youngest is EBF). My older two, and occasionally my youngest, eat like adults. We don't have Aldi. Costco and WinCo are over an hour away, not worth the fuel cost. I could potentially trim the budget if we were closer to those stores.

I buy rice, beans, and flour from a co-op in huge 40-50 lb bags. I make homemade breads several times a week. An organic loaf of bread/batch of rolls costs me about $0.40 to make myself.

Except in summer, we eat a lot of soups and stews. Beans, rice, veggies, homemade broth, and homemade bread.

We also have pancakes and eggs about once a week for dinner. We have chickens so we always have eggs. I make homemade non-gmo pancake syrup. We love maple syrup but it's just not in the budget.

I also make homemade hummus and variations on hummus. It's super cheap if you start from dry chick peas. Even with canned, it's not bad. I often don't have fresh lemons so I use a drop of lemon EO or a little ACV.

Our garden will be very small this year. last year I hardly needed to buy any produce during the summer because I planted so much.

[light of mine]

MOS (and everybody really) Just wondering what everyone makes for lunches and breakfast. I have lot of cheap dinner ideas and meals, but needing to make something fast/easy while trying to get school and housekeeping in is harder for me.

[Quiteria]

I love Aldi's for pantry items...flour, sugar, cocoa powder, oil, etc.....milk, eggs, yogurt....snacky things if I'm buying them special to pack lunches to go somewhere....cereal if we're buying cereal...bread, bagels, etc. But we have never had luck there with produce.