Meal Planning on a Budget: Seeking Advice!

[AshleyAllison]

One of the reasons I love Pampered Chef recipes is because the test kitchen people keep trying the recipe until it's perfect or nearly so and it's harder to mess up when than recipes from other places. One of the things I find so amusing about the comments on Allrecipes.com recipes is when someone says, "This recipe was great, I just doubled this and added a pinch of that and left out this other thing." So, from that review, I actually have no idea if the recipe will work as written or not.

When my sister got married, I bought her the two 29 Minutes to Dinner recipe books and she tried lots of recipes out of them. She said she loved that not only were the recipes easy and delicious, but they also looked as pretty as the pictures. I think that says a lot for the PC test kitchens.

I'm not an experimenter -- I follow recipes to the letter the first time I try them. Occasionally, I'll decide that I could do something different next time, but I've never had any PC recipes that I tried be a lost cause. Some I don't make a second time, but nothing has ever been inedible. So, take a chance on a few new ones (2 a week like the previous poster said is a great idea). They might become your family favorites!

Shari in TX

Thanks Shari! You guys have officially sold me and I'm definitely getting Weekday Dinners Done and 29 Minutes to Dinner when I put my next show in. I am like you, not much of an experimenter but I love when other people experiment and I learn from it. HaHa!

Thank you so much guys, I am definitely a planner that's why I'm actually surprised that I haven't meal planned before. I have a dry erase board in my pantry, I think I'm going to write the meals I have on the menu for the current week on the board so that we know exactly what we have ingredients for. I have a ton of vegetables and other random stuff that I could use to start off just without meat. I have like 2 chicken breasts in my freezer.

I'll keep everybody posted on how it goes!

 

[Brenda.the.chef]

we plan our menus for the week by what is on sale. After church on Sunday, we get the paper and plan our meals. I say take full advantage of your freezer and freezer containers!

Sunday is our prepping and cooking day! We cut up all of our vegees from the garden, farmer's market, etc and place them in freezer bags and toss in the freezer. We also cook up our bulk ground beef and put it all into one big bag. We just break off however much we will need for a recipe. This way, we save on freezer bags, too!

I have cooked rice and pasta and frozen them, but I don't like the texture of thawed pasta, reheated. Pasta doesn't take long to cook, so I cook it when needed. Rice does freeze well and is nice to just drop a freezer bag of it into boiling water for a few minutes for a quick side dish.

It is a great family project to work together in deciding a menu and having them help gather the ingredients when it's time to cook.

I also ad match at WalMart. I don't care if the cashier doesn't like it. I will politely tell anyone that arrives in my line that I'm ad matching so it will take a bit longer. I used to work at Kroger and was an ad matching fool! I will do anything and everything to save as much money as possible. I've been known to get $400 of groceries for $80 by ad matching and coupons. It's a lot of work but worth it.

 

[scottcooks]

Two things: (1) The best we've eaten as a family, with some experimentation but good success, was when my wife participated in a Freezer Club - kind of like a cookie exchange, but you make 6 copies of a recipe and take them, then go home with 6 different ones others have made. This could even be a service you offer at your home for people, just another 'value added' with you as consultant. Maybe you could tie PC to it, by doing a PC recipe. EVERY RECIPE gets 6 copies so you have the original and everyone gets a copy of the recipe to take home and freeze. Their rules were any nuts had to be separated and double-wrapped in saran and then a ziploc bag. Good variety, low cost.
(2) The best I ever did personally was buy a Costco/United Grocers/Cash & Carry/Sam's Club 50 lb bag of potatoes and a Costco/United Grocers/Cash & Carry/Sam's Club 50 lb bag of onions, then incorporate them into at least 1 meal each day. Total cost was maybe $30 but gave us food for a month. We ate well and had yummy leftovers I took to lunch, and the budget stretched! We also figured out, that each time we buy milk at Costco, we basically get a gallon for free, including gas and time. I go at the end of my day when there is little traffic at the store, 4:30 or 5pm.

 

[Bren706]

I am awful at meal planning on a regular basis, but our finances have really required me to take a look at getting better at it.

This month, I took advantage of our grocer's "MegaSavings Pack" in the meat department. They have packs ranging from $52 to $99, and the week I went shopping they had an online coupon for $5.00 off a $20 or more meat purchase. I bought the $74 deal (paid $69). The flyer said it would make $16 meals, but with our family, I was able to plan 22-23 meals. This package saved me $44!!! From there, I planned meals from those meats. The package included country ribs, hot dogs, bottom round steak, chicken drumsticks, split chicken breasts, bacon, pork chops, 8 pounds of ground beef, and a ham steak.

I wrote out the meal ideas on a sheet of notebook paper as a draft, and then on another sheet, I wrote them down again, categorizing them by type of meat (Pork, ground beef, chicken, etc.). It is not a plan for a day by day, or week by week, but it is a month of meals to choose from.

It is soooooo much better than the usual daily habit of trying to decide what I am going to cook that afternoon, and then running to the store.

 

[esavvymom]

Look at your leftovers too. Obviously, you can make them into a "leftover" repeat night, but for some things, for example- cooked chicken breasts, I like to REMAKE them into a new recipe- like BBQ Pizza, or something else that might call for cooked chicken, and doesn't need lots of it.And plan a soup and salad night. (Don't buy bagged veggies obviously...too $$$). Even if it is summer, you can do that OR substitute a meatless pasta dish. We like to do those in the summer- a pasta, saute in oil and garlic some broccoli, cherry tomatoes and then add to the pasta. Put some Parmesan cheese in...yum. Light and cheap.

 

[Brenda.the.chef]

I love to make a roast beef in the crock pot with a can of beef broth and italian seasoning. The leftovers make a great vegetable beef soup! Just add a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, another can of beef broth and a small can of tomato sauce.Leftover chicken makes great tacos, chicken salad, and chef salad toppings too.Leftover pork loin makes great shredded bbq pork sandwiches.The list goes on, but I will say once again that your freezer and storage containers will be your next best friend.

 

[carlajanes]

I've been meal planning for over 30 years. I started when my girls were toddlers because of finances and now it is a habbit I can't break. I've always planned the main meal for each day and then added the other 2 if I knew we were all going to be home or it was a special occasion.

I plan the meals, check the pantry, fridge and freezer then make my grocery list and go shopping. I started with 2 week time increments because of my hubbys pay. Now I do a month at a time....of course saving back some money for more produce type things for later in the month.

As soon as you can afford one....BUY A FREEZER!! Then buy your meat in bulk. It saves sooooo much money!!!! I have 2 fridges and 2 freezers. We buy 1/2 calf at a time from a friend who raises beef, chickens from another friend and pork when it is on sale. We don't eat a lot of pork. I can most of our veggies from the garden or from a Farmer's Market. I make my own spaghetti sauce, bbq sauce and ketchup. I save the bones from chickens and beef to make my own stock and freeze it. I freeze some veggies but prefer to can them. I get fruit on sale and freeze what I can to make jelly and jams. I even love to make my own pasta but do buy some from the store.

When my girls were little and I had to work, I would shop on a Friday and then cook up the meals on Saturday and part of Sunday and freeze them so all we had to do is pull it out and pop it in the oven each day. I would cook up what was needed to precook and then package everything together that could be frozen and label and date it. Or say we were going to have hamburgers, I would make the patties and freeze them in a bag. And made sure the buns were right beside them in the freezer. The same with the stuff in the fridge so it wouldn't get "accidentally" eaten Of course I always kept some staples on hand for unexpected company etc...

I've taught this method for years to hundreds in my "Lost Art of Homemaking" classes. It is sooooo freeing and saves time and so much money.
Be sure to rotate your freezer and pantry goods so they don't become out of date. Sometimes I write the menus on the computer but I wrote them for 20 years without one so still love to hand write them I collect cookbooks so there is always a new recipe I want to try.

Now that it is just the hubby and me, I have adjusted the process a little. And don't forget to put in "leftover" days because no matter how well you plan you will have them. And it's good to have flexible and interchangable menu days.

Good luck to you!! You can do it!!! Of course you can always go back to the '50's time and have Meatloaf Monday, Taco Tuesday, PorkChop Wednesday etc.....