UPDATE: 12/12/17 – The Cookbook is here! All the menus, all the recipes, and the shopping list! Finally. Sorry it took sooooo long. #toomanykids
It’s no secret that we are broke.
I’m careful not to use the word “poor”, not just because I think there’s a lot more than money involved in a rich life, but because I had a teacher once explain to me that the difference between being broke and being poor is that a broke person has no money, while a poor person has no money and doesn’t know anyone that has money either. That has stuck with me. It makes a big difference.
Even so, it doesn’t change the fact that when I go to the grocery store, I go only carrying my own wallet, and not the wallets of all the people that would let me sleep on their couches if I ever lost my house.
We do all of the usual things that broke people do to make ends meet. We don’t have cable. We don’t have memberships. We drive cars that were new when we were in college – though we didn’t own them then. We shop at thrift stores, etc. etc. etc. At the end of the day though, you gotta eat. Even if you’ve got a gallbladder on the lam, and don’t eat much, your kids have to eat. And they eat A LOT.
Recently, some folks in my pride turned me onto Leanne Brown and her free cookbook about how to eat for $4/day. MAN. That thing is PRETTY. I was jealous. Her whole schtick is that $4/day per family member is about what a SNAP (Food Stamp) budget allows for. So, she created this beautiful PDF cookbook of real food you can feed your family using a budget like that. Brilliant. Lovely.
Unfortunately, though we qualify for SNAP based on our income (hello teacher salary) we don’t qualify because I’ve yet to completely cash out the IRA I inherited from my mother. Doesn’t matter. Before I inherited it we only qualified to receive $220/month in benefits. Not the $840 that Leanne’s plan would require. With my good old friend Sallie Mae hanging around, there’s not $620 a month to be spent on food either. So, what’s a girl to do? Well, since I’m a bit compulsive, I set about figuring out the absolute cheapest way to feed my family based on what I do have: A working kitchen, running water, ALDI, about $300/month, and limited time. If I can do it, you can do it too.
Before I get into the nitty gritty, let me make a couple notes:
- These are sample menus for how I feed my family on $300. I’m not saying it’s ideal. This is a winter menu, it looks a lot different in the summer. I’m feeding 2 adults, 2 tweens who eat like adults, and 3 toddlers who eat a TON but are not very adventurous.
- All of my prices (except for a few items not available there) are based on ALDI food prices. These fluctuate, but when one thing goes up, something else comes down, so it evens out. If you don’t have an ALDI, Costco, or Sam’s club is your next best bet.
- I try to feed my family mostly whole foods. Not foods from Whole
PaycheckFood, mind you, but real, mostly unprocessed foods. I make a couple exceptions (the occasional box of mac and cheese, graham crackers, etc.) because I’m busy and my kids like them. - I don’t buy organic. I love organic, just like I love fancy wine, but I can’t afford either.
- I don’t use coupons.
- I’m not a great cook. I don’t even play one on my blog.
- I’ve found the single, best way to save money on groceries is to use what is always least expensive and use it a lot. As such, there’s no great variety in my menus, no exotic ingredients that I buy for just one meal. We eat dinner on a two week rotation, lunch and breakfast on a weekly rotation. Yes, it can get a little boring. When that happens, I go looking for something else that uses primarily those same cheap ingredients. God bless the Internet.
- My little girls go to a Mother’s Day Out program twice a week. They do not allow peanut butter, hence, the Sunbutter sandwiches.
- We have family movie/pizza night every Friday. That explains the nearly $20/month in pizza.
- Finally, you’ll notice a lot of cheese, beans, and eggs in this menu, as well as some things that seem unlikely for a frugal cook, like cold cereal. Our family gets WIC coupons and these are some of the items that are provided. This menu actually costs me $200/month, but I’ve included the actual price for all items so that you can see what it would cost without the WIC vouchers.
So here it goes. A menu, that if repeated twice, can feed a family of 7 three meals a day plus snacks and beverages for $300/month.
Day One:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Bananas
Lunch: Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Apple slices. Cheese cubes.
Dinner: Roasted Whole Chicken with carrots, onions and potatoes.
Snack: Ants on a log
Day Two:
Breakfast: Banana muffins and orange slices
Lunch: Hard boiled eggs, cheese cubes, fresh pineapple, saltines
Dinner: Chicken noodle soup (with leftover chicken) and french bread
Snack: Apples
Day Three:
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, toast, orange slices
Lunch: Baked potatoes stuffed with broccoli and cheese
Dinner: Spaghetti with roasted tomatoes, Romaine salad with cucumbers
Snack: Saltines with peanut butter
Day Four:
Breakfast: Frosted mini wheats with bananas
Lunch: Sunbutter sandwiches, pretzels, orange slices, carrot sticks
Dinner: Black beans and rice
Snack: Hard boiled eggs
Day Five:
Breakfast: Cinnamon toast, bananas, hard boiled egg
Lunch: Tortellini with marinara sauce, cucumber slices with ranch dip
Dinner: Mexican stuffed potatoes (kidney beans, shredded cheese, salsa, sour cream)
Snack: Chocolate chip muffins
Day Six:
Breakfast: Pancakes with homemade syrup, strawberries
Lunch: Boxed mac and cheese, carrot sticks, bell pepper strips
Dinner: Lemon Pepper tilapia, fine green beans, rice
Snack: Pretzels
Day Seven:
Breakfast: Whole grain frozen waffles, homemade syrup, strawberries, yogurt
Lunch: Baked potatoes stuffed with broccoli and cheese
Dinner: Aldi take and bake pizza, bell pepper strips, carrot sticks
Snack: Graham crackers
Day Eight:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Bananas
Lunch: Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Apple slices. Cheese cubes.
Dinner: Black Bean Soup, cornbread, salad
Snack: Pretzels
Day Nine:
Breakfast: Banana muffins and orange slices
Lunch: Hard boiled eggs, cheese cubes, fresh pineapple, saltines
Dinner: Spaghetti with (turkey) meat sauce, bread, salad (*this makes 2 meals for the month)
Snack: Apples
Day Ten:
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, toast, orange slices
Lunch: Leftover black bean soup and cornbread
Dinner: Dump and Cook Lentil Soup (* this makes two meals for the month)
Snack: Chocolate chip muffins
Day Eleven:
Breakfast: Frosted mini wheats with bananas
Lunch: Sunbutter sandwiches, pretzels, orange slices, carrot sticks
Dinner: Salmon Croquets with egg noodles, fine green beans
Snack: Ants on a log
Day Twelve:
Breakfast: Cinnamon toast, bananas, hard boiled egg
Lunch: Tortellini with marinara sauce, cucumber slices with ranch dip
Dinner: Turkey Tacos and Salad
Snack: Hard boiled egg
Day Thirteen:
Breakfast: Pancakes with homemade syrup, strawberries
Lunch: Boxed mac and cheese, carrot sticks, bell pepper strips
Dinner: Lentil and Black Bean Chili (*this makes 2 meals for the month)
Snack: Saltines with peanut butter
Day Fourteen:
Breakfast: Whole grain frozen waffles, homemade syrup, strawberries, yogurt
Lunch: Taco salads (made from leftover taco night ingredients)
Dinner: Aldi take and Bake Pizza
Snack: Graham crackers
Beverages: Coffee for grown ups at breakfast, everyone else drinks milk. Little girls have one cup of juice (diluted 50%) in the afternoon, big kids drink (diluted) juice at dinner, little girls have milk at night. Water the rest of the time, unless I make lemonade with extra lemon juice (lemon juice, sugar, water, duh.)
Here’s the Shopping List, or How it All Pans Out:
2 Whole chickens ($.95/lb, 5lbs each) = $9.50
3 pkgs. lean ground turkey ($3.29/19 oz.) = $9.87
1 Value pack frozen tilapia ($5.49/2lbs.) = $5.49
2 cans salmon ($3.49) = $6.98
2 3lb. bags of yellow onions ($1.89) = $3.78
4 5lb. bags of baking potatoes ($2.49) = $9.96
2 2lb. bags of carrots ($.99) = $1.98
4 10oz. containers of grape tomatoes ($1.49) = $5.96
6 cucumbers ($.49) = $2.94
4 packages of romaine hearts ($1.99) = $7.96
2 packages of green peppers (3 for $1.69) = $3.38
1 bunch celery = $1.29
1 bunch cilantro (Publix) = $.99
10 lbs. of bananas = $4.40
2 3lb. bags of navel oranges ($2.99) = $5.98
4 1lb. containers of strawberries ($1.49) = $5.96
4 pineapples ($1.69) = $6.76
4 3lb. bags of apples Gala, Granny Smith, or Fuji ($2.69) = $10.76
2 lb. packages of frozen fine green beans ($1.69) = $3.38
2 12oz packages frozen broccoli florets ($1.19) = $2.38
10 14oz cans of black beans ($.59) = $5.90
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes = $.95
4 8oz cans tomato sauce ($.25) = $1.00
2 6oz cans tomato paste ($.39) = $.78
1 can sliced mushrooms = $.59
2 14oz cans of kidney beans ($.59) = $1.18
2 1lb bags of dried lentils ($.79) = $1.58
1 5lb bag all purpose flour = $1.39
1 4lb bag of sugar = $1.49
1 2 lb bag brown sugar = $1.19
1 bag yellow corn meal = $1.39
1 can baking powder = $.99
1 box baking soda = $.39
1 42oz canister of old fashioned oats = $2.29
1 20oz canister of raisins = $2.89
1 container of cinnamon = $.99
1 container of Italian seasoning = $.99
1 container of oregano = $.99
1 container of chili powder = $.99
1 jar of chicken bouillon cubes = $1.69
17oz of extra virgin olive oil = $3.29
48oz canola oil = $1.89
ground black pepper = $.50
salt = $.39
bay leaves = $1.50
canister of bread crumbs = $1.69
2 packages of taco seasoning ($.35) = $.70
2 packages of taco shells ($.99) = $1.98
2 2lb boxes of spaghetti ($1.59) = $3.18
1 bag egg noodles = $1.39
1 container fresh salsa = $1.99
1 jar peanut butter = $1.69
1 jar grape jelly = $1.45
1 jar Sunbutter = $3.79 (Publix)
1 24oz jar marinara sauce = $1.79
4 boxes mac and cheese ($.39) = $1.56
1 bottle balsamic vinegar = $1.79
1 bottle of light ranch dressing = $1.50
1 32oz bottle lemon juice = $1.99
1 bottle ketchup = $1.29
4 Aldi take and bake cheese pizzas ($4.99) = $19.96
4 packages fresh cheese tortellini ($1.99) = $7.96
4 32oz containers of vanilla yogurt ($1.89) = $7.56
6 8oz packages cheddar cheese ($1.79) = $14.32
6 dozen eggs ($1.59) = $9.54
1 16oz container of light sour cream = $1.39
1 lb butter = $2.69
4 boxes frozen multigrain waffles ($1.29) = $5.16
2 boxes frosted mini wheats ($1.99) = $3.98
2 boxes saltines ($.89) = $1.78
2 16oz bags of pretzels ($1.29) = $2.58
1 box graham crackers = $1.69
1 bag chocolate chips = $1.99
3lbs. white rice = $1.49
4 loaves french bread ($1.00) = $4.00
4 20oz loaves whole wheat bread ($1.29) = $5.16
12 gallons skim milk ($2.89) = $34.68
4 64oz bottles 100% apple juice ($1.49) = $5.96
1 34oz canister of ground coffee = $5.49
Grand total: $312.08*
*This assumes you have NOTHING in your pantry. I do not have to buy all spices, oils, vinegars, sugars, etc. every month. When those costs are spread out, the monthly total is almost exactly $300.
Looking for the summer menu?
Big Daddy
you might not be a great cook;; however you are a Great Home Economist, I love you ,,,Daddy
deanna
HI,
MY NAME IS DEANNA AND I WAS JUST GUESSING DO YOU LIVE IN THE EAST COAST? THE REASON I ASKED IS I LIVED IN UPSTATE NY AND SHOPPED AT ALDI TOO. I WAS ABLE TO SAVE MONEY AT THAT STORE AND I LOVED IT THERE- I LOVED HOW YOU DID ALL THIS-THAT’S A LOT OF PEOPLE TO FEED AND THIS IS SO VERY HELPFUL-I JUST WISH I COULD HAVE AFFORDED THE INTERNET AT THE TIME. I WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS THEN. WE JUST RECENTLY MOVED TO THE VERY BEAUTIFUL SUNNY STATE OF ARIZONA- WE WERE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO GET A VERY GOOD DEAL ON A BEAUTIFUL HOME -WE LIVED IN AN APARTMENT THERE FOR 12 YEARS. WE MOVED FROM HERE 12 YEARS AGO THINKING NY WAS GOING TO BE OUR IN OUR FUTURE WHEN WE MET WE FELL IN LOVE AND I MOVED TO NY WHERE HE WAS FROM AND WE TALKED ABOUT STARTING A FAMILY AND WANTED A LITTLE GIRL AND THAT’S WHAT WE WERE BLESSED WITH- SO LONG STORY SHORT WE LOVED NY, BUT LIKE I SAID WE SAVED AND WAS ABLE TO COME BACK TO AZ {I WASN’T COMING BACK WITHOUT A POOL. LOL!!} SO THAT’S WHAT WE WERE ABLE TO GET A LITTLE BIT OF SOMETHING WE ALL WANTED A 2 STORY VAULTED CEILING ,POOL ,WITH YARD AND WE SO LOVE IT HERE. SO ANYWAYS HERE WE HAVE FOUND OUT HOW TO ALSO DO THIS, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY FOOD CITY’S IN YOUR AREA BUT YOU WOULD BRING THAT AMOUNT OF YOUR DOWN EVEN MORE IF YOU DID. ALL YOUR PRODUCE IS VERY CHEAP 3 POUNDS OF BANANAS FOR 1.00, 3POUNDS OF CARROTS 1.00- 3POUNDS- 5 POUNDS-1.00 OR EVEN LESS AT TIMES THEY HAVE A 10 POUND BAG .26 CENTS- YOU CAN ALSO BUY RICE 3 POUNDS FOR 1.00 AND NO IT’S NOT A DOLLAR STORE BUT MOST OF THE PRODUCE IS VERY CHEAP- 4OR5 CUCUMBERS FOR 99 CENTS- YOU CAN ALSO GO ON CERTAIN DAYS AND GET 2 WHOLE CHICKEN FOR 60 CENTS A POUND. CHICKEN LEG MEAT FOR 34 CENTS A POUND. SO THIS IS WHERE WE GET THAT-THEN WE SAVED AND INVESTED $100.00 IN SAM’S CLUB MEMBERSHIP AND FOR EVERY 500.00 YOU SPEND YOU GET 10.00 IN CASH BACK TO SAVE OR TO SPEND WHEN YOU NEED IT- WE HAVE OUR DAUGHTER PICK HER SNACKS FOR THE MONTH AND WE BUY THEM IN BULK BECAUSE SHE EATS ABOUT 10 TIMES A DAY WITH MEALS AND SNACKS AND SHE IS VERY ATHLETIC AND BURNS IT FAST- SO WITH THE FISH THEY HAVE LIKE SALMON OMG THE SLAB OF SALMON THEY HAVE FOR 12.00-14.00 YOU CAN CUT AND MAKE 4 MEALS FOR US – YOU I AM NOT SURE-BUT WE ARE ABLE TO MAKE IT THREW THE MONTH THIS WAY. AS WELL AS WE BUY ALL THE HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS THERE SO THAT CUTS DOWN THE MONTHLY SPENDING IN THOSE ITEMS -SO WE CAN BUY THE MEAT THAT IS BIGGER AND COST MORE AND THE START INPLEMENTING THE HEALTHY FOODS- WE AS WELL ARE ABLE TO SOON BUY THE NINJA JUICER THERE WHICH WILL HELP US PUT ALL THE HEALTHY STUFF IN THAT FROM KALE-TO SEEDS AND SPIN AND SRIN AND DRINK AND HAVE ALL THE HEALTHY THINGS THE BODY NEEDS TO LIVE A LONG LIFE-FRY’S HAS THERE OWN PACKAGING OF MEATS AND THEY ARE A MUCH BETTER QUALITY THAN WALMART WITH THERE MEATS COMING PRE PACKAGED WHICH IS NOT A GOOD DEAL.THERE’S NO SALE THERE. FRY’S MEATS ARE DEEP COLOR OF MEAT THEY NEED TO BE. THIS HAS SAVED ME HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY AND THE FOOD LASTS ALL MONTH NOW AND WE DON’T NEED TO GO TO ANY FOOD PANTRIES ANYMORE!!! THERE IS PLENTY OF FOOD LEFT OVER IN THE FREEZER AND FRIDGE AND PANTRY- WE BUILD ON ALL OUR SPICES,ALL THE HEALTHY STUFF LIKE THE BASICS -SPICE-BEANS,RICE WHOLE WHEAT,FISH, FRESH VEGGIES AND WHEN THE FRUIT IS NOT ON SALE WE BUY THE BIG FROZEN FRUIT MIXES. BUT FOOD CITY ALWAYS HAS APPLES,PINEAPPLE ON SALE.SO MAYBE THIS CAN HELP YOU IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE STORES AND IT WILL HELP YOU AS WELL CUT DOWN EVEN MORE ON YOU 300.00 A MONTH IT DID ME.SO I JUST WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU- I HOPE YOU ARE WELL AND THE KIDS ARE DOING WONDERFUL-STAY WARM.. DD
Susan Felts
Well, I am a Home Economist, with a degree from UT. ( Now they call it Human Ecology… I love that don’t you? ) I cannot tell you how impressed I am with your planning and execution skills. Your dealing with life as it comes at you amazes me. While in college, a hundred years ago, I had to live in a ‘home management house’ for one semester and had to take on the duties of a homemaker… making meal plans for 8 that had to come within 50 cents either way of my budgeted meal plan. I only had to do this for a few weeks out of one semester, and it was not at all easy. My hat is definitely off to you!
Ashley
I just wanted to tell you how much I really enjoyed stumbling upon you during one of my Pinterest momments (You know, you stare at your phone for an hour ignoring the loud crashing sounds and screaming of the kids?)
Anyway, I just love how real your breakdown is and that you showed a menu based on WIC included. It’s very comforting to find a real life budget. I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to find budgets that make sense for our family and they all seem unrealistic.
I have 4 children myself (6,2,1 and a month old) My husband works nights and I work days so we avoid the years worth of pay and sacrifice to the gods it takes to pay for childcare.
I have to go back to work FT shortly due to unfortunate unseen circumstances with part of my husbands income; Finding real life ways to budget are very refreshing.
Virginia
This is so brilliant and I’m going to try to emulate this with our slightly smaller family…
Amy
Thanks so much for sharing this!
Stacy
What’s the dump and cook lentil soup? We LOVE lentils around here but so far Target does better lentil soup than I do :p.
Jen
Stacy, you can find that recipe on hillbillyhousewife.com. I think I linked to it in the post, but if not, I’ll go do it right now! It’s actually fabulous even though it uses a little ketchup as a secret ingredient!
Becca
My boyfriend (aka the member of our household who actually knows how to cook) uses ketchup while cooking all the time – it’s a shortcut to salty and sweet, a little vinegar… It’s a great secret weapon 🙂
Jen
Amen.
Brian Flores
Ketchup, a dash of soy sauce, or a sprinkle of parmesan cheese also add that fifth “savory” flavor (sometimes called umami) to foods.
Love the menu ideas. I’m only cooking for 1, but a little variety beats the heck out of endless ham sandwiches!
Clarissa Williams
Thank you for sharing. I am going definitely to try this.
Deanna
Fantastic job. Lots of good ideas.
Anne
I’m overcome with admiration. I, too, am a fan and regular user of “Good and Cheap.” While I’m mercifully not trying to feed a family of seven, I am a senior living on the Social Security widow’s benefit from my late husband. It’s a struggle. I, too, shop at Aldi, and my secret weapon is a local produce market where I can get a week’s worth of deliciousness for less than $10. I try to keep the budget at around $35 per week. I admire you so much for being able to organize those nourishing, non-junk meals for your family, and especially for your kids! I started up my blog on roughly the same topic (from a senior’s viewpoint) last October, injured my hip in early November, and have only just been treated by an orthopedic surgeon, so I haven’t done much with the blog since November. But I’ll be starting up again soon. I’ll enjoy future visits to see how you are doing.
Jen
Thank you so much Anne! Recover soon.
ashley
Hi there, Can I ask where you live? I looked at your grocery list and wow most of your items are so cheap? I’m in western Canada and our prices are far higher.
Great ideas however and you have inspired me to try this out with my family!!!
Much respect to you!
Jen
Ashley, I live in Nashville, TN. I haven’t been to Canada in years (though Vancouver is one of my all time favorite cities!) so I really have no comparison. I will say that Aldi grocery stores here in the US are usually 20-50% less expensive than any other store in the area. For example, I can get a fresh pineapple at Aldi for $.99 – $1.69 depending on the day (and the “freshness”) while the same pineapple is $3.99 at Kroger or Publix.
Amy
I also live in Western Canada and was floored with how much cheaper e groceries are! We cook very similar and my groceries are close to three times the cost. Fresh pineapple today at costco was $5 for example. Thanks for a great post tho!
Jen
Amy, yes Ive heard that from other Canadians. However, at our Costco, fresh pineapple is $4.50. Its just Aldi thats so freaking cheap.
ali
i, too, am in western canada and after looking at the menu couldn’t figure out how our groceries are never less than $800-900 for a family of four when we purchase similar items. then i looked at the shopping list with prices attached…almost everything is at least 3-4 times more expensive here, with some things being 8 x as much! EVOO and balsamic vinegar are $12 for a smallish bottle, milk is $5.99 a jug, bread is $4.99, a small container of cherry tomatoes is $5.99…it is amazing that you are able to make your budget work and thank you so much for putting so much detail into this post! it certainly puts my mind at ease – i was starting to think i was going crazy because no matter how hard i’ve tried i haven’t been able to reduce our costs. it makes sense if our groceries cost so much more than other places! i know this is off topic but yesterday, i saw an article on ‘apartment therapy’ that showed what you could rent for $2000 in different cities in the US. it showed everything from a mansion in Memphis to a cute house in Portland to a studio apartment in NYC…it was only when i realized that we pay $2500/month for a small house in Edmonton that it clicked just how expensive it is to live in western canada!! It’s crazy…my husband works in the NHL and right about now I’m wishing Portland had a team, lol 😉
Anonymous
They have a WHL team…
Lou
I live in Northeast BC and the prices quoted here are enviable. Most of the items listed above are four times as expensive and others way more than that. No way could anyone feed their family here for the same cost. Try more like $1200 I’m guessing.
Whitney
From a SNAP-Ed Educator who tries to tell everyone low-income parent she meets that it is QUITE possible to eat healthfully and cheaply, thank you very much for this post. Also I read a lot of things that Mom used to do to feed us healthfully on a budget, about $40/week for a family of 3, which makes me feel pretty guilty about my $35-40/week budget for just me. Then again, that’s the maximum amount of what a single person would receive on SNAP if they had no children and no income/assets. You’ve done what many haven’t done, regardless of their income, so BRAVO!
Aisha
$40 a week…must be nice. We get $90 Food Stamps a month for our family of 4.
Kristi
I disagree about some of these recipes. Lunches are basically snacks. A baked potato wouldn’t fill up my kids. We spend around $1500 a month on groceries. I am looking to cut back, but can’t offer one item as lunch. I would probably get my kids taken away by child services. They are nuts around here. I’m going to give Aldis another try. During my last visit there, I spent $460 for the week. My children do not attend a care or school program. All their meals fall on me. I’m going to keep searching to find reasonable meal plans on a budget.
Sara
$1500/ mo? Wow. I’ve been feeling like I need to work on my $800/mo for our family of five.
My only tips are: plan weekly meals around what’s on sale at your local grocery store. Stick to the grocery list. I also skip the snack isle. Like the writer, we do ants on a log and saltiness with peanut butter for snacks. I do stock pretzels or make large batches of snack mix and store in large ziplocks in the freezer. Also: invest in an air popper and buy popcorn by the bag. Once you start, you really can’t go back to the chemically tasting microwave popcorn. We use a little real melted butter and have a stash of different popcorn seasonings.
I’m going to check out our Aldi store now after reading this article. I can’t believe how cheap she’s getting her flour, sugar, etc… and I have heard those take and bake pizzas are really good.
Good luck!
Mieko
thank you for sharing this amazing meal plan.
Jen
You are so welcome. I hope it helps!
Mary
My absolute admiration!
When I was going through the list, I think I was expecting to find carbohydrates and legums, and that’s it. However, you have come to a good set of product nutritionally balanced. You are amazing.
Where I come from, due to the last recession, many families are unexpectedly going throug the same hard times. You don’t only handle it so well but on top of it…with good humor and attitude. You should be given a job as a manager of some company LOL.
Anyway, I would like to share with you a recipe that it’s not only affordable, very quick to cook, to feed many family members, but it has lots of good nutrients and it is very healthy. Chicken breast au lait. ( You can put a dish of plain rice as a side)
Ingredients (6people)
12 chicken breast fillets
1 leek
1 can of mushrooms
4 cups of milk or cream
1 spoon of oil or margarine
____
seasoning: salt
optional: garlic salt, parsley
(or whatever the spices you like)
There is a video on how it is done and step-by-step pictures here
http://www.chickenrecipestemple.com/easy-chicken-recipe.html
Finishing my verbose answer 😉 , you just got yourself a new fan. You go girl!
Jen
Thanks for the recipe Mary!
Daisy
Thank you for this post, it gave me some great ideas! Super envious of the prices in your area! We do not have an aldis or anything even close… But this was helpful nonetheless!! 🙂
Paula Kingery
If you cook you can surely save money..I have co workers say its cheaper to eat out..Ha…I tell her ”you can cook a whole meal with leftovers for what you are spending”..and its healthy..Children need to learn to prepare a meal with fresh foods.I enjoyed reading this and the meal plans..America lets get back to cooking a meal…man,women and children…
Christine
we have milk allergies. So would be your recommendation for replacing the cheese?
Jen
Hmmm. Well, we use cheese primarily as a side food for lunches to provide a boost of protein and calcium. So, though I’m far from a nutritionist, I think I’d probably go for almonds. I might even make a little mix with the almonds, raisins, and a few chocolate chips (semi-sweet are dairy free) just to stretch out the more expensive nuts and encourage my littles to eat it. Hope that helps!
Megan
As far as dairy substitutes, you can buy soy cheese (it’s pretty gross, in my opinion!) It will cost more though. If you’re just lactose intolerant, instead of actual dairy allergies (a lot of people confuse the two – dairy allergies usually leads to anaphylaxis and epi pens) yogurt, especially greek yogurt, can sometimes be tolerated by people with lactose issues. OH! They also have out a new coconut milk yogurt that is pretty good. That’d be a good cheese sub in.
Celeste
Hi Paula, I have IBS and lactose (if it is only this that your family has issues with) is one of the major things that I have issues with. I am currently on a low-FODMAP diet and in all the literature that I have read so far about it says that aged cheeses (e.g. Cheddar, Parmesan, Swiss) are virtually lactose-free. They don’t have to be “hard,” they just have to be aged. Even softer, aged cheese like Brie or Camembert are lactose-free. Even so, using smaller servings of these cheeses are best.
If you are actually allergic, I am not sure what you can replace it with other than soy alternatives.
Lori
Yummy, thanx! Throw prayers this way! I have a 14 yr old teen. Who thinks we have a revolving door in the kitchen to: McDs, Braums, and Taco Bueno! I know.., I need to be the one to shut that door. Any suggestions.
Jen
I’m just straight up with my kids. I tell them that we don’t have money for places like that because the food is expensive and unhealthy. I say saving money on eating healthy food at home means we have enough for toys and games and doing other fun things that are so much more worth it than a Big Mac. That said, we do sometimes eat out or get fast food, but rarely and we try to make it an event. Since your kid is older, maybe it would be easier to just have him/her buy that food with his/her own money.
Summer Simmons
I buy ground beef when it is on sale and make large quantities of Burritos/tacos and hamburgers and put them in the freezer. The teens can grab them anytime and defrost in the microwave. It’s a good way for them to have a healthier version of the junk food they love. 🙂
Kathi
Bravo! I’m impressed, not only with your economy, but with the detail you put into this post. Marvelous. No doubt that will help a lot of big families. I’m only feeding myself and one other person and can’t seem to get a handle on how to feed us. Geesh!
Betty
Purchasing beans in the dry form will save even more money. Soak all day, cook in the evening. Or, soak overnight and cook in the crockpot.
Sandra
This is great practical advice. Not to be super critical but I am rather amazed your large family can eat one pizza and be filled up. I raised 7 children and when I had adolescents they easily consumed a half a pizza each ( no overweight kids). would have been nice to see a few more veggies as well but all and all this is a great resource for a budget meal plan. I will have to check Aldi prices in San Diego as I know the main grocery store prices are higher for almost everything even at the rock bottom prices. Thanks for sharing this.
Jen
I’m sure we won’t be a one pizza family for much longer! We can’t swing it with a Little Ceasar’s pizza, but the Aldi ones are larger. We also make a veggie platter (bell peppers, carrots, celery, etc.) to go with it and the kids can’t get more pizza until they’ve eaten enough of those. So, I’m not sure if it’s being truly full, or just done with carrots that keeps them from begging for more.
Cat
I actually came here to ask this question! My family of 3 (2 adults and a 3yo) eats almost a full pizza. But you’re right about the Aldi ones being bigger. I hate meal planning and thinking of stuff to make, so I have printed out this whole post and might just replicate it. Do you have a link to your homemade syrup recipe? (That said, I do find Aldi’s pure maple syrup the best-priced of its kind. Just exploring all my options.)
Jen
Yeah! The more i think about it, the more I think the veggie supplements help the pizza go farther. I haven’t posted the recipe but its super easy: a cup of white sugar, a cup of brown sugar, a cup of water. Boil for a few minutes and let cool. Its delicious if you add 1/2 teaspoon of maple flavoring too. Its runny like real maple syrup, but my kids like it that way. And you are right about the pure maple at Aldi.
The Whisk Had Great Hair
Ounce for ounce, Trader Joe’s pure maple syrup (two different varieties of it, anyway; some of them are more) are the same price as Aldi’s maple syrup. Surprised me when I figured it out. Felt weird to buy a $16 bottle of syrup, but it’s exactly the same as four $4 bottles in ounces – and less packaging waste.
I’m not under the same budget restrictions as you, nor with the large family to feed, but I am a bit of a foodie who loves to cook beautifully and with variety, and am able to feed my husband and myself, and dinner party guests at least 1-2x/month, for $350 (including occasional costly spices, and wine and craft beer almost as often as we want it – thanks to Trader Joe’s good wine at bargain prices and Kroger’s good beer sales.) We almost never eat out because we like our own cooking better and save money doing so. This budget is very high compared with your awesome one, but I’m posting it just for the benefit of those whom I know don’t realize you can eat like kings for as little as this.
I would add the recommendation (for every budget!) that after you eat (or debone) your roast chicken, you simmer the carcass for 3-4 hours in a big pot of water. Makes excellent and very nutritious broth to use in other recipes. Also, Kroger and other mainstream groceries (not WalMart) often have deeply discounted meat sold on or just before the expiration date, with prices that actually beat Aldi’s. I get our pot roasts (and the occasional steak splurge) that way. I usually go to Kroger every other week just to see what good stuff they have marked down, and then take it home and stick it in the freezer if I’m not going to cook it within the next day. It gives us way more variety than we’d have otherwise.
Tina
There are a lot of recipes out there on making your own pizza dough. Make the dough, prebake it, and keep the shells in the freezer. When it’s pizza night, take the shells out of the freezer, top with a can of Don Pepino Pizza Sauce, some shredded mozzarella and bake. I make two large pizzas for less than $5 – and they taste so much better than the store bought frozen pizzas I’ve had.
Jen
Thanks! I’ll try it. Do you make round crusts or just rectangular cookie sheet ones?
Shara
I use this recipe. You can freeze the dough in balls and take them out as needed. You could do batches of 6 at a time or whatever you need. They defrost really quickly on the counter or in the fridge. http://www.lilyaronin.com/#!about2/c5wu
Jen
Thanks!
Tina
They’re free form 🙂 – but I bake them on a cookie sheet!
Becky
Just a quick tidbit: baking homemade pizzas in cast iron makes the crust SOOOO good. If a person has cast iron pans, that is:)
Summer Simmons
This is what I do for pizzas. I buy the cases of crust from Sam’s deli. The crust are enormous (16 inch)! They are $19 for a case (14 pizza crust). Then I buy the huge can of tomato sauce for $3 and divide it into 14 freezer sandwich bags. And I buy a 5 lb bag of shredded mozzarella for $10.50. So basically I can make 14 extra large cheese pizzas for $32.50 (plus tax of course). We have pizza/movie night every friday and I just use some kind of leftover meat or veggies from the weeks meals. For instance, once we had bbq chicken breast so we had bbq chicken pizza on friday.
Georgie
My kids are half-pizza eaters too (although I would say our pizzas are probably smaller in Australia than the US – most food portions are!). One good way to stretch it is with a vegie platter or salad, another is garlic bread – if I ever get marked-down bread rolls, going stale, I cut not quite all the way through, spread the cut bits with butter mixed with garlic and herbs, and freeze wrapped in aluminium foil. Just put straight in the oven with the pizza. I also make my own pizza dough most of the time, but it does take time! (I have a Thermomix for labour-saving.) I find this is a good way to use up small amounts of leftover meat and vegies that aren’t enough for a full meal otherwise.
Jen
I’m going to try making my own pizza!
Linda H.
Every couple of weeks I make a homemade pizza for myself & my husband. The pizza dough recipe I use is super-easy to make. I also make my own pizza sauce. The most expensive thing on the pizza is the pepperoni (& I usually get that at a good discount at Sam’s Club). I also like to change it up and use a white sauce with chicken & green chiles for a different type of pizza. I use a homemade white sauce, too! I’d be happy to share recipes if you’d like them! 🙂
Jen
Share away Linda!
Linda H.
Ok. Pizza crust recipe (adapted from Better Homes & Gardens CookBook 15th edition): we use the thin crust version because it’s quick & easy, but any of the versions are yummy!
This makes enough for 2 large thin-crust pizzas.
– 2.5 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
– 1 package (about 1 Tbsp.) active dry yeast
– 1/2 tsp. salt
– 1 cup warm (120 to 130 F) water
– 2 Tbsp. olive oil
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1.25 cups flour, the yeast & salt; add warm water & oil. Beat with electric mixer (I use my KitchenAid stand mixer) on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl. Beat on high for 3 minutes. Stir in remaining flour, using dough hook attachment, until dough is moderately stiff and smooth & elastic (about 6 to 8 minutes kneading time; if you are doing it by hand, stir in as much more flour as you can and turn out onto floured work surface & knead until smooth & elastic). Divide dough in half; cover & let rest 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 425 F. Grease 2 large baking sheets or use 2 non-stick pizza pans (my preference!). On lightly floured surface, roll dough out to desired shape (round for pizza pans, or rectangles for baking sheets). Make sure to build up edges slightly so pizza sauce & toppings stay on. Spread unbaked crust with pizza sauce & desired toppings (my favorites are pepperoni, black olives, mushrooms & mozzarella cheese). Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until toppings are hot & bubbly & pizza crust is lightly browned. Once you make this crust a few times, you’ll find it takes about 30 to 40 minutes from starting the pizza dough to having pizza ready to eat! If you don’t like thin crust pizzas, I suspect you could make 1 pan-style pizza with the undivided dough. It would need a little rising time (until doubled) & a short cooking time (10 to 15 mins) before topping & baking, though.
Pizza sauce: this is super quick & easy!! This makes enough sauce for two 15″ pizzas; it freezes well, so you can make a double or triple batch & keep the extra sauce in the freezer until you need it! (adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook):
– 1 Tbsp. olive oil
– 2 garlic cloves, minced
– 1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
– 1.5 to 2 tsp. Italian seasoning (or use a mixture of basil, oregano, marjoram & thyme)
– salt & pepper to taste (I use about 1/4 tsp. salt & a sprinkle of pepper)
Heat oil & garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the garlic is sizzling, about 1.5 mins. Stir in the tomatoes & Italian seasoning and simmer until thickened, about 15 minutes. Season with salt & pepper to taste. I like to spread it into the pizza crust while it’s still hot.
For white pizza sauce, I use a modified version of Alfredo sauce:
Makes enough for two 15″ pizzas.
– 2 Tbsp. butter or olive oil
– 1/2 tsp. minced garlic
– 2 Tbsp. flour
– 2 Tbsp. chicken broth or water
– 3/4 cup milk or half-&-half
3/8 tsp. salt (to taste)
1/2 to 1 tsp. Italian seasoning (to taste)
Heat oil & garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat until garlic is sizzling, about 1.5 mins. Whisk in flour & cook until slightly browned & bubbling. Slowly whisk in chicken broth or water & milk. Stir in salt & Italian seasoning and cook until thickened. Season to taste with pepper and more salt. I like to spread the sauce on the pizza dough while it’s still hot. My favorite toppings for this sauce are cooked chicken breast, mushrooms, green chiles & mozzarella cheese.
Enjoy!!
Melissa Husted
Then you’d have enough left over to have a bottle of wine to go with it! 🙂
Rachel
Same here! I have a family of 7 (5 kids ages 4-16), and we eat 3 Aldi’s Take and Bake pizzas with a big salad, fruit, or raw veggies to boot. My 14 yr-old runs cross country and easily burns 1000-1500 calories during a long run. This meal plan would never fill up my “bottomless pits”!
Jen
Rachel,
Whew! That’s a lot of big kids. I’m sure the menu won’t work for me when I have older kids either. Thank goodness it works right now. Best of luck to you!
willa
How do you feed 7 people one chicken and have leftovers for next night dinner? Aren’t kids fighting over who gets the wings (that’s the only part of chicken my 6 year old will eat…she is spoiled) also diet high in pasta and bread…things we do not eat much of…the kid likes pasta but try to limit her on it.
definitely impressed tho…dont know of aldi and not a sams club or Costco shopper…prices in Fran much higher for a lot of things 🙂
willa
Oops should say San Francisco
Jen
Ha! Thats funny! The wings go almost untouched at my house. Kids. My big kids get the drumsticks and some breast meat, my little girls get cut up breast meat (they are only 3&4 years old) and my husband and I go for the thighs and breast meat. There isnt a lot leftover, but its enough for chicken soup with carrots, onions, celery, and noodles to round it out. We do eat a fair amount of carbs (though I do my best to make them ad healthy as possible) but, alas, that is what is affordable for us. After all, its not that poor people don’t know that tons of fresh veggies and lean proteins are preferable, its just that they are often out of reach. Bummer about no Aldi in San Fran, their prices are usually almost half here.
christine
you could also throw in some kidney beans and maybe last nights corn.and other misc leftover veggies, it could be a chicken soup “rustic” minestrone, or the farmers minestrone.
christina
Great blog and power to you! I live in San Diego and although its just my husband and I, our $300/month budget for food is tough. I am amazed at your skills! We are not originally from southern California and the price hike made us really struggle getting on our feet. Its nice to see other people are making it work with a much bigger family! Hats ofd to you. Thanks for the advice and I must say, its refreshing having positive comments on a site these days. 🙂
Vindiciti
Loving this plan! There are some things that you didn’t list recipes for that I’m feeling out, but for our 6 person family (2 adults, 2 teens, a preteen, and an almost preteen), it has done fairly well. They are a bit whiny in the adjustment period from just whatever I would usually buy to the new eating plan. I just write what is “allowed” for each meal and snacks on a whiteboard that I have kept on the fridge for a leftover list. It’s so exciting to NOT have tons of leftovers to waste, but that’s the only tiny bit of frugalness coming to the surface. Hehe. Anyway, my kids are loving the veggies with meals, and who knew apples and cheese tasted so good together? Thanks for the help with this plan! Our budget appreciates it, as does my hubby. You rock! 😉
P.S. We don’t have an Aldi, but we do shop at a military Commissary, which I guess is pretty comparable. The bill was about the same, though I got some additional items and left some produce off for a second, small trip so it doesn’t go bad in the fridge.
Jen
Wow! Im so glad that it’s helping you. Thanks for the feedback!
Meredith
I was just curious if the teacher and older children eat lunch at school? Just trying to figure how the leftovers could stretch for 7 lunches or be reheated at school (taco, soup, etc).
Thank you for your details and creativity! and congrats on your newly and rapidly expanding audience!
Jen
Great question! Yes, my older two children and my husband eat lunch at school. (It’s part of tuition) Though, when they were homeschooled, this is what we all ate together. However, everytime you see “peanut butter sandwich”, or “mac and cheese”, or some other super kid-centric food for lunch, I’m eating leftovers from some other meal. So, I think it comes out in the wash. About the tacos, though: cold cooked taco meat, shredded cheese, tomatoes and salsa on a bed of romane lettuce makes a tasty, and easily transportable meal… And thank you for your encouragement and your questions.
wally
What an interesting and well done plan! Just to add a data point: Shopping in New York City add about another 75% to the cost of this plan (shopping at Fairway), but ultimately I think that’s a testament to how well put together this is. It scales really well to relative to the other costs associated with living in this city. I might try this and spend the savings on having everything delivered from Fresh Direct… It’s like buying time!
Jen
God, sometimes I miss living in a big city! We lived in Boston and had food, movies, wine, and laundry delivered. Of course, that was before I had five kids!
Dave
Love the meal plans and your frugality. Bravo!
Just curious, is it possible to roll your mother’s IRA into an “inherited IRA”? Or if you’ve already tapped it, to max out your own IRA’s and put money into Educational IRA’s, or pay of your mortgage, to qualify for SNAP? or would that still be considered an asset?
Jen
Thanks Dave! My mom’s IRA is already an inherited IRA. If I take out the $ for any reason it gets counted as part of our income. I do have to tap it periodically to pay for something unexpected, and that’s what puts us over the line. There’s not much there, so it doesn’t make sense to transfer at this point. But it does make me feel a little safer, knowing it’s there. Thank you so much for taking the time to make those suggestions.
Debbie
Thirty-six states have eliminated the asset test for SNAP benefits. You might check to see if your state is one that has.
Great job on the menu. You’ve given me some ideas
Jen
Thanks for the heads up Debbie! I’ll check.
TCBJ
I just want to join in and thank you for this. While we don’t have kids yet, my partner and I have been putting a lot of thought into minimizing our food costs and this post has given me some great ideas. Obviously, everybody can benefit from this kind of thinking, whether you’re feeding a family of 7 or just yourself!
Jen
Thanks so much! Good luck with your budget!
Jennifer
This is wonderful. I have four boys:15, 12,10, &5; I think I could almost make this work even if I have to add a little extra (boys eat…a lot!) If I could do it to $400 I would be amazed! Both my husband and I are teachers ( hubby is in his second year..new career for us!) and we are trying to pay down debt accumulated while he was a teacher’s assistant waiting for a position.
The best part? We are getting an Aldi this summer!
You are awesome!
Linda
I’m very impressed!
I’d love to sit and pick your brain! I love the balance between cheap and healthy!
Since I can’t pick your brain in person- I’d like your opinion: My son is allergic to eggs and bananas, which would alter your plan significantly. Any magic cheap substitutes you can think of?
Jen
Hmmm… That’s tricky. The eggs are usually the protein source in those egg heavy menus. So, I guess my first go to would be beans. Especially hummus for lunch and perhaps a huevos rancheros thing (without the one egg) for breakfasts… Next bet for breakfast would be Greek yogurt. It’s very high protein, but, alas, more expensive. I think it’s $3.89/32oz at our Aldi. The bananas are a bummer because they are always so cheap and loaded with potassium. Apples are second cheapest. We actually get a bunch of pineapple out of the $1.69 pineapples at Aldi. Strawberries are usually too expensive to use like bananas, but soon they’ll go down to $.99 at our store, as they come into season.
Anonymous
You can make your own yoghurt very cheaply and easily. UHT milk, milk powder, and a pinch of starter culture. Even a non-electric yoghurt maker (basically an insulated container) is very cheap. I make yoghurt for around $1 per kg (that’s Australian prices), and it takes me all of one minute in prep, then cultures on its own overnight.
Steve
I am impressed with your menu. I grew up in the midwest and was raised to be frugal when shopping. I usually am cooking for seven as well unless step kids come over then it is cooking for nine. I make homemade hamburger helper or homemade spaghetti suace using number 10 cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. I buy alot of ground beef from Costco. We use the executive membership to get money back each year. That pays for the next year membership. We also buy the big bags of dried beans, rice, flour, and sugar. With our whole chickens I usually make chicken adobo. I am definitely gonna try sone of what you have posted. Thank you 🙂
Ericka
After reading your menu plan I wonder what do your teenagers eat for lunch? I imagine there is no microwave at school.
Jen
Actually, my older children are not teenagers, though I had a chuckle when I read that in Forbes. They are only 8 & 11. Thank God.
But as for their lunches: this year their lunches are provided as part of tuition (they attend the school where my husband teaches) but before that (we’ve used a meal plan similar to this for a long time) they were homeschooled and ate what we eat. As it is now, anytime there is something super kid centric (pb&j, mac & cheese) on the lunch menu, I am eating leftovers from some other meal, while my todschoolers (toddlers/preschoolers) eat that. Thanks for the question.
Rebeca
I am trying to cut back and this comes in handy! Thanks to your hard work I will not have much of my own. Will you share your summer recipes with us when that gets closer?
Jen
Sure, Rebecca! Thanks.
Michelle
Thank you for posting this. I am very impressed at your skilled and disciplined plan. I am at $15 per day and thought I was doing well. my husband doesn’t like that much repetition, but if I use your plan for 2 weeks and mine for 2 weeks then I will move down to 12.5 per day. I am so excited. Thanks again.
Sara
Would love to have a copy of your menu plan as well…if you don’t mind. My email is realityshowsrpot @ yahoo.
Thanks in advance!
Erin
Brilliant meal plan. Nicely done!
Laura
Thank you so much for sharing! What a great mom you are!
Jen
Ha!Thanks, Laura. Though, if you read the rest of this blog, you may change your mind about that!
Laura
Nope. Same comment applies! ;o)
Jen
Well then, I guess you’re part of my pride!
Shanna
This is AWESOME! I have a family of 6 and will be trying this. I also teach fiancial literacy abs budgeting classes and will be sharing how you do this! Let me know if you have more examples, I would take any that you have! I think my homeschool moms will love this too! Thanks for sharing!!!!!
Jen
Yay! I’m glad it’s useful to you.
Melissa
This is wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to give such great detail. I’ve looked around and websites can be pretty vague when it comes down to the everyday meals and budget. I live in Alaska with my husband and 6 month old and I have been working on getting better with budgeting our food. You have given me some great ideas. We are also on WIC so that helps with some of the costs. I had a few questions when you get a chance to answer them.
1) Do you make homemade bread at times? Are there some things you make from scratch? Do you make them or do you have your kids help at all?
2) Can I ask what your summer menu would roughly be like? Do you grow things to help supplement?
3) Do you change your menu for anything special like Sundays, holidays or birthdays?
4) Do you have meat everyday? There was one meal it said spaghetti, but didn’t have a meat listed with it (another day it said spaghetti with turkey meat)?
5) Do you make a lunch for your husband and kiddos that are gone during that meal?
6) The broccoli that you have with the baked potatoes, do you steam them? Or how do you prepare them?
7) Do you have a recipe for the black bean soup? Maybe I missed it.
8) Do you have salad dressing with your salads? Buy or make it?
ok so sorry about all the questions but I feel like you are a good person to ask about budgeting and menu specifics. Thank you again! God bless!
Jen
Ok, let’s see here:
1) I have made homemade bread in the past and I still make it occasionally (I still have yeast in the freezer) but I didn’t include any homemade bread in this menu. It’s fun, it’s delicious, but it’s time consuming. We used to have a great Sara Lee discount bread store where you could get whole wheat bread for $.80/loaf, but it’s gone. You might check to see if there’s anything like that near you. PS. Usually located in lower income neighborhoods.
2) I’ll post a summer menu as we get closer. I would love to grow vegetables, but I’m already growing 5 kids and I don’t think I can handle anything else right now!
3) Holidays & birthdays as well as vacations (if we take one) are definitely different. I’m lucky in that my family often travels to be with us during those times and they help A LOT with purchasing food. I have been considering doing an open house type thing for Thanksgiving where I provide turkey and all those who have no one to celebrate with come over with sides…
4) No. We do not have meat everyday. There are two spaghetti dishes (my husband is addicted to pasta!) one has only grape tomatoes roasted with spices and olive oil. It’s delicious. We modified it from a recipe that included shrimp. I can send it along if you’re interested.
5) My husband and 2 older children eat lunch at school (they attend the school where he teaches) and the price of this is included in tuition.
6) The broccoli is from a steam in package sold at Aldi. I just pop it in the microwave. It’s probably cheaper to buy fresh and steam in the micro for 3 minutes, but as I said, I have 5 kids.
7)The recipe I use for black bean soup is found in You on a Diet, published by the folks that do Real Age. It might still be internet findable. I decrease the amount of water called for because I like a thicker soup.
8) I included the ranch dressing in the shopping list, but not the menus. It’s the only thing my kids like. Sometimes I just put some of the balsamic vinegar on my salad.
Hope this helps!
Melissa
Thanks for answering my questions! I would appreciate the spaghetti recipe you mentioned and is this black bean soup below close to your recipe?
http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/3506103-Spicy-Black-Bean-Soup
I read around your blog and it was great. My husband was home schooled on and off growing up and loved it! We plan on doing it in the future, but it helps to read of your struggles and successes with it. I loved the Tevye battle…on the one hand…Blessings!
Jen
Melissa,
The black bean recipe I use is here: http://www.caloriecount.com/quick-black-bean-soup-real-recipe-r473894, although I use water and chicken bouillon cubes instead of veggie broth. I also use LESS broth because I like my black bean soup thicker, and I omit the cayenne pepper. The spaghetti recipe is super basic: You saute an onion and some minced garlic in a little olive oil. Add a 19oz package of lean ground turkey and cook it until it’s browned. Then add a large can of crushed tomatoes, a large can of tomato sauce and a tiny can of tomato paste. We also add a can of sliced mushrooms, because we’re too lazy to chop them. 😉
Kerri
Hi Jen! What sort of spices do you use when you roast the tomatoes? Thanks!
Jen
Just olive oil and salt!
Nicole
I love this! My husband and I just finished the Choose My Plate Challenge. This plan is from choosemyplate.gov and is a 2 week menu of healthy options that are designed to fit into the average SNAP allotment! As we went through the process I blogged about it and all the frustrations we had (such as long, complicated meals after work, one use ingredients etc). I was so happy to find this blog and see how it really should be done! This is what I wanted all along-simple, cheap and easy!! This is very similar to my normal diet-and it’s not anything like the CRAZY plan but out by the government! Thanks for proving that it is possible to eat healthy on a budget-and for the link to the cookbook (there are some good recipes!). I blogged about this link at my blog http://theruralsuburbanite.blogspot.com/ You can also see the day by day of our challenge there if you’re interested in what the government thinks is reasonable healthy eating!
melandria romero
i believe you are great on what you do and living frugally is just like living a simple life but minding the healthy options for the family.
Mary C.
I am so sorry the negative comments got under your skin. I am sure if I had a blog that someone saw and was inspired by I would focus on the stuff that hurt versus all the wonderful praise people had. My husband came across the article on Lifehacker and sent it to me hoping to inspire me to get our current food budget under control. He did not actually read the article just the headline so he did not have any of the pertinent information regarding your family’s situation or anything. I admit I was in fact inspired and then jealous and then angry. I was/am jealous because you are able to feed your family on a budget and they eat what you prepare but not angry at you and your amazing ability to feed your family but angry that we pay our teachers so little that you HAVE to feed your family this way.
I am glad your blog was highlighted in articles around the interwebs because it gave me the opportunity to read about your life and you seem to be pretty darn awesome! I can relate to you and your family in so many ways which is not always the case when talking to other parents with larger families. (We have four kids in our family) Many of the blogs that I come across from Pinterest make me feel like an utter failure as a mom. You are real and beautiful. Thank you for sharing yourself with us.
Jen
Mary, thank you SO much for this comment. I am truly touched at the time you put into responding to me. I’m sitting at my dining room table anxiously opening this month’s bills (my VERY least favorite activity, even over cleaning up kid vomit) and I allowed myself to take a break when I got the notification that someone had commented on my blog. I’m so glad I did.
I know just what you mean about feeling belittled by Pinterest! But I assure you, those moms doing awesome crafts with their children, assembling perfect teacher appreviation baskets, and cooking five star meals in their pristine kitchens are also yelling at their kids, forgetting to buy milk, and sending birthday cards late when Pinterest isn’t looking.
It is shameful what we, as a culture, have decided is a fair wage for the people responsible for educating the adults of tomorrow. However, we are proud of the choices our family has made, and we are willing to “take one for the team” in return for getting to be a part of so many wonderful young lives.
Good luck with your four, hang in there, and come back and see me- tell your friends to come too!
Laura
Hey Jen,
Since Zoe enjoyed baking thoe cookies so much, maybe she wants to try my Lazy Bread? I’m happy to make it with you guys next time I visit or try it yourselves:
6 cups flour (all purpose or bread)
3 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
whisk this together in a big non metal bowl
3 cups water (or add some olive oil in place of some water)
pour two cups in and stir. add the last cup in bits cause we live in the humid south and may not need it all. stop stirring and adding water when the glop starts looking like a ball of dough. too wet? add a tbsp or two more flour.
cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside for 12 hrs. stir. set it aside for 12 more hrs or until it doubles in size (warmer house = less time, but this rises even in my 62 degrees winter-cold kitchen). you can leave it longer to make the timing work for you. doesn’t matter to the dough.
dump half into a greased loaf pan. dump the other half into another greased loaf pan. no kneading. no shaping. just plop it in there. cover with the same plastic wrap, greased this time and let it rise, anywhere from 4-6hrs.
pop the pans in the oven, 20 minutes at 425 and then 20 minutes at 375. cool.
that’s it. lots of ignoring the dough, minimal effort. cheap tasty bread.
Keirran
Well done, Jen! This reminds me of my childhood in a household with five kids, two parents and a grandparent. There were lots of “stretch” ingredients and meals, some of which inspire strong reactions in my siblings to to this day. One of my sisters goes apoplectic if anyone mentions “corn fritters.” 🙂 I liked them but rebelled against the attempt to stretch fresh milk with the addition of dry powder. Your kids will have their own fond memories of their favourite and anything-but-favourite menu items but mostly they’ll remember how hard their mom tried. I know that our mother would greatly admire your tenacity. Be well!
Jen
Thanks Keirran. My kids will be happy to know that others have lived through large family life!
cynthia
This is the best news a family could hear bless you jen. I’m interested also in shakes that burns fat.
Mary Beth
You are extraordinary! Such care you are taking to feed your family healthy food on a tight budget. I hope you kmow you are feeding your family more than food. You are feeding you family love and care. Thank you for sharing your menu. I believe you will help may, many families.
Julie
The Oriental Stir Fry at Aldi is delicious for that leftover chicken at about 3.50 a bag….feeds a lot! Thanks for the tips!
Jen
We eat that a lot in the summer Julie! It is good.
Lisa
You are my new hero! I see links all the time to articles about how people feed their family on a super low budget, and their ‘secret’ is always couponing for tons of highly processed food. So I was skeptical when I saw a link to your story. But I was so excited when I read it! Good job!! I LOVE that you are doing this with real food!!
Lisa
Oh – and I just poked around a little – I see you have twins! I like you even more now. I have two sets. 😉
Jen
Two sets of twins?! Ok. You win!
Lisa
Haha! they are pretty great!
I’ve been intrigued by your meal plan, so I took your exact list and priced everything out at my local grocery store. We don’t have Aldi here. (I’m in Seattle.) Matching as closely as I could come to your exact list, I came up with $506.50. Quite a big difference! Still, it’s a great plan, and it’s still a lot less than I’m spending. So you’re definitely inspiring me to polish up my meal planning and budgeting. I used to do it a lot more, but I’ve gotten a bit lazy about it lately and have been spending way to much on groceries.
Jen
Wow Lisa! Thanks for doing that. That’s really interesting. Perhaps the Forbes article should have led with, “move to the south, where food is cheaper.” Although wages are lower too, so… Maybe not.
How old are your twins, BTW?
Lynn (CampingTeacher)
I was wondering if your family has the problem of picky eaters and/or food allergies. we have both. Some of the items your family eats are on our allergy list (such as peanut butter and sugar). Some a very picky eater (my son) won’t eat. Have you had to address these issues?
Jen
We don’t have any known food allergies (we do have one kid who’s practically allergic to air) but we do have picky eaters. There are some foods that some of my kids refuse to eat-of course they are not the same foods! I don’t cater to pickiness because I have so many children. I’d be making 5 different meals a night. If they refuse the meal, they just have to wait until the next one. I do try to make sure there is something everyone likes for lunch or dinner. Breakfast never seems to be a problem.
Natasha
I struggle with feeding my family at times I have gone without eating supper saying I don’t feel well…
I looked through your price breakdown, where do you find such low prices? 1 head of romaine lettuce right now is 2.69 and its small only one salad !
I’m going to look over your meals again and see what I can make…
Jen
Natasha, we shop at Aldi which is a lesser known discount grocery store. It’s actually the Kroger of Germany- and so it has really good german chocolate. But here Aldi prices are sometimes 50% of Kroger prices. Check and see if there’s one near you…
Jamie
Thank you for this post. I live about two hours down the road from you and am about to have a family of seven…my second little guy is due on July 5th. My kids are 8, 7, 4 & 2 but the 4 yo eats like a teenager. We probably eat too much and our grocery budget is $700 but that’s then skimping a lot on other areas of our budget. I shop at Aldi for all that I can but sometimes have to hit Kroger to stay away from HFCS and wheat. With this plan we could drastically cut our bill…so, thank you. My husband is a Pastor so probably a similar salary to your hubby and I work part time at my big kids school (just to pay their tuition). When baby boy comes I probably won’t work and we may start homeschooling (still praying about that one). All this to say that our budget needs a makeover and this might be the kick in the pants I need to actually make it happen. So thank you for being open and honest. I look forward to your summer menu as well!!
KerryAnn May
love your meal plan. Seems more winter oriented. With summer nearly upon us, can’t wait to see your summer meal plan.
Michelle
I truly appriciate this post. I don’t have any children as of yet but with my husband and myself both being teachers we are always on a budget. I love your meal ideas and please take heart despite any nay sayers you bring joy, happiness, and hope to others.
Melissa
I love this post but am having a hard time wrapping my head around it. My family of three is much smaller than yours but I’m spending far more on groceries monthly, mostly because my 5 year old is SUPER picky and I have to eat gluten free. We have both and Aldi’s and Costco nearby, but I tend to shop based on what I know everyone will eat. Unfortunately, this usually means anywhere between two and three different meals (if I’m lucky, some variation on the same ingredients) at meal time. Is there any advice you can give me? I’m at my wits, and wallets, end…
Amber
Thank you so much for generously sharing this. I’m a single SAHM mom of 5 adopted special needs kids (all girls btw…lol) and our grocery bill has gotten out of control. I’m wondering if you will eventually be sharing your summer menu? Please!
I’ve tried couponing, watching sales and stockpiling as other bloggers advise but I really don’t have the time. Plus I have to hire a sitter to go get groceries because of my daughters disabilities so I can’t afford to get one every time something goes on sale!
I can’t wait to read the rest of your blog! I hope I find equally frugal and practical tips for other necessities such as household supplies and kids items.
Thanks again!
Allyson
I am a SAHM with 3 teen boys and 2 toddler girls and a hubby. You have some good ideas and a great meal list. So many people shop unprepared. I too have a rotational list of meals and it is great. I always ask hubby and the older kids to select one meal they like. That way, no one complains about what’s for dinner. I have learned to make the items we eat that came from
Cans. Baked beans, pasta sauce, Alfredo, etc… It is actually cheaper and healthier than the store items. I also make our own bread and cornbread ( not boxed) when needed.
On the weekends, I spend time getting items ready for the next week. ( freezing sauces for meals)
We do a lot of crockpot oatmeal, breakfast burritos ( homemade tortillas) and granola bars. Lunch is basically leftovers or a sandwich. ( 2 of my teens take a lunch)
Another cheap and easy meal is shepherds pie. A pound of ground turkey ( all ready cooked) 2c frozen green beans, 4-5 c mashed potatoes and a jar of spag sauce and cheese. Mix the cooked meat, sauce and beans together, spread out in a casserole pan, top with mashed spuds and then cheese. Bake in oven 350 for 20 minutes. Add a salad or fruit and some homemade dinner rolls.
Jen
Allyson, I envy your preparedness. I always think I’m going to do a lot of forward preparation, but the weekend comes and I’m just soooo lazy!
rexie
Great post! Great advice! And beautiful family! So glad I “found” you :)) I’m always looking for creative ways to save and to nourish my small family of 3. TY!!
Jen
Thanks Rexie! Come back and see me.
Angela
Loved your blog and your ideas! Wanted to share one back. We never buy Ranch dressing, mayo, or sour cream here – I use plain, fat free Greek yogurt for just about everything though. 😉 (I am a low carb eater -and store brand Greek is really inexpensive).
*Sour cream – just use the yogurt as it is – it can be easily sweetened for fruit/dessert topping.
*Mayo Substitute- 6 oz of yogurt a tsp. of mustard, a little salt and a little vinegar or lemon juice.
*Ranch Dressing or Dip – 6-8 oz of yogurt, salt, black pepper and a generous amount of dried herbs of your choice and refrig. for a couple hours before use. Thin with milk or lemon juice for salad dressing — you can vary it widely by adding minced garlic, or bacon bits, or finely diced onion, or parmesan cheese — or blend it with pureed cucumber for tzatziki sauce. You get a lot of flavor variety for no added expense.
Another big staple in our home is hummus – a 29 oz can of Garbanzo beans is about $1.20 – pureed with a little lemon juice, garlic and salt – it gives back a big bowl of delicious protein and filling fiber and my kids love it. Since you guys eat carbs – crackers, bread, potatoes, veggie sticks and pretzel sticks all are a goof fit with hummus.
Jen
These are great! Thanks! I might be a tiny bit too lazy to make my own ranch, but I’m definately trying my hand at hummus! I love that stuff!
Jennifer
You should look at Martha Stewart’s “Grocery Bag” section. It is a 5 day dinner meal plan and I always found I spent about $10 for dinner. That’s with San Diego prices.
becky
Great article! Great info! One of my all time favorites! This all being said while taking into consideration a few things:
1. whether or not your children are young or old
2. are they boys or girls? now with that being said my girls are pretty hardy eaters but at the end of the day my son can out eat us all & little guy is right behind him!
3. another thing to consider, where you live? In the city are way different activities than in the country / on a farm. working on a farm kids are hungry! therefore snacking permitted!
4. Then of course Grocery prices & if you live in town or out! Takes me about an hour to get to aldis!
Very detailed! Loved it! I’m gonna try some of it for sure! Thanks
sarah butler
Great in theory but where in the world are food prices that low? For everything you listed according to our local prices it would be over $550.
Jen
Sarah, these are the current prices at our local Aldi here in Nashville, TN. Aldi is a low price grocery store that began (and is the major chain) in Germany. The owner of Aldi is the brother of the owner of Trader Joes. I don’t know how widespread Aldi is outside of Germany and the southern US. If I were to take the same list to my local Kroger or Publix, it would cost at least $400.
Where do you live?
Vanessa
I’m also looking forward to seeing your summer menu. I’m so excited to find this! I’m feeding a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 small kiddos). I’ve been working to lower our grocery spending and still keep the menu healthy. We get WIC as well. Right now our budget is $300 for food and household ( diapers and toiletries included ). So things are pretty tight right now. It’s so refreshing to find new ideas for menu planning. Thanks for sharing.
Donnovan
We’re also looking forward to the summer menu and all the other seasons, any help is appreciated. We have a family of 7 and so meal planning is a challenge. Also, looking for ways to reduce the monthly expense.
Kim
I’m single, so I don’t have a family to feed. My problem with a lot of meal plans is there are always a ton of things them I just don’t eat. I was really excited when I read over yours and realized the only things I’d have to sub out would be the tilapia and the salmon.
Thanks so much for sharing this. Like some others have said, it’s pure crap that you have to worry about this kind of frugality, but it’s awesome that you’ve shared it. I’m really looking forward to the summer menu too.
Becky
I teared up reading this. Miss my Mom so much…she could stretch a dollar so very far, I learned a lot from her and when times were and are again tight (retired teacher) I was good but never quite as good as her. I enjoyed your winning essay today and will be following you as well.
dilioptim
Very good blog! Do you have any recommendations for aspiring writers? I’m hoping to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost on everything. Would you recommend starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m completely confused .. Any ideas? Many thanks!
Jen
I think it depends on what you want to get out of your blog. If you are writing primarily as a live journal, or expressly for self-expression, a free platform is great. Personally, I use the self-hosted (read: not free) WordPress.org platform. The learning curve for setting up a blog is very high, especially if, like me, you have zero computer programming background. However, I found many free resources including Amy Andrews (just Google her) to be extremely helpful. Good Luck!
Melissa
We are loving what you have posted. We are a soon to be family of 7 with B/G twins, 2 more girls, and now a boy due shortly, and a Soldier Hubby that eats like crazy! This has really helped us out.
I was wondering if you would be able/willing to share a “summer” version of the shopping list and meals? You said this is your winter one and summer would look much different. I am curious what that looks like. Please and Thank you!
Jen
I’m working on it Melissa! I hope to have it up this week.
D.
thank you!!!
Chris
Some good thoughts, especially on the front of organic only being more expensive. I do think there is a bit of embellishment here and fudging (like seriously 1 slice of pizza for dinner?) or everyone looks like paupers, but overall some good ideas.
Libba
Hey! My husband is also a teacher (at a small private school), but because of a couple different factors, we don’t qualify for WIC. Our budget is arranged such that after our bills and other can’t-change/delete line items (tithe, missionary giving, $6 Netflix streaming) are paid, all we have left goes to gas and groceries. We have no extra. We don’t have an entertainment, eating out, babysitting, etc budget. We don’t have cable or pay for ANYthing extra beyond the must-haves and the Netflix – which, for $6 really keeps my sanity! So here’s what I’m asking… For us, buying diapers (we use cloth most of the time, which saves), toothpaste, toilet paper and other types of essentials are bundled up in our grocery budget. Is that the case for you too or do you have a separate line for non-food essentials? If so, what do you budget for that? For a while we struggled to stay in our food budget when we did shopping by the month. So now we grocery shop (at Aldi as much as possible) once a week – so we’re splitting up our monthly budget by the week. It’s helped a LOT. I pick what I’m going to make for the week and get just those items – usually very cheap meals like spaghetti. Do you buy everything you need at the beginning of the month? Obviously you have to go back for some things like bananas etc. For a while I made a lot of lentil soups, but my husband just didn’t feel full and my daughter HATES beans of any sort, which is very unfortunate. She has since she began solids. Do you ever add sausage to your lentil soup to give it even more protein or do you just stick with the beans? Also THANK YOU for all of your hard work.
Jen
Yeah, yikes. All those little non-food items really add up. Our grocery budget of $300 covered non-food things too, but remember, with WIC we are able to do that $300 budget for about $200 cash. I’d assign $50/week for food and $25/week for non-food. Some weeks I’d only spend $5 for toothpaste, but other weeks I’d spend $40 on pull-ups.
We also eliminated as many of the non-food things as possible. We also used cloth diapers, but had to switch to pull-ups when trying to simultaneously potty-train 3 toddlers. We use the cheap white washcloths instead of paper-towels. We use plain white vinegar for cleaning almost everything except potties. We even made our own reusable baby-wipes. Still, with pull-ups, toilet paper, and freaking tampons, I couldn’t get it much lower than $100/month.
Oh, and no, I don’t add sausage to my soups. It sounds delicious but my messed up tummy just can’t handle it.
Best of luck to you and just keep keeping on mama.
Janet
I shop at the Asian for things like rice flour and Asian seasonings and the Mexican markets where I find better buys on fruits and veggies and some pastries. I buy my milk at Brahms where it is anywhere from 50 cents to a $1 cheaper it taste better and last longer. Our Dollar Trees now have bread and buns for $1 instead of $3 and up at wLmart or other stores. I go to the Fresh Market on Tuesdays about 30 miles away to buy ground beef and boneleas skinless chicken nreast for $2.99 a pound and wcery four weeks they run a different dinner special for $20 that would normally cost between $29 and up. I shop the Amish markets for cheese and lunch,eats and the coop for my spices. Friends laugh at me but I have a pantry and freezer that we could eat out of for at least six months if my husband loses his job.
Ruby Julian
Way back nearly 20 years ago, when my son was in elementary school and it went peanut-free, I used to make homemade sunbutter. All it takes is a bag of shelled, roasted sunflower seeds (Aldi has them, but they may actually be cheaper at some place like Big Lots), vegetable oil and some honey. Put the *sunflower seeds in the blender, turn it on to grind things up, slowly drizzle in a couple of tablespoons of oil until it starts looking like sunbutter, and add some honey to sweeten it. Store in a jar in the fridge.
You can rinse the sunflower seeds first if they seem too salty. Be sure to pat them dry-ish on some paper towels. Unsalted ones are kind of hard to find, but a mix of salted and unsalted is pretty much perfect for this.
*Sorry there are no exact measurements, as I’m a seat-of-the-pants kind of cook and would just plunk the whole one-buck bag of sunflower seeds into the blender and drizzle in the oil and honey as we went.
Jen
Thanks! This is awesome. Sunbather is so freaking expensive!
Sha
This is fantastic. We have three kids in college, one in high school and one starting middle school.
The oldest is playing basketball and so he doesn’t pay for school or books, they didn’t mention that he still buys food, toiletries, medicine, etc. and he is not allowed to work.
The next oldest is in college and playing volleyball. She has the same situation but her room and board are not fully covered so that is added to the same expenses as the oldest, but she is also, not allowed to work.
The third oldest is receiving merit aid and is allowed to work but has decided to try to take loans to offset costs we cant help with because she wants to go to medical school and doesn’t want to risk her grades.
Needless to say, we are broke:)
I am a teacher and my husband is medically retired. We try to make sure that the kids can participate in normal adolescent functions, sports, band, etc.
I have not only spent the last hour reading the post and developing it to meet our nutritional restrictions, I have sent it to each one of my children in college to find a way to make it work for them!!! One needs to gain weight, so that will have to be adjusted but this may save us this year.
We don’t qualify for any additional aid for school for the kids so we have to find a way to make it work and I DO NOT want Sallie Mae to come calling when their kids are in college, like she does every month for me (I expect to die with that debt:))
I appreciate your effort, time and detail in creating this and it may be life changing for my family!
Jen
I’m shuttering as I read 3 KIDS IN COLLEGE. But I know I’ll be there before I turn around. Good luck, mama!
virginia tanna
Hi. I feed a family of 8 off $320 per week on my husbands single income. Hat’s off to you! You’re the real deal!
Farrah
Thank you for this. We have been struggling financially this year. And while I try to shop at Aldi, I’ve had a hard time trying to make our budget stretch. I will be using this in a lot of my meal planning. We are a new family of seven — we just had our fifth child five weeks ago.
Jen
Farrah,
Congratulations on your new baby!
Nakisha
Thanks for being so open. I guess we do what we have to do. I was wondering: do you ever think about hormones, antibiotics and pesticides? I’m not asking to be snotty, I’m really seeking to understand how to retrain my brain. I’ve watched enough documentaries & read enough books to be totaled confused. I know what they tell me is best but then I run across blogs like yours when seeking to lower my grocery bill.
I hope to hear back from you.
Jen
Hi Nakisha,
Thanks for your comment and your question. I bet a lot of people are wondering similar things. The truth is I DO think about hormones, anti-biotics, pesticides, as well as general processing and the ratio of carbohydrates to protein. I think about it and I get angry that the safest, most healthful food choices are reserved for those with money. I hear a lot about how people should just take money they’re spending elsewhere and use it to pay for higher quality food. After all, a dollar a pound per chicken costs just a fraction of what future medical bills may cost. However, and this is huge, not all of us have money elsewhere that can be allocated towards organic, free-range, happy food. So, as you said, we do what we have to do. When the choice comes down to purchasing a quart of organic strawberries which would feed my family about 2 berries each, or purchasing 3 quarts of conventional berries for the same price… my “choice” is obvious. I choose to purchase the things that will fill my babies’ bellies. After all, starvation and malnutrition will kill you a hell of a lot faster than pesticides. It isn’t ideal. But, we don’t live in an ideal world. Thanks again for asking… you’ve inspired me to write a post about just this question.
Nakisha
Thanks for taking the time to respond and you’re right…healthly food cost is isane. We keep talking about learning to “grow something”. Take care, I’ll be reading!!
Kandi
This looks like an amazing plan, however we have tons of food allergies. Any suggestions for replacing items containing peanuts, treenuts, dairy and eggs?
Jen
I’m so sorry, no. Thankfully, I haven’t had to deal with that yet.
Jeanne
I am so glad I found this! Over the last 4 months we have been hit with some huge expenses (in the ballpark of $20,000…good-bye savings) for our rental property. We are a family of 6 and I thought we were doing well on a $650 grocery budget. I am going to ask my family to commit to your plan and see if we can shave our budget down. Thank you!
Jen
You are so welcome! I hope it helps, if only as a barebones framework. Best of luck to you!
LeeAnn
I followed her menu and lists and want to share my experience. I’m very happy!
So, I live in Newnan , Ga. Prices here are moderate. I prefer not to shop at Aldi because the one near me has sold me so much spoiled or outdated/unfresh food that I gave up! {I’m so glad you guys have better Aldi’s!!) In order to do my shopping I braved Wal-Mart (I abhor the place but really love savings} and because I am a regular Kroger shopper I knew what I could get cheaper there. I did not check a single sales paper nor use a single coupon. I split the amounts she listed because I wanted to just buy for two weeks rather than a month and my total came out to just 203.00 So, if I was shopping for an entire month it would still only be about $400.00 a month! That drops us down from spending almost 700.00 a month. I talked with my family before this and let them know that we would follow the list EXACTLY and promised them they wouldn’t starve as the plan allows for three savory meals and two filling snacks per day. so far, so good! I have even lost weight because I’m not just grabbing food on the go or packaged crackers for a snack. To the author: Thank you!!!!! You have helped me understand food budgeting much better and look forward to the rest of your blog.
Jen
Yay! I’m glad it worked for you. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.
Heidi Soliman
Wow! Can’t wait to try this. Question: Do you shop only 1 time per month? If not, how often?
Jen
Oh no! Once a week. My fridge isn’t that big.
Heidi Soliman
Thanks for posting a reply! That is great to know, I might try to do it every two weeks, as our closest Aldi is about 35 min drive away. I’ll keep ya posted and see if I can make this work in our new city just outside of Boston (which I read you used to live in!)
Heidi Soliman
AMAZING! THANK YOU! I went to Aldi’s about 30 minutes away from me the greater Boston area… $199 with the bulk of the groceries for the month- with a few extras from the list and a few missing things from the list; the extra $100 difference will be made up with about $25 per week in fresh fruit/veges, milk, and bread that I will buy near my home. I will also need to buy some meat and a few other misc items- my goal is $400 max or less this month; plus I’m stocked with sugar, flour, spices, THIS IS AMAZING! I’ve been spending $700-800 per month with many of the similar foods on this list anyway! bonus, my kids ate ants on a log last night, which they all tried and liked, some more than others (we’re a family of five with three kids six and under).
Some things to note:
-Aldi’s were out of the fresh tortellini, yellow corn flour, and the lentils ($10 missing). I didn’t buy eggs, the waffles (forgot ’em), and milk there.
-special on organic crushed tomatoes, so I stocked up on those and added a few things like fish crackers, Halloween candy, extra cereal, syrup,Kefir milk, etc.
– I only bought two Aldi’s cheese pizzas ($10 difference per month)
– Fresh stuff: Strawberries were $3.49, so I passed on them and went for a cantalope for $2.49. I will be buying more fresh veges/fruit each week (see above).
– Meat: I only bought one package of ground turkey and the salmon. The rest of the meat I’ll buy from the local butcher ($25 max).
Now, the question is: What will we do with the extra $300-400 per month!? YAY!
Kate
Thank you for posting this! We live on a tight budget, and finding other moms meal plan ideas is always SO helpful!!!
Mamabear
I love your budget! I have been trying several different scenarios on a food budget, all of which are driving me nuts! I’m an $89/week budget for a family of 5 (and big appetites). I coupon and I shop sales ads and price match 🙂 I meal plan..etc…This definitely gives me some ideas and helpful hints.
We cook fresh and pack lunches for school and love to eat breakfast! I must start going back to Aldi. Although the price matching really helps 😉
Anyway couple things I do. I make homemade sandwich bread, cornbread, and pizza dough! All off which can be frozen and stored until needed. However, I must grab a loaf or two of french breads…it’s oh so good and only a $1 at Walmart! Makes great toasted sandwiches for me because I’m not a huge eater lol. And might I add, adding a slice of french bread with butter at dinner is a guilty filler 😉
I try to buy up whole turkeys during the winter as much as possible when they are .50/lb or less because you can stretch these SOOOOO far. $9 for 20lbs of turkey?! Yes, please!! Meals, casseroles, lunch meat, soup…mmm. Another, Jennie O’ turkey meat is only $2.49 at Walmart, and to stretch the meat a little further I add cooking oats.
But all in all, I think we could give this a try for a couple months 🙂 Thanks so much!!
Lisa Ward
I read on a different site that you avoid processed foods but yet noticed that you buy an Aldi take and bake pizza, which in reality is a processed food. Did I misunderstand that? or do you mean strictly unprocessed in terms of boxed food?
Jen
Hi Lisa,
I try to avoid most processed foods, but, as I say in this post, I do make exceptions. I have neither the budget, nor the time (with 5 small kids) to eat all whole foods. We do eat Aldi pizza, also the occasional box of mac and cheese, graham crackers, saltines, etc. I just try to strike a balance I’m comfortable with, though I acknowledge that it is not ideal. Good luck!
Heidi Soliman
How annoying is a comment like that? But, you handle it like a pro! Is she just double pointing out that the pizza is not a “whole food” ….chirp, chirp, chirp.
Robin
Hey there!! Thank you! I just read through this and it will help my family very much. I have 7 children, 3 teens, 2 elementry boys (one eats like his oldest teen brother), a kindergartner, and a 2 yr old. Then there is my hubby and myself. We also homeschool so we are home for all our meals. But I am going to use your menu and see how prices pan out when you add more people to the crew. I am sure I can use your method and keep ours at $500 a month…waaaay over that now. I love hillbilly housewife. I have used Maggie’s recipes for years! I also looked at your summer menu! Hoping I can make it work!! Thanks again.
Amanda
How refreshing to stumble across this well written article! As a SAHM of four (ages 2 – 10), I’m constantly trying to lower our ridiculous grocery budget. I’m ashamed to admit that it’s been about $1000 per month for quite some time! Eek! But now that my husband’s hours have been drastically cut (oil field), I’m desperate to make it finally work! Granted, that $1000 includes all toiletries and paper products, and 3 school lunch bills. We don’t have an Aldi’s or Costco in South Texas, but I use digital coupons and the HEB store deals to save about $80 per month. I hope to get our grocery bill as close to your $300 bill as I can! Thank you for sharing! I’m going to stalk the rest of your blog now!!! Lol 😉
Heidi Soliman
At the local grocery store, its possible if u buy the sales and bulk up– and generic of everything. I have to admit, its nearly impossible to beat Aldi’s prices, but I bet you could get somewhere close to it! If you are out in ND oil fields, say hi to my family & friends!
Heather
Hi there! I love this post! Thank you so much for sharing and giving hope to us other momma’s that shopping on a budget is possible! I was wondering if you could share more of the recipes for a mom (me) who isn’t as creative to find one or try to make it up, like with the chocolate chip muffins, how do you make your spaghetti sauce? and turkey meat sauce, black bean soup?
Thank you so much for being a blessing to many and helping others out! More posts like this would be so welcomed 🙂
Maureen
You. Are. Remarkable.
I also live in Western Canada (Edmonton) but have a son who has lived in NYC and now London UK. I surprisingly have found the food prices almost exactly the same in all 3 cities!
Your family is a delight.
Ariel Hatch
Ok just gotta say, you are so cool. As soon as I read “I’m not a great cook. I don’t even play one on my blog” I was sold. Not only am I not a great cook, but I love that second bit. 🙂 I get exhausted trying to ‘prove’ how awesome I am at homemaking! For people dropping by, or facebook friends or blog readers or anything. I have no clue what I’m doing. (With a four year old, a two year old and a baby on the way…bless their souls.) But I do enjoy getting inspired from other people online, who seem to have living frugally down pat! And if it’s presented in an easy-to-imitate, not-way-out-of-my-reach since I still am trying to figure out how to not burn microwave popcorn? Hurray!!
Linnea
You have given me inspiration. I am alone now and on a very strict budget and if you can do it for 7 I can really tackle this for one!
Kristina
Hi! I am very happy to have found this post! I printed your menu, and grocery list, replaced the few things my kids won’t eat, and have made my grocery list. Very excited. We have always been broke, and lived robbing peter to pay paul, but now starting in January, it will be far worse, as I have lost my job. So I am just all excited about this post!
I am writing because I wanted to ask you if you have recipes for the salmon croquettes, and the lentil drop soup. They sound good to me, but I have no idea how to make them. I’m a good cook, but don’t want to make it all up, if I don’t have to. 🙂
The only other thing was the muffins, but I figure I can use any muffin recipe, you think?
Thanks again for all the work you’ve done and shared. I’m really hoping it can help me right now, and am so grateful.
Kristina
Kristina
Hi again! Found your earlier comment about where to find the soup recipe! So now I’m just stuck on the salmon. 🙂
Karen
What recipe do you use for the banana muffin? You have inspired me to try to save money so we can help our daughter with college tuition. I’m not a great cook so we mostly buy prepackaged junk but most of your menu looks manageable.
Heather Shields
I drove an hour away today to ship at aldi so I could replicate your plan. It is all things that we eat as a family of 7 and I’m super excited to try it. I do have a few questions though.
Eggs. We did this as a 2 week plan to test it out so halved all the grocery items. For 2 weeks you have 3 dozen eggs. For our family of 7 when I scramble eggs I make a dozen eggs, so if I count that and 1 egg for each person for each snack/meal/egg salad you have listed that comes to 36 eggs bought, and 66 eggs needed. This isn’t even counting the eggs needed to bake muffins, cook pancakes, etc. That’s a pretty large discrepancy. Can you explain how you divvy up the eggs in these different meals/snacks.
Same question for the fruit. There should be bananas used for just plain eating for about 6 meals, plus bananas for muffins. But there’s only about 8 bananas in the 2 weeks worth of produce. How do you divvy these up?
Same for potatoes. How many potatoes do you use for baked potatoes, roast chicken.
Thank you!
Jen
Oh my goodness, Heather! You are right! I totally botched the eggs! I’m so sorry. Does it make any difference that among thousands of people you are the first to notice/point it out to me? I just forgot to double the amount for the month. It’s actually 6 dozen for the menu one time through. Thank you! So I guess it just became a $310 menu. Not such a nice round number. Damn.
As far as the bananas go, I don’t know what to say… Perhaps our bananas are smaller? I need 6 bananas for muffins for 2 weeks, we split one banana among two bowls of cereal for breakfast, so that’s about 3 (I don’t eat bananas ?) and the rest is as it appears. I just bought 12 bananas yesterday and my receipt says 1.81lbs of bananas. Hmmm… I do tend to choose smaller bananas because I have small children. The potatoes: I use 2 (cut up) for roast chicken and 7 for baked potatoes. That’s about one 5lb. bag give or take. Does that come out right?
Heather Shields
Haha that makes much more sense! I came home and printed out a menu. Started boiling eggs for snacks and egg salad and that’s when I figured out the math. I thought it was best to go straight to the source for my questions. 😉
The potatoes sound about right. We’ve done one night of baked potatoes and the whole roasted chicken with potatoes and have about half the bag left. Enough for 2 more baked potato meals, I’d say.
Even with the numbers being slightly less round this meal plan has literally saved us! It’s cut our grocery budget more than in half while keeping every belly satisfied, and gives us a little financial breathing room, which is a huge relief! I can’t thank you enough for all the time and effort you’ve put into the post, the plan, the list, and answering the many follow up questions.
From one passionate penny pincher to another <3
Dezarae
So, it get that the menu gets repeated for a whole 30 days worth. But do I double the grocery list? So it’s actually $620/month??
Jen
Nope. Just the one list for the whole month. Although, it was pointed out to me recently that I forgot to double the amount of eggs needed. So you need double the eggs and that will increase your price a little. I’m not sure where you are, but here in Nashville, eggs are $0.49 a dozen at Aldi. So it doesn’t make that much of a $$ difference.
Hope that helps!
Jen
No. You don’t double the list, though I messed up the eggs and you should buy twice as many of those!
Nicole
I rarely comment on these, but I have to say I am impressed. My first thought was that you probably bought a lot of processed food, and clearly you do not.
I feed our family of 6 (7 on weekends. :)) on about $600/mo including all toiletries. I thought I was doing pretty well there with my couponing. I also cook/purchase similar items to your menu, but you actually have more variation! My issue is finding the motivation and time to think out the meal plans, although I’m great at coming up with meals that use whatever is left in the fridge.
I guess the answer is Aldi and some meal prep. 🙂 Thanks!
Anonymous
Try feeding people on a social worker salary, about twenty grand a year less than a teacher salary. I am so sick and tired of hearing about how poorly paid teachers are when there are whole categories of people with college degrees who make a LOT less money. Even adjunct faculty at the local state college barely make minimum wage while local elementary teachers are around 50K a year. Probation officers are another group who are way more poorly paid than teachers and just as educated. And what about people who never got around to going to college or went to college but can only find steady work in fast food or poorly paid service industry jobs? Teacher salaries and benefits sound really good to them@! It is very off putting to hear someone complaining that she has to budget because she is living on a ‘teacher’s salary’. I think the only people who get teary eyed over that are teachers and people who make six figures and feel guilty over it. The rest of us po’ folks are not real impressed.
Jen
Dear Anonymous,
Here’s my reply, click to read.
“I’m not gonna travel 10,000 miles to fight other poor people”
Gabrielle
You rock! We have two sets of twins; 3 and 5 ( who eat a lot??) and a 23 year old who visits on the weekend ( and cooks all his meals for the week here). I love your menu). I love Aldi. Everyone has great suggestions. Our kids’ fave meal is lentil tacos ( allrecipes). I’m also lucky to have a local market with marked down produce and deli ends ( 3 lbs of meat for $1.50- count me in and bonus- I’m learning to love the more esoteric deli sections like olive loaf). We also keep chickens ( for eggs) and I make much of our bread. I love your blog and thank you, the menu plan is terrific!
Cassie
…I have a family of five (2 adults, 3 kids ages 6 and under), and we aren’t even paying for all our meat (very generous mother in law who gives us some of the beef she raises) and I’m having a hard…HARD time getting a grocery budget in place.
we don’t eat out, i make bread from scratch, we don’t buy any boxed foods, or ‘heat and eat’ foods, we don’t buy much juice…i even make my own crackers and tortillas.(and no kool-aid or any of the instant yuck). i buy what dried goods i can in bulk (flour in 50# bags(14.40) oatmeal and rice in 10# and larger bags from local amish stores.(definitely cheaper than buying it by the pound in a large retailer, I’ve priced it out per ounce lol) I make big batches of food so I don’t have to cook a full meal at every meal…
i still have a hard time keeping it under 600-700 a month, and that just won’t do… where am i going wrong?
Sadie
Can I PLEASE get the recipe for the Salmon Croquettes? It sounds great, but I have no idea how to make it. Do you use fresh or canned Salmon?
Laurel
I have to say this blog post and the related sites mentioned are a God send. We like many hard working one income families with small children rely on SNAP benefits, and I know there is a lot of self shame in this, compounded by the small budget we have to work with. This gives me hope that it is doable and that I’m not the only one dealing with this challenge. Thanks for sharing and giving me hope.
Bonnie
I have been reading ‘money saving’ or ‘eating on a budget’ blogs for many years and this is the best post I have seen on how to eat real food…I started to say ‘on a budget’ but this is the best food post I’ve read ever. We have a large family as well and many people ask us how we feed them all. I just say that oatmeal, brown rice, frozen veggies, and actual serving size portions of meat are not expensive. Thank you!
Heidi Soliman
Second month to shop at Aldi’s about 30 min out of Boston. I had a HUGE overflowing cart of food for $190. I will make two more stops at the grocery store in the next 4 weeks and I’m hoping to get by with $50 each time to make this month at $400 again. Even with that, our bill was ranging anywhere between 600-800, so this is a great savings! Thanks again~
Julia
While using meal planning to save money isn’t a new idea at all, and cooking like a peasant is a time-tested way to feed large families for cheap, it’s inspiring to see a real life example of how to carry out this strategy on a day-to-day and monthly basis.
Hillary
I truly appreciate this! I’ve been slowly trying to encourage my husband that I can do a lot with a little while he leaves the Air Force and sets off to try the brave world of college. You are totally helping me prove my point! Thanks for the ideas!!
Heather
I always feel a bit crushed when I read posts like this and realize just how far out of our reach they are. Half our house has Celic Disease, so it just isn’t possible to get food that cheap. A small loaf of gf bread (about 2/3 the size of a normal loaf) is, at best, $5 a loaf. A box of GF crackers (again, smaller than a box of regular crackers) is about $4. A 12 oz. box of GF pasta is $2-3. We finally found GF tortellini the other day. It is about $6ish for a package that can really only feed two people. This is all shopping at Winco, which is the absolute cheapest store in our area (no Aldi in the NW) for as much of the food as we can (some specialty gf items aren’t available there). Throw in the fact that half the house is also lactose-intolerant (ironically, not the same half, only one person is both) and lactose-free milk is, at it’s very cheapest, just over $6 a gallon! It’s hard to realize that it just isn’t possible to eat that cheaply for us. I do my best to keep it as cheap as possible, but there is only so much you can do with food intolerances.
Sula
The trick to cheap eating with food intolerances is……….don’t replace the food with substitutes. Don’t buy gf breads, crackers, pasta. Don’t buy dairy free milk. Eat completely differently. Eat more cheap tolerated foods like beans, lentils, veggies for snacks, water, tea, etc.
Anonymous
That is exactly what i was thinking
lost in colorado
So I have been trying to find some good healthy foods and these sound amazing. There is some that we have never tried so it’s going to be interesting but I’m willing to give it a go. I was wondering on some of the recipes where they are coming from so I can make them correct, I’ve been trying to look them up online but some pop up many and not sure which one you used to fit the budget. I know you said you were trying to do the recipes online and wasn’t sure if this ever happened, if so can you please send me the link? Also I’m not a huge fan of fish or seafood for that matter do you have a way of making it taste better?
Tara
I love this. I have been all over the internet looking for sample meal plans, but most of them are things that sound great, but my children just will not eat. All of this is the types of foods we eat and things I actually can make! Lol. Thank you for such a wonderful post!
Milda
Hello Jen,
Thanks so much for sharing this. Could you perhaps post a link to your summer meal plan?
Many thanks,
Milda
Heather Escamilla
I would like a link for the summer menu also!!
annika
I absolutely love this post. I am always looking for ways to cut back on food. Now i have three little girls not yet in school and i am a sahm. So we only have my husbands income. Now he works really hard and at the end of the day we dont always have enough to buy a lot of food. We do have a large stock of beans and rice and canned veggies and fruit that we buy at the begining of the year that we dip into when times are even tighter than usual. However we usually do pretty good because i usually by basic staples like flour and cornmeal and baking good so i make most things from scratch…tho not always easy because of my little one running around all the time 🙂 i also have a garden that i get a lot of veggies from when they come into season. So we make do and eat very simply and my girls dont know the difference. But thank you for some other ideas i hadnt even thought about.
Bella
absolutely LOVE your raw honest, totally YOU blog! thank you for being ‘real’ xo
Yolande Millar
Hi, I’ve just read your post as circumstances have forced me to change the way we eat and shop….And I love it. I haven’t mastered it yet and week 2 has blown my budget, but we are giving it a go and I am impressed about how well the kids have taken to the new meal plan.
Sandy
we have a family of seven as well, I can’t believe you took the time out to share this with all of us! I am literally going to copy what you did exactly! Thank you so much for this! I shop at aldi as well, and have never had this much luck! You’re literally the best!!! <3
Leslie
Do you make your banana muffins from scratch? If so, how do you have time and what is your recipe?
Bethany Seidel
Do you buy the banana muffins already made or are the ingredients to make them from scratch in the list? I don’t see a link to a recipe so I just found one but was curious what recipe you used. Thanks!
Celeste
Great menu, I needed this!
Jen
Interesting Gail. I’m not sure how you got that from this blog post (was it the WIC? Did you not read that my husband was recently unemployed?). What on earth, would give you the ability to judge me and “many others just like me”? Have we met? How could you possibly know how many there are “just like me”?
I wrote a blog post about an affordable monthly menu for a large family. I’m sorry that you are desperate to spread your message (what is it exactly?) that you’d use that platform to try to shame me or anyone else. You know, they say whatever you judge is the thing you are most insecure about yourself. Best of wishes.
Melissa
This is great!
We eat a lot of the same things around here.
Unlike a meal plan, I usually try and buy only sale items and price match competitors at Wal-Mart.
Some of the things you listed I find cheaper as sale items
It also adds variety to purchase whatever is on sale.
We prefer dried beans over canned Dollar tree has 12oz or 16 oz bags of black and kidney
Pinto is $1 for two pounds!!!
I’ve price matched these things recently:
Pineapple-$1
8oz sargento shreds-$ 1.49
8 ct gogurt- .99 ( we usually just buy a tub)
Canteloupe- $1
Peaches: .99/lb
Apples: .69/lb
Bananas .38/lb
Canned veggies (a rarity around here- frozen is bought usually but I love peas from a can lol)- 3/$1
Rice- 1.99- 5lbs
10 lb chicken quarters- 2.79
10 lb potatoes- 1.99
Ground beef- 1.99
Boneless skinless thighs- .99c/lb
Pork chops (bone in) .99c/lb
1 lb cauliflower -.79c
Bri
Are there recipes for this menu?
Jennifer Roland
Thank you for all of the tips! My ex-husband just decided to stop paying child support and it definitely threw us off financially but with help from your blog and the book that you posted about, I’m sure we won’t have to starve! Thank you again! I look forward to reading through the rest of your blog 🙂
Brandy
Thank you for this. We are trying to get our grocery bill under control. I am excited to try your plan.
Liz
This was a very interesting article. As a mom of seven kids I’m always on the lookout for ways to save money on food. My one concern with your menu is the low protein content. I added up the protein in all the moderate to high protein foods (I did not calculate the protein in, say, celery). Anyway, it amounts to just 24.2g of protein per person per day. Assuming the protein in the produce, flour, and so on add another 5-10g per person per day it’s still low. It’s fine for preschool or even elementary age children but it’s not enough for the older kids or adults. Of course this is assuming the food is divided equally seven ways. If the younger kids are getting smaller portions they might not be getting enough protein. An adult woman needs around 46g and an adult man 56g. Teens, especially if they’re doing sports or are very active, may need even more than this (these numbers are for sedentary people). We use very inexpensive meats like chicken drumsticks and pork shoulders to up our protein without spending much.
Liz
I’m also wondering about the fat content. On a 2000 calorie a day diet an adult needs at least 44g of fat per day and can have a little over 70g if they would like. On a 1600 calorie diet at least 36g of fat are needed. It’s very important for growing children to have enough fat in their diet. Although I have to estimate the fat content of some of your foods, such as mac and cheese, since I don’t know the specific brand the average daily fat intake on this diet hovers around 25g and this is assuming you’re using every bit of the oil each month which you’ve mentioned lasts you more than a month.
(Please don’t think I’m just nitpicking all this, I really do like this article I’ve just found myself thinking about it and the nutritional content!)
DAV
Omg so awesome and such a blessing. Family of 6 here with a set of twins in the middle. Thanks so much for your time and dedication in sharing!
Kisha
Just a quick tip I was looking at ur prices and have a tip for you if you go to Walmart and buy ur eggs can save a little more they have a 5 dozen of eggs for $5 something it is a little cheaper then buying 6 1 dozen eggs
Crystal
I just stumbled upon this post as I was pulling my hair out about my budget and it’s going to be a lifesaver for me. I’m wondering if you have your recipes for the things you cook from scratch that I could use? I’m a pretty good cook, but I like to follow a recipe. Especially when I’m working from a well planned shopping list.
Tabitha Hidalgo
These are great suggestions. My biggest issue is we have a lot of food allergies. No beta-carotene for one child (anything orange, red and some green), no egg for another and we have to be careful with the milk/cheese consumption because of allergies. But definitely talking to my husband about a 14 day meal rotation.
Rachael Cramer
I love this and it is JUST what I was looking for. We are a single income family, 2 adults and 2 littles so I am always trying to cut back on things. My only question is, how do you keep everything fresh? I shop Aldi a lot, but I can’t even make it a week before produce starts rotting and maybe a week and a half before the bread starts getting moldy. I want so badly to not have to shop every single week. Tips? Tricks? Thank you im advance!!
Jen
Yep. That’s the trade-off with Aldi. I do shop every week. Blech. Sorry I don’t have any good news on that front!
Kerri
Rachael – I put my bread in the freezer or refrigerator to make it last longer! I still shop weekly for fresh fruit and vegetables – but it’s a much shorter trip since that’s all I need!
Cortney Mooney
Hey there! Love what you have done. I know this was a while ago now that you posted this. But could I see or get your summer recipe to feed such a large family. I currently am a family of 7 and could really benefit from your example. Thank you so much in ascance and good luck in the future with your beautiful family. 🙂
Blaire
Hi, Jennifer–
How often do you go grocery shopping? Weekly or every two weeks? Produce is something we need to shop for on a bi-weekly basis. Thanks!
Christine
This post has been a big help to me. I used it last winter and came back to revisit it today while looking ahead to the fall menu change. I have 15 children, 10 still at home (17-3yrs) and a neighbor lady who moved in with us last year who lost her job and apartment after an injury. My husband was semi out of work all of 2016–found work at a factory at night for a couple months and did some free-lance programming when he could, while he looked for something full-time. Your ideas not only helped when we hardly had a food budget, but also after we had income again, to minimize groceries and maximize paying last year’s debt.
Thank you for your good humor and kindness. Keep up your determination to nourish your dear ones’ hearts and spirits in addition to their bellies. I wish you a winter full of courage and joy.
Elisa
GOD BLESS YOU for writing all this up. THANK YOU. I’m doing it. Hard core. We have some future financial hardship coming up and this is a blessing. Thanks again. Please don’t erase your blog ever. =)
Elizabeth B.
Jen-
Just stumbled upon your blog. Thanks for sharing such a wealth of information. So I’m starting to do cutbacks in our budget and I think your share of $200-$300/month for a family of six is amazing..We’re a family of five. My husband, who is German, and very frugal, seems to think that making bread would be cheaper…wanted to know if you had any experience with this in your budget…is it more of a headache ? Or not?
Things like that to me, take too much time, and for $1 something a loaf, I’d rather buy…would love to know your thoughts.
Thanks again for a well-written blog for families.
Elizabeth
Heather
If you buy your eggs from Wal-Mart you can get 5 dozen for around $4. We are lucky enough to be able to raise our own chickens for eggs and meat which saves us. We feed 7 on about 400 a month. Not because we don’t have the extra money for a grocery budget but because I choose to and we eat all whole foods no bread or pasta or even pizza because Of food allergies in our household.
Amanda
Thank you for this. I went to Aldie in my area and am trying to use this. I found that both the chilli and lentil soup call for diced tomatoes but that is not on the grocery list? What is the tomato paste, crushed tomatoes and mushrooms for?
Amber
Thank you, Thank you. WE recently been reduced to only $220 a month for food, all money we make goes directly to paying off bills. We get wic. Your menu planning is perfect and real food, real meals my family will eat. i switched a food things but prices are all about the same. Except we ave been able to shop at a bent and dent sotre where eggs are .78cents a dozen and can food 4 for $1 type pricing. Though meat is high I able to sometime score department markdowns. I so so happy I not as stressed this month making our food last. Keep posting I am now a follow of your blog. Thanks to pinterest.
Gretchen
Hi! Just ran across this post while looking for good ways to budget and feed our family well. WOW! I’m impressed with your meals and your ability to do all of that within that budget!
I was wondering how often you shop? Weekly, bi-weekly or monthly? I’m thinking more along the lines of veggie and fruit freshness.
Thanks! =)
Denise
I just started a blog. I was wondering if I could share a link to this. It saved my sanity and kept my children fed (very well I might add). So, even though I have no traffic yet I wanted to ask for the future.
Jen
Absolutely! I’m so sorry I was so slow to respond. Holiday craziness!
Diane
Great ideas! Even if your household numbers are higher or lower your menu gives people a great example on how they can plan out their menu according to their families needs!
Tami
I’m excited to try out this meal plan next month and see if my family can survive the month with this budget! Our food costs have skyrocketed lately, and I think it’s mostly due to poor planning. My only question is this–does your family of 7 really get by with ONE cheese pizza for dinner? My family of 7 will eat 3 whole pizzas in one meal, and I can’t have wheat so I don’t eat any of it (so it’s really a family of 6 eating it…)!
Jen
They did a couple years ago when I first posted this! Now it does take 2 pizzas. ?
Jessica
With the holidays behind us my family is now back to being broke and in desperate need of bringing some frugality into our lives. I love how “real” this is. I’m so tired of looking up easy, cheap ways to feed a big family only to click on something and find it reads like a gourmet cook book. Thank you for this! I’m going to Aldi’s tonight and will see how closely I can mirror your menu. Thank you!
Jen
Good luck! I must say, I was informed that I forgot to double the amount of eggs. Whoops! I wish you well. Feeding a family on a shoe string is tricky, but not impossible!
Joelle
YES Love your post too . . .and your humor is refreshing!! I am mama to seven, ages 1-20 (yep same hubby of 21 years- people ask!!). We are TALL and very athletic. I’m not joking when I say my 11 year old daughter with six-pack abs and no fat whatsoever eats 3 turkey burgers per meal, along with baked potatoe and veggie. All this to say . . . it seems that people here are CONSTANTLY hungry. They come home from school and eat (again no exaggeration) 1/2 cup peanutbutter onto an apple. This is BEFORE dinner is served! Okay . . .my rant is to ask for advice really, because they pack their own lunches, we’ve gotten into the bad habit of having so many pre-packaged snacks for them. It’s just easier. I don’t have time to home-bake their snacks/lunch filler items. And I honestly believe that snacks are the bulk of our budget some weeks. I also love your low meat menu. Not only healthy, and environmentally friendly- but cheaper. Thanks again for posting and for the challenge!!!! Have a great week!
Pamela
I am going to try your plan I have only my self my 21 year old daughter and my 2 1/2 yr old grand daughter to feed. Honestly, there is no way we can get those items at your prices.We live in central Florida and i can assure you that our food costs
are,conservativly at least1/3 higher than you list. That would bring our budget to 450.00. Going to try it so i dont have to think aboutwhat to cook. Ill let you know how i come out. Thanks for the tips.
Melody Mae
I am always searching the internet for recipe ideas & ways to save money while making them. I love to cook but since my sister & her family has moved in with us, it’s not economical to “go all out” trying new recipes with a lot of ingredients. I sure appreciate this breakdown. I noticed many of the grocery items you have listed are half the price I pay here in South Dakota…especially for fresh produce. But recycling ingredients & rotating the meal plan is genius. I started my own plan based on the 9 of us now living here. I’ve developed a strategy of switching “themes” each month which helps us. This way we can buy the same ingredients in bulk but use them in different ways for each meal. For example, this month we are using lots of rice, beans, canned tomatoes, tortillas, cheese, spices etc. for a lot of Mexican dishes. I have on the menu: soft & hard shell tacos, chicken enchiladas, burritos, nachos, taco salads, tortilla soup, chili, ndn tacos, posole with fry bread…& other staples like bread, eggs, milk etc. I’ve been giving pb&j for afterschool snack & since all the youngsters are in school I don’t worry about breakfast. They catch the bus before the sun comes up, as we live in the country, & they eat breakfast at school as well as lunch. I’ve managed to work off of a $520 budget for the 9 of us so far. I’m still pricing things in the store for bargains & cheap buys. Thank you for your ideas.
Becky
Thank you so much for this! We have a family of 7 as well. My kids are 13, 10, 7, 5, and 3. My grocery bill is getting ridiculous. I love to cook, so I instantly loved how adaptable this menu is! So easy to switch out spices and sauces to jooj it up and make it less repetitive, while keeping the same costs and ideas.
Sara
Thank you for this. We are broke too and can barely afford to keep food in our fridge. We are a family of 5 and get wayyy less Snap benefits then $4/ person per day. But I am greatly for what we do get. I don’t buy any junk food or processed food except for the occasional snacks and crackers for the kids. I’m really curious though, with 7 people, how do you get 2 meals out of one 5 pound chicken? Do you just use the bones of the chicken for soup the next day?
Jlynnanne
This is an incredible help. The ideas are great and so is the list of pricing since I’m lucky enough to have an aldis by me. Thank you and your family it’s beautiful.
Jen
Oh yay! I hope it helps!
Kristina McGrath
Just wanted to say, we did your plan for a year, mostly religiously, and it really is a huge help. we took this past summer off, as our eating in the summer is so different from yours, and i wasn’t able to tweak it to fit. but now in the winter, and we’ve been intermittently out of work, and it is a very stressful time. No money for groceries for two weeks, so i scrounged the cabinets and got creative, and then said, hey! time to get back to Jen’s aldi plan! print it up! this must be your most popular blog post to date. Thanks again!
Jen
Wow! I’m so glad it’s helped you! Thanks for letting me know.
Elizabeth
I stumbled on this menu plan searching for “minimalist” meal planning. I think it is absolutely GREAT. It is very kind of you to take the time to do it, and to list the groceries. I love that it is super basic food that kids will eat. Also, we’re lucky enough to have a CSA share, and your comment about this makes me realize how I need to take full advantage and max it out (hand-picking all of the optional stuff at the farm rather than just picking up the standard share, and of course, and not wasting any of it due to poor planning on my part). Best wishes to you and your family. PS My daughter is an accomplished singer-songwriter (age 11) and the only musician in our family, so I am very interested to see you and your husband’s background. It’s a world completely foreign to me!
Whitney
How many boxes of mac and cheese are you using for each meal?
Jen
Well, when I wrote the menu in 2015, it was 1. Now my littlest are 5 so it’s 2!
Barbara
This is an awesome plan!! We are a family of 5 although, our oldest is off th law school, my 19 year old works so he doesn’t eat dinner with us nightly. So mostly it’s just our daughter, my husband, and I. We have been spending $1500 easily per month!!! This is going to be great to cut our grocery bill down. My question is how often do you go grocery shopping weekly, bi-weekly etc… Thanks for sharing!!
Amanda
This is amazing. Having a family of five (with two growing middle schools boys and one middle school girl) shopping on a budget that is fulfilling and tasty has been difficult. Gosh, I wish we had an Aldi’s. I love to cook, so this is going to be fun for us.
Thank you!!!!
Kim
Hey! I just wanted to tell you that this is a life saver. Our grocery budget went from $640 to $320 and we have 6 kids. I’m a sahm and homeschool and while I’m great at keeping a tight food budget, I’ve been googling how to make this work with 2 teenagers! I came across your site and felt a sigh of relief. I know I can do this (I love Aldi!). Your recipes are wonderful and simple and right along the lines of the types of foods we already eat (beans/lentils/rice). Thank you!
Brooklyn Woods
Just bought your pdf cookbook! We are a family of 7 as well! Do you have an expected date for the release of your Summer cookbook?
Stephanie
How do we get the cookbook?
Ann
Hello! I am divorced and a parent of 3 ages 11 1/2, 10, and 8 1/2. I myself am 33 years old and being a young single parent is very hard financially and emotionally so thank you very much for this wonderful article. There is an Aldi about 45 mins away from me (I live in the country) but I think I will be shopping there from now on. ☺️