Could I manage

nun69

nun69

New member
groceries and feeding a family of 6 on roughly $500 a month? I would also like to be able to make lunches for Matt and the kids (so 4 people, DH, 12, 7 and 6 y/o).....if I can hook me up with some ideas.....

things I know that are cheap to make:
Spaghetti
Meatloaf and Potatoes
Grilled Cheese
Tacos
Rotiesseire Chicken (in crockpot)
Chicken and Dumplings (mashed potatoes)


but other than that, I just can't think and I really really want to try very hard to be able to do this, so I can eventually quit working and be avaialble for all the kids in school and eventually open my own photogrpahy business.....help me out girls!!!
 
I think that'd be really quite a stretch. Most basic budgets say to allocate $100 per person per month for groceries. It depends on how much people eat and how much time you can put into couponing, stockpiling, etc. to get the best deals
 
Angie, you are so brave!!!
Here's a few things I do to stretch our budget - We do my own version of Chicken Marsala over penne. It's about 10 oz of meat for the 4 of us plus one serving left over for lunch. I just use the Campbell's Chicken Marsala packet with cut up piece of chicken and then thin it down with chicken stock and a little Marsala cooking wine. Add in some onions and mushrooms served over penne and it's about $5 for the 4 of us for dinner.

If you make a whole chicken (which is regularly less than $1/pound here) you can roast a few at a time and then use the meat for a meal, left overs for lunch and boil the bones with a little celery, onion and carrots to make stock. Use that to make soup for another mean. Just add some left over veggies and noodles or a can of tomatoes and some chili seasoning plus a can of green chilis and you have tortilla soup. I'm sure Pinterest has a million chicken soup recipes and variations. Soup with a sandwich is an easy dinner!

If you make your own pizza crust, homemade pizza is pretty darn cheap.

I started making my own spaghetti sauce using a Marina in the crock pot recipe I found on Pinterest. I use one 105 oz can of crushed tomatoes, one onion and some herbs from my garden and I end up with 5 dinners worth of spaghetti/pizza sauce. It freezes great and it's super simple to just add meat and a little cottage cheese to make ziti, or put it over meatballs for subs, etc.

Red beans and sausage (I just soak the beans overnight, put them in the crockpot with water and a little chicken stock) and then put in onion and some cut up polish sausage and cook all day. Serve over rice.

Impossible Cheeseburger Pie - for 6 people 1 lb of meat is fine, you could add some carrots or another veggie to take it more filling.

Here's a page (here)that has 15 dinners for $1.50 or less a serving. I think if you shopped smart or cut back on the meat you could do most of these cheaper.

If you can get cheap pork shoulder or butt roast (usually in Florida I see these around holidays) you can put it in the crockpot with paprika, garlic, brown sugar, salt, pepper and let it go all day. You then add BBQ sauce and you have pulled pork. I just freeze dinner sized portions from what is left and I've done individual portions for hubs and I to have for lunch.

Black beans (done in the crock pot) and rice with a little diced chicken and salsa for the top.
Pancakes and turkey bacon
Sausage gravy over biscuits
Stuffed baked potatoes - go veggie with brocoli and cheese, or put chili in there (great for left over chili you freeze), fill with sloppy joes, chopped steak with mushrooms, onions and alittle cheese (like a philly cheese steak).
Home made mac and cheese with little bits of ham or sausage in it.
 
Ok, I know this may seem anti-budget... but actually eating out can be budget friendly sometimes. Figure out which local places have kids-eat-free nights and only eat out on those nights.

As for packing lunches on a budget, packing homemade soup in a thermos container with a chunk of cheese, fruit and/or bread is a cheap meal.
 
YepBrook said:
Ok, I know this may seem anti-budget... but actually eating out can be budget friendly sometimes. Figure out which local places have kids-eat-free nights and only eat out on those nights.

As for packing lunches on a budget, packing homemade soup in a thermos container with a chunk of cheese, fruit and/or bread is a cheap meal.
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never even thought about this Brooke!!!!! and my kids would actually LOVE to have soup in their lunches.....I am just gaugin $500 a month, but wonder if anywhere between $500-$700 is feasible......
 
Stop buying canned beans and buy them dry.

Oatmeal for breakfast, from the big can, add brown sugar and fruit. Much cheaper than cereal.

We buy meat when it's on sale and repackage it how we are going to use it before freezing it. Cooked ground beef, cooked and shredded chicken, marinated raw chicken, etc.

We do about $400 for a family of 4, but I don't try as hard to save money as I used to because I shop with small kids.
 
I'm trying to think of the stuff my mom used to feed us when she was trying to stretch the budget. First, she grew a lot of stuff in our garden which saved a lot (especially if you grow it from seed). 1 zucchini plant can feed an army. Then we ate stuff like lasagna (which is good because it can work for more than one meal -- though maybe not in your big family!), franks & beans (does anyone eat that anymore?), breakfast for dinner, eggplant parmesan, chicken cacciatori. Yes my mom is Italian. :)
 
and I am definetely going to try to start buying my meat on sale, cooking it and freezing it...I did this awhile back with some veggies (peppers, onions and such) and it lasted me about 2 months and it was awesome to just grab something for stir fry or when I was frying up hamburger or chicken on the stove...
 
Also, rice dishes (fried rice, casseroles with rice, etc.)

I've heard that some people think a bread maker is a good investment, especially if your family eats a lot of bread. You could also use it to make pizza dough.
 
Cut out meat as much as possible. Its expensive. Use lots of filler stuff like veggies, legumes and starches to make up for it. Chilies and soups are cheap and filling. Make everything twice the size and freeze half for later. Making everything from scratch is cheaper, too, takes more time though.
 
Do you have a warehouse-type store like Costco or Sam's Club near you? We used to be members at one, and I remember the prices for produce, meat, and lots of other things being very good. We let our membership go because it was back when our kids were much younger and we didn't go through things quickly enough to justify buying in bulk, but I bet we would do well there now, and your family is bigger than ours.
 
Definitely making your own bread saves a lot of money (buy bread flour and yeast at Sam's Club if you can...so much cheaper than the regular grocery store). I prefer baking it in the oven over a bread maker but that may just be me and a warning...homemade bread always went so much faster in our household than store bought bread. As soon as it came out of the oven there were chunks being torn out of it and gobbled down.

Breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, eggs and toast, cheese omelets, biscuits and gravy. Nobody in my family ever complained about breakfast for dinner.

Oatmeal and farina (cream of wheat) are great filling breakfasts. I'm not a fan of grits but if your household will eat them that would work as well. Also PB&J or toast with peanut butter and a banana.

I buy the big can of tomato sauce from Sam's Club (equals about 7 regular cans) and make marinara sauce and freeze it...I usually pull out a cans worth and make pizza sauce as well. Homemade pizza can be really cheap too, especially if you make the crust. You can get quite a few pizzas out of a $3 package of pepperoni, onion and green pepper are cheap toppings as well.

Buy whole chickens and learn to butcher them. A whole chicken costs slightly more than the cost of the chicken breasts you get out of them. Plus you get the legs and wings and you can make broth out of the carcass (DH cut up two chickens last weekend and I got about 5 quarts of broth...at $2 a quart that saves a lot of money!). I'm also a fan of rotisserie chickens...usually smaller but also cheaper than a whole uncooked chickens, and an easy solution for dinner.

Also, after big holidays look for deals on turkeys and hams. I bought a turkey last January for .12 a lb, and a ham after easter for .39 a lb. I try to keep lots of meet on a ham bone and use it for a big pot of beans. To me that's the best part of getting a ham. Plus you can freeze the beans to use for later meals as well, I always serve it with cornbread when I first cook it and then use the leftovers for soups and burritos mainly.

Use the internet...I've spent so much time searching frugal recipes...there are tons of resources out there to help you.

LOL didn't mean to write a book. I've had way too much experience with a miniscule grocery budget. Good luck with everything, Angie. To me it's been worth every sacrifice we've had to make to be able to stay home with my daughter.
 
It depends too on how much your 12-yo eats! :D Cheyanne can pack away a lot of food - it amazes me that she is still thin! I'm so glad she is back in school tomorrow because keeping enough food in the house during the summer is stretching my budget!

You can make some of your meat meals meatless - like spaghetti sauce, chili (I make mine with 3 beans, peppers, onions and just make it a thicker sauce (sometimes I even add cooked brown rice to give it a meatier texture). We make a lot of Mexican food meatless because we don't eat meat anyway - burritos with beans, cheese, rice, peppers, tostatdas with refried beans lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers, cheese, etc.

Homemade soups - I make 1 big batch of a soup every Sunday for our lunches - Cheyanne takes hers in a thermos to school. My sister cooks a whole chicken on Sundays and they have it for Sunday dinner and then she makes a big pot of chicken soup for the week.

Do you have a chest freezer? Even though we don't eat meat I use mine a LOT. I buy frozen veggies in bulk when they're on sale. I freeze cheese blocks, or bags of shredded cheese (bought on sale of course). I cook beans from dry until they're not quite done and freeze them in big ziplock bags so I can just grab and measure them as I need them for meals. I cook rice ahead of time and freeze that too.

Do you have a bread outlet store in your town? We do and it's one of the best kept secrets - everyone I tell about it never realized it was there! Ours is a Freihofer Bakery Outlet. They sell Thomas and Arnold products, as well as Freihofer and Enteman. They also have chips, jams/jellies, snack things like muffins, donuts, snack cakes, etc. They are so CHEAP! I get the Thomas English muffins for $1 a package and bagels for $1.50. Loaves of bread are anywhere from $1 to $1.50. I take $20 every month and go stock up and toss it all in the freezer. They even have a punch card and after 20 punches you get 2 free items.
 
I've come across a few ideas lately ...make your own french toast, pancakes and waffles. Freeze them and then the kids can toast them for breakfast in the morning. I plan on doing this for the school year since I'm at work in the morning so I know they'll have something quick and easy to grab besides just cereal every morning. Oh, muffins too!
 
Angie, we feed a family of 4 (13yo who doesn't stop eating and 10yo + DH & me) on about $350-400 a month. You can do it. But I cook from scratch (we don't buy much off the shelf like hamburger helper, frozen meals, etc).

We do a lot of smoothies + a muffin/toast for breakfast, leftovers or stuffed quesadillas, mini pizzas from english muffins, sandwiches, etc. for lunch. I try to make meats stretch by doing meals that aren't meat focused - where we have a chunk of meat as the main part of the dish, but put meats into other things like casseroles and soups or tacos/pulled bbq type things. Meat servings are usually smaller with a 3rd side of a veg or salad.

But something else I do to really help stretch is have $100 set aside as a slush fund. This is what I use to buy a meat when it goes on sale at a rock bottom price. I can then freeze it with a marinade, cook a bunch up as a base for a particular meal and freeze it (I do this with taco meat from chicken or beef a lot), or just freeze it raw in family sized portions and then when we're eating it, we're not paying the full price from the store that week. This is really what saves me tons.
 
what about using dry beans? I know there is alot of ways to use them, but I don't really know them.....I do make hamhock soup with beans but other than that I got nothing :(
 
nun69 said:
what about using dry beans? I know there is alot of ways to use them, but I don't really know them.....I do make hamhock soup with beans but other than that I got nothing :(
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As vegetarians we use beans a LOT. The beans I always have on hand are pinto, red kidney, white kidney, black beans, and chickpeas. We also eat a lot of lentils. I cook my dry beans in a crockpot - a big batch and then freeze them to use as I go. Just put them in the crock pot and cover with water by a few inches and cook on low for 4-6 hours or high 2-3. I don't like to cook them too soft so when I take them out to use they can be heated without getting mushy.

We use them in:
chili
tacos
burritos
nachos
soups (such as minestrone)
black beans and rice
black bean cakes
bean salads
stews

There are more but these are a start.

Oh, I have a slow cooker recipe for homemade "refried" beans. Cheyanne loves them warmed up in a thermos for lunch with some cheese and tomatoes on top or onions too.
 
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Yep, vegetarians eat lots of beans. They are a major part of my diet, too. Marie's got you pretty covered on how to use them, too. You can use quinoa or couscous, too, to stretch meals.
 
We cook the beans and can either just freeze them in portions we will use them, or we more often cook up the whole pot how we plan on using them. Refried beans (made with pintos), white bean chile, Dominican red beans, gandules con coco (more Dominican beans), black bean salsa, baked beans, chile, etc. a bag if dried beans costs so much less than the cans of beans.
 
mand I would have never thought...some of those sound soooo good!!!!! I definetley need to learn to make homemade refried beans and I didn't realize I could sook them up and then freeze them...doi!!!!
 
LOL Angie - here is my recipe - I just toss it all the crock pot and then keep in the fridge - it doesn't last long enough around here to have to freeze ;)

Crock pot Refried Beans

1 onion, peeled and halved
2 cups dry pinto beans
1/2 fresh jalapeno
2 cloves chopped garlic
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin (I usually use more because we love cumin)
cayenne pepper and chili powder (optional to taste)
6 cups water

1. Combine all ingredients in crock pot.
2. Cook on high 8 hours (you want them to be mushy ;) )
3. Remove bigger onion chunks and drain excess liquid, saving some liquid to thin beans to desired consistency).
4. Mash means with a potato masher, adding some of the saved liquid if needed.
5. Serve topped with tomatoes, onions, scallions, cheese, avocado, jalapeno, sour cream, or whatever you like with refried beans :)
 
And you can add some red kidney beans or black beans to sloppy joes to stretch it - my sister uses half the usual amount of hamburger and subs the other half with beans.
 
I should totally make our own refried beans!! Can you freeze them after it's all made? We don't eat a ton... but maybe we would homemade.

Angie, you can totally do it! We are a family of 7 (though I can't really count the 2 youngest because one is a baby and one doesn't really eat)... and we spend less than that. We try to only have meat every other day and we eat more pasta and rice than we should because my kids will always eat pasta and rice.

If you don't already, I suggest making a menu too. I think that helps us most because we only shop for things on the menu and then we use what we have that way. Good luck!
 
Sarah - they freeze well. If I make a double batch I freeze half for another week :) You just have to stir them up to mix the liquid back in but they taste just fine.
 
DH started making refried beans on the stove last night and I told him that you do it in the crockpot and he said "That's genius!" So I think we are converted too.
 
glumirk said:
DH started making refried beans on the stove last night and I told him that you do it in the crockpot and he said "That's genius!" So I think we are converted too.
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LOL - I love my crock pot :D Breakfast will be cooking in it tonight while we sleep :)
 
nun69 said:
ok Marie, so give up what you are cooking for breakfast in your crockpot??????
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LOL - oatmeal, which we both love but I've learned a lot of people don't, but this is really good :)

Place 2 sliced apples, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, pinch salt in the bottom of the crock pot.
Pour in 2 cups of oatmeal, 2 cups of milk and 2 cups water.
Do NOT stir.
Cook overnight for 8 - 9 hours on low.
 
mariewilcox said:
LOL - oatmeal, which we both love but I've learned a lot of people don't, but this is really good :)

Place 2 sliced apples, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, pinch salt in the bottom of the crock pot.
Pour in 2 cups of oatmeal, 2 cups of milk and 2 cups water.
Do NOT stir.
Cook overnight for 8 - 9 hours on low.
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does this work well with other fruits? I don't like apple oatmeal but I LOVE LOVE oatmeal...I usually just have Maple/Brown Sugar

so gong to try this in the crockpot..is it steel cut or rolled oats? or a diff kind? (I usually just use instant lol)
 
FlirtatiousBrat said:
does this work well with other fruits? I don't like apple oatmeal but I LOVE LOVE oatmeal...I usually just have Maple/Brown Sugar

so gong to try this in the crockpot..is it steel cut or rolled oats? or a diff kind? (I usually just use instant lol)
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I've done it with peaches and I've done it with just the spices and then put stuff on in the morning like dried blueberries and nuts. You can do with it what you like once it's cooked. I use old fashioned rolled oats, not quick, but steel cut would probably be good too :)
 
mariewilcox said:
LOL Angie - here is my recipe - I just toss it all the crock pot and then keep in the fridge - it doesn't last long enough around here to have to freeze ;)

Crock pot Refried Beans

1 onion, peeled and halved
2 cups dry pinto beans
1/2 fresh jalapeno
2 cloves chopped garlic
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin (I usually use more because we love cumin)
cayenne pepper and chili powder (optional to taste)
6 cups water

1. Combine all ingredients in crock pot.
2. Cook on high 8 hours (you want them to be mushy ;) )
3. Remove bigger onion chunks and drain excess liquid, saving some liquid to thin beans to desired consistency).
4. Mash means with a potato masher, adding some of the saved liquid if needed.
5. Serve topped with tomatoes, onions, scallions, cheese, avocado, jalapeno, sour cream, or whatever you like with refried beans :)
Click to expand...

This is almost the same recipe I use except I don't add chilli powder, but next time I will. :) Rather than using crock pot, I cook them in pressure cooker. I should try them in crock pot next time. I freeze them all the time, either in containers or in vacuum bags.
 
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