Frugal Friday- Planning meals on the cheap

Eat simply! I hear so many times how people complain about how much they spend on their food budget, but many time people are willing to eat simple.

We cannot eat all organic food and sometimes cannot get all the fruits and vegetables we would like, but we try. But one way I found you can eat healthier is to just eat simpler. We have dinners that are just soup and bread, boiled potatoes and salad.

When I plan my meals first I will go through the freezer and see what I have to work with there, then check the fridge and cupboard. Going from there, I check the sale ads. I will not make Beef Stew this week if we are all out of potatoes, unless they are on sale.

I try to pick recipes that are old favorites, but try some new ones also.

Tonight we had Taco soup. I used dry beans from my buckets of them (I have 2- 4 gallon buckets,one of black beans and the other assorted bags) so that was pennies, 3/4 pound ground beef apx. from my freezer that I bought on sale awhile back for $.99 a pound, a can of corn .33, water and spices(and a couple tablespoons of diced tomato). I served this with grated cheese from the freezer that I bought and froze from another sale and a few corn chips each to crush on top. The whole pot of soup was less than $2. If I was feeding more people, I would have used the same about of meat and upped the amount of beans and could have made more for pretty much the same amount of money. I would chop the meat finer though!

Some of the tthings when I go grocery shopping at times I may spend more on the bill, because I buy meat when it is cheap. I got trays of boneless skinless chicken breast awhile back for .99 a pound. I bought like 8-10 trays which last a long time.

We are not vegetarian, but we do not eat lots of meat. When we eat meat it is in small amounts, so sometimes I will not use the entire tray for one meal.

Our vegetables have been limited as most of our produce is shipped in and since there were storms it is expensive. This means vegetables are carrots, cabbage and green peppers usually! I also got some frozen vegetables fairly cheap also which helps! Steamed brocolli and cauliflower is always good! i also canned some fruit last year and buy large cans of applesauce for $2.50.

I think the biggest thing with eating cheaply is being willing to work harder to have good food and being satisified with simple food. Oatmeal is a good breakfast food and is very cheap! I remember when we were not able to afford to eat eggs for breakfast, Muffins are easy to make healthy and you can make a good batch with a couple eggs.

We eat leftovers for lunch or Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches!