![]() So before you set off for the store, make sure to think through your grocery needs for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks at least a little bit. While planning for dinners is obviously important, having a general idea, or better yet a concrete plan, for the other meals is also key as it reduces the risk of impulse buys or forgetting items. ![]() Similarly, you can create a template and fill it in week by week (Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesdays, Fish Wednesdays, etc.).įinally, you can plan each week as it comes (check out this post for further tips on meal planning). Another option is to set up a rotation of your top 10 or 15 recipes. You can use a meal planning service and for just a few dollars a week the planning and grocery list generation are done for you. There are a number of ways to plan your meals more easily. Or you can plan out how to use up leftovers, which saves both time and money. When planning carefully, you can use up items that you already have at home, thereby decreasing your grocery bill.With a plan in hand, you depend less on restaurants, take out, or more expensive pre-prepared meals.The fact that you are better organized means you minimize impulse purchases and forget fewer items, saving you money, time, and extra trips to the store.Planning out your meals every week does a number of things to help you stay on budget. If there is one step to take in order to make feeding the family on a budget possible it is making a meal plan. If feeding the family on a budget is a focus of yours, perhaps these techniques will help you to stay on track, too. And today, even though we are lucky enough not to have the same sorts of financial concerns my parents did, I still seek to keep our family budget in check through careful planning, avoiding food waste, and stretching ingredients as far as I can. I used those tricks as my husband and I were graduate students. And yet, as if through osmosis, I picked up a lot of her tricks for feeding the family on a budget. Ironically, as a kid I was not interested in cooking, so I wasn’t at her side as she stretched the ingredients we had. She was a pro at feeding the family on a budget. Not only would she feed our family of four, but she also somehow always managed to make enough for whoever else might be around. It must have been incredibly stressful and yet, while my brother and I were sometimes aware that the coffers were low, we never experienced food insecurity or even gave a second thought to whether there would be anything to eat for dinner. While we never went hungry, there were times when government support was needed and times when my parents had to depend on credit cards to get us through. ![]() Money was pretty tight in my house growing up, especially in early childhood. This week I’m eating a few different foods.Need to feed your family but stay on budget? We’ll show you how to feed your family on a tight budget without stress or strain. Grand Total (between all stores): $125.17 Total: $89.69 (After Target circle coupons & a $25 fetch rewards gift card)
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