Food Budget really low.. Help please

Me and my fiancee can only spend about $200 a month on food.. Which is why I buy quick fix items that are priced cheap.. and are probably really high in fat and other things. What are some suggestions to help us eat healthier and stay within our budget?

Trader Joe's has the best prices and all organic, plus they support local farmers!

Beans are generally quite inexpensive and you can make different things (casserole/soups/etc) and freeze the rest.  Frozen veggies and fruit is not horribly expensive if the fresh stuff is out of your range.  Try to stick with fruits and veggies in season -- they are usually cheaper.

You can also get meats (if eat such things) the day it "expires" (it doesn't really expire that day) for a couple of bucks cheaper than usual -- you just need to freeze it or cook it and freeze it that day or the next.

Pastas are usually pretty cheap and don't have to be bad for you -- you can make your own sauce very easily.

If you can find a way to get a chest freezer you will be able to buy things on sale and freeze them.

Scour the coupons and use them -- lots of store have double/triple coupon days

I spend a little less than $200 each month on the food for my household (2 adults, 1 kid) without eating the 5 boxes for $1 mac & cheese and ramen noodles. ;) I don't shop according to the circular or use coupons - both had me buying things I didn't really need.  For me, the trick was to make a two week meal plan (instead of a one week plan) so that expensive items like meat could be used to their utmost. I splurge on things like cereal when the budget allows. You'll find your items that you get cranky without and work them into the budget as needed.

My meat philosophy is to use it for flavoring, instead of the main item and watch portions carefully. For example, 1 kielbasa is used to flavor 4 dinners. 1 package of chicken can make 2 suppers easy. I buy rice and pastas only as plain, never flavored, because it's cheaper, more flexible, and because the calories in the packaged versions were outrageous. Using things like a crock pot really helps keep costs down as well. Even though it makes a lot of food, I just pitch the other half in the freezer for later and then I have a no-cook meal. For example purposes, below is what we ate in the last few days at my house. Every meal is served with lettuce for salad and bread or rolls (which I usually skip).

Friday: Chicken in Wine Sauce, made in the crock pot with extra liquid

Saturday: Lentils with Rice (1 pot, 1/4 kielbasa for flavor, 30 minutes)

Sunday: Beef Stew (made two weeks ago, popped it out of the freezer)

Monday: Chicken soup with Rice (made from the leftover Chicken in Wine Sauce and extra veggies)

Tuesday: Mini-meatloaves, mashed potatoes

Wednesday: (tomorrow) Pork chops in cider sauce, egg noodles, green beans (company is coming)

For breakfast, I like to have peanut butter on toast or an egg. My husband is a freak about orange juice, so we splurge there.

For lunch, we typically have leftovers but I also keep some emergency rations on hand, like cheddar cheese and apples. (They are generally slow to spoil.)

 

 

I agree with phiguru - planning is key. I plan and I sitck with it or else I fall apart and spend too much.

Rice and pasta are good meal bases as are beans.  I make a "taco soup" that everyone loves and it's basically just a few cans of beans (black,pinto, kidney) and a package of taco seasoning.  If you feel like it, toss in a can of diced tomatoes.  Add a can of water. Cook for about 30 minutes. Serve with a salad or corn muffins. 

I buy cheaper cuts of meat and use the crock pot - things come out so tender that way.

Think of meat as a condiment too, not as the biggest part of the meal.  Americans generally get too much protein anyway.

What a great thread!  I look forward to seeing everybody's ideas for stretching their food dollars in a healthy way.  I agree with what some of the above posters have said about crock-pot meals such as chili.  Chilis, stews, casseroles, etc. are great ways to use up little scraps of this and that, so nothing is wasted.  Bone-in cuts of meat are usually cheaper, and you can use the bones (and trimmings from vegetables) to make stock - a higher-calorie, but heartier and more filling base for soups and risotto (another great "scraps" dish).  I'd be careful with coupons - most of them are for over-processed food.  But stocking up on useful ingredients when they go on sale is good to do.

generally the more meals you prepare from scratch the cheaper your food bill. 

I couldn´t agree about boiling up the bones to make a stock.  You can usually find whole chickens quite cheap and if you really like to have meat based meals you can have it hot the first day, cold in a salad the next and then boil the scraps and the bones to make a base for 2 or 3 days´worth of soup or vegetable stew - just add some veg, fresh, frozen or canned.  You can freeze stock too.

If you can find fresh herbs growing around you (I find a lot of mint and rosemary whenever I go for a walk) they can really add lots of flavour - for free.  You can also freeze them. 

 

Have you ever heard of the "Fix-It and Forget-It" Cookbooks?  I love mine.  I have the original and the light cookbook.  They are only cookbooks for the Crockpot.  I love the one called "Donna's Cooked Chicken"  because I use the big package of chicken (even though there's no way my family could eat all of it in one night).  Then I use the leftover chicken in the "White Chicken Chili" recipe.  Sometimes, I even have enough chicken left to use for chicken tacos too. 

Then there's another recipe in them called "Italian meatloaf", (which my family never finishes).  So I take the rest of the meatloaf and use it for Spaghetti the next night.  I love to find new ways to stretch meat, since meat is so expensive. 

I usually get my crockpot cookbooks out when I'm writing my grocery list.  I make a list of the names and pages of the recipes I'm going to fix for the week and put it up on my fridge.  Then I make sure I have every item in each recipe on my grocery list.  And there you have it:  No excuses for not cooking that week.

Original Post by kallie67:

I agree with phiguru - planning is key. I plan and I sitck with it or else I fall apart and spend too much.

Rice and pasta are good meal bases as are beans.  I make a "taco soup" that everyone loves and it's basically just a few cans of beans (black,pinto, kidney) and a package of taco seasoning.  If you feel like it, toss in a can of diced tomatoes.  Add a can of water. Cook for about 30 minutes. Serve with a salad or corn muffins. 

I buy cheaper cuts of meat and use the crock pot - things come out so tender that way.

Think of meat as a condiment too, not as the biggest part of the meal.  Americans generally get too much protein anyway.

 

wow I really admire you for being able to spend that little on food. I'm by no means rich but I spend at least 200$ a WEEK on food. I couldn't live without my fresh berries and seafood and organic produce. I cut back on other exprenses rather than food, because what I put in my body is extremely important to me and I'm quite the gourmet chef, I couldn't possibly stand crockpot meals. Keep it up though if it's working for you.

Try this site:

www.hillbillyhousewife.com

I don't have to be all that careful with my food budget anymore, but I used to have to. Back then, I relied a lot on these tips (for a family of four):

1) coupons and sales! Shop the circular. Stock up when pasta goes on sale for 25cents a box.

2) Cook from scratch, it really is cheaper. For example, I'd make my own spaghetti sauce. I'd make a huge batch and freeze into meal-sized containers for later use. I'd also make my own pancake mix, muffin mix, bread, and soup stock. And as someone else already mentioned, you can season your own rice dishes... skip the processed junk (UNLESS you have a coupon or a sale!)

3) Rice. Rice is cheap and filling if you buy it in those huge 30-lb bags. A good investment is a rice cooker. We eat rice all the time... not just as a side dish. Also for breakfast (add some milk and cinnamon), and for lunch you can make rice balls. Add a bit of inexpensive egg or leftover scraps of meat for protein.

4) Make your own salad dressing - just use olive oil and balsalmic vinegar. Bottled dressing is expensive. (unless you have coupons combined with a sale ;-)

5) Fruits & veggies: always buy in season and local. Make it a game to find the cheapest produce on sale that week. For example right  now apples are becoming cheap and bountiful.

6) Waste not, want not: learn how to plan and use up every last scrap. A lot of money is wasted on produce that goes bad before we eat it. Plan it out... use more fragile produce first. Put produce in the fridge when it becomes ripe. Use up the stalks of broccoli to make broccoli soup. Keep scraps and bits to make vegetable stock or to season soups or to add to meatloaf or casseroles or what-not. Chop and freeze green peppers, fresh herbs, etc before they go moldering in your fridge. Use up ripe fruit in smoothies or make banana bread. Save up bread crumbs to make meatloaf. Use up stale bread to make bread pudding.

Love hillbilly housewife.  I figured this thread needs bumped to the top, in case anyone has any new ideas...

i buy cans of diced tomatos, beans, and some veggies and frozen veggies... you can use this as a base for all sorts of things.  from there i just make sure everything i buy is on sale.  making your own food turns out a lot cheaper then buying the ready made stuff becuase it will last longer/provide more meals.

Warning:  Long.  I also do most if not all of these things to try to save money and keep the grocery bill as low as possible, without sacrificing a few things we all like to have for snacks, treats, etc., and so I don't have to sacrifice the quality and health value of what I do cook.   I second and third that you can cook your own meals from scratch and save a ton over prepared/packaged foods, and eat better in the process.

If you don't belong to a discount club, get a membership.  Do the bulk of all your shopping at large discount stores/marts.  If you need specialty items, and you must have them, buy those items ONLY at the more expensive specialty stores.  Buy in bulk whenever possible.  Buy nonperishable items in as large a quantity or multipack that you can.  If necessary, allocate a certain $$ amount each trip to purchasing a specific nonperishable bulk or multipack item that you use a lot.  You will save a ton in the long run by doing this.  The most overall expensive way to buy anything is in the smallest package available.

Only buy what you can/will use before it expires, obviously.  Don't impulse buy.  Take a list.  Don't buy something off the list that you don't need and haven't budgeted for.

As stated before, plan ahead, meals and snacks.  This is key.  If you decide to cook a dinner and you're short 2 items, you've got to either pick another dinner or run out to the corner store and pay way more for those 2 items than you really should or need to.  Plan your meals, make a list, take the list to the store.  Buy what is on sale.  Don't be picky about brands.  If you have a certain brand that you cannot give up, or the savings is not worth the inferior quality, go ahead, but budget for this.  Store brands have come a long way.  Most of them are on par with national brands; some I occasionally find superior.  Some are not.  You only have to buy it once to know.  Buy 1 unit, not 10, so you're not stuck with something you hate that will start to decompose in your pantry, until you know for sure.

Freeze anything you possibly can.  Buy ingredients in bulk, cook in batches, freeze in needed portion sizes.  Buy a stock of different sized reusable freezer bowls and freezer bags.  Buy some cheapo store brand sandwich-size and/or snack-size baggies.  Freeze leftover or partial cans of tomato sauce, paste, roasted red bell peppers, chipotles in adobo, broth, pizza/pasta sauce, etc.  For things such as the roasted peppers, these spoil quickly, meaning wasted money.  For things like this, when you first open the jar, portion out the contents into small baggies of amounts that you can use up all at once or at the most 3 to 4 days in the fridge, using the same liquid they're packed in to cover.  Take all your baggies and place in a freezer bag.  You can thaw only what you need in seconds and reuse the same freezer bags over and over because they will stay perfectly clean.  I also do this with bacon, corn on the cob, canadian bacon, deli meats, etc.  Take a Sharpie and write on the freezer bag what is in there.  Use the same bag for that same thing over and over again.  Just leave the empty bag folded up in your freezer when you empty it out.   Pull it out when you need it again.

You can also freeze tomato sauce, paste, purees, etc., into ice cube trays sprayed with cooking spray.  Freeze them, pop them out, and store them all in a freezer bag.  Give 'em a light spray with cooking spray or toss with oil before storing.  Take out 1 or 2 cubes and throw them into the pot.  The point being, all of those 1/2-empty or less cans or jars of whatever that you throw away are robbing your budget of food that you and your family could be eating! 

Look for simple recipes using normal ingredients, normal pantry items, and avoid those containing long lists of ingredients or exotic/expensive ingred., particularly those which require you to buy a quantity of an expensive ingred. that you may never need or use again.  There are umpteen cookbooks for budget-minded, family-friendly, etc., meals.  Get one if you can.  Everyone is different, I know, but by "normal," I mean things that are super cheap pretty much everywhere, store brands are available, and you can buy them in bulk, such as diced/stewed tomatoes, rice, dry and canned beans, pasta, brown sugar, frozen corn and other veggies, tortillas, bell peppers and onions (buy these in bulk at discount stores, if packed in a clear see-through bag and you can VERIFY the freshness/quality, or when on sale or when at the peak of season, chop them or slice them, freezer bag, freeze for a couple of months, dip out as needed.  This also saves you TONS of prep time at dinner). 

It is also way, way cheaper to buy your cheese in blocks and shred it yourself.  Store remaining block in a food saver-type bag.  It will stay fresh for a very long period of time.  No mold.  No waste.  This is what I did for years.  Now, I find that my time is worth more than that savings, so I'm buying shredded.  However, we still prefer the superior quality of freshly shredded to anything in a bag preshredded.  This is a sacrifice I have made in the interest of time, but the savings are so significant (if you use a good amount of cheese), that it might be worth shredding your own.  You can shred batches and put in an air-tight container (or food saver bag) in the fridge for up to a few days' time.  The shredder and slicer blades of a Salad Shooter shred and slice block cheese like magic in seconds.  If you can, invest in a food saver machine or the Reynolds one (can't remember the name, will go check mine and report back).  The latter one is the cheaper option by far, and it does a good job of removing the air from the bag.  It's also much simpler to use and takes up no counter space.  You do have to buy bags for it, which are not outrageous, and these can also be reused.  I also do the "sandwich baggie trick" in these to keep them clean so I can reuse them.   

Well, that's more than enough.  Hope some of this helps.  Sorry, I look at being thrifty and saving us money (while still eating well) as a contest that I enjoy winning.  I love to smack the grocery bill on top of the head and say, "HA, I win!" 

Everybody has such good ideas!

Dried beans and eggs are the cheapest sources of protein. I adore bean soups and lentil soups and have about a zillion different variations of them, which keeps them from getting boring. Cooking from scratch is a HUGE help. I never use a crockpot, either, I do all my cooking on the stove -- and you can make some pretty epicurian bean soups!

Using meat as a flavoring is a huge money saver. You can save even more if you eat vegetarian frequently, like we do.

/shimmercat, who just accidentally posted as her boyfriend

I am prepping m ylunch and dinner for the week.. Here's what I have...

1 whole fryer, skin off-$5.50

1 bag of dried small red kidney beans-.85

12 servings of rice-.75

Seasons and spices-Less than $1.00

 

 

All I do, is skin the chicken, rub it down with a dry rub I make, fiull of red pepper, chili powder, garlic, cumin, oregano, stuff like that. Let it sit in the fridge all night. Throw it in the crockpot in the morning, with just a little chicken broth in the bottom. I prepare the beans, with garlic, onion, bay leaf, and just cook them slow. Then I prepare my rice, plain as can be except for a few splashed of habanero hot sauce. Once my chicken is done and cooled, I pull the whole thing, mix it with the rice, add the beans, and I have around 12 meals, for under $9.00. It's spicy, healthy, and delicious. I'll do some steamed veggies with it, once in awhile, but it's not a priority.

Curtinks:  Wow, great idea and recipe, sounds delicious!  Thanks!  I am going to have to try that.  Sounds like a great idea for something to freeze for a quick healthy dinner, too!  I may freeze family dinner-size portions and sneak myself out a couple of lunch-size cups to freeze, too! 

I made something similar to this the other day using dried lentils, a can of diced tomatoes, a packet of 7-grain pilaf, a little tomato sauce from my frozen baggie stash, and lots of seasonings, as an "experiment."  It turned out great, and I got about 8 servings, which I froze in 1/2-cup portions, for way less than $5 total!

First lunch of my chicken with rice and beans.   Yummmmm!!!!

One more thing to add - eat oatmeal a lot. It is tasty, healthy and absurdly cheap.

I love all the ideas that you all have come up with.   I will have to try some of the recipes and the money saving ideas that you have come up with.  In case some of you might not know Walmart will match any competitors sale ad  prices.  You just take the ad from the competitors and make you out a list ( I do this esspecially on fresh fruit and vegtables) and go down each store and write down the sale prices and the item( on canned goods must be exact brand unless it is house brand then you get whatever walmart house brand is ex. great value..  If it is a store brand our walmart matches with their store brand.  we have 2 local grocers and a superwalmart, we are in a smaller town and more rural atomosphere.  I can also use the adds for Houston grocers since it is still within radius.  I take all my ads and make a list from each store, then also be sure to take the ads in case they ask to see them.  so many people do it now that sometimes the cashier already knows that an item is on sale.  I usually have about 5-6 stores ads when I go to make out my list.  I always stock up when stores have canned veg, tomatoes, etc on sale usually there is a limit of 12. (4/1.00 for store brand). just on fresh veg. alone I may save 6.00 to 10.00 a week.  we will have squash when it is on sale somewhere for .99 a lb. etc  Also when someone has frozen veg. on sale I stock up on them ex buy alot of frozen  okra for use in gumbo later, stir fry veg. to make chicken and stir fry veg.  if you are careful and spend a little time you can do it on 200.00 a month.  remember those beans are very good for you and reallly inexpensive/ pintos are naturally our favorite, navy beans, lima beans, lentils are all good for you and really cheap-- don't forget the black eyed peas.  I too like to make extra of everything and freeze for later meal. gumbo, spaghetti sauce, chili, you can freeze beans well too( I never throw much  out). also meatloaf is good to freeze for later.  I also buy all my meat on sale too. I am pretty particular about it though so I don 't get it at wally world.  our local grocer runs some pretty good sales on meats though.   I plan my weekly meals around whatever the grocery ads have on sale.  hope this helps( always take a calculator and add up what you  are getting so you will know if you have enough money before you go.  years ago when I was single I had to be extremely careful with my money, even after getting married and having more to work with I still do it.   sometimes it gets on my husbands nerves when he goes with me, but he does realize how much we save.  we all have to save nowadays don't we?  with our over 600.00 a month gas bill ( her works 65 miles from our home) our funds are getting less and less.....  hope this helps.      walmart is suppoesed to match any competitor on anything so they also match drug store over the counter ads and home and garden too.