It is possible to save money on family meals by stretching your meals a few nights a week. We have four kids (three boys & a daughter). We go through a lot of food, as you can imagine, so we have gotten quite creative in our meal planning to stretch our meals.
Here are a few tips that have worked well for us:
- Replace meat with beans. I will puree beans and add them to our meat (tacos are a great example. You could never taste the pureed can of beans with the taco seasoning. Here is a taco seasoning recipe.
~80 cents for a can of beans has saved us around $5.00 for a pound of lean beef.
- Add bread. Yes, they say that having bread with meals is not the best idea, because it just isn’t as healthy. I understand and appreciate that. However, our kids love rolls and bread (as do I!) so I do add bread to most of our meals.
An example would be French Dip sandwiches (made in the crock pot): I can put the meat on each child’s plate (served with a fork), with veggies. They will eat it and ask for a snack the second that they are done… or I can put it on a bun. They will eat most of it, eat their vegetables and then they are full- no snacking needed.
~$1.00 package of buns has saved us about $3.00 in snacks (every night)
- If you cut the crust off of your child’s sandwiches, save the crust. I keep a freezer bag ready to go, in the freezer, and when I cut the crust off of three sandwiches for lunch, I save that crust, put it into my freezer bag and save it. The next time that I need bread crumbs, I take out my bag, add seasoning and put it into my Magic Bullet. I have just created breadcrumbs for only a few cents. (See how I pack the kid’s lunches one time for the whole week)
~$0 (throw-away crust) just saved us $3.00 for breadcrumbs
- Our kids love oatmeal – the packages of fruit flavored oatmeal. We buy them, but since our oldest child will eat 2-3 packs at once, we have started putting ONE pack in a bowl, and then adding the off-brand rolled oats to that bowl. We add milk or water and microwave. It cuts down on the sugar & the price.
~50 cents saves us $1.00 for two more packs.
If you want a few more ideas, see my favorite recipes where I put this practice into play:
Crockpot chicken with Salsa
French Dip Sandwiches
ps- How to save money at the grocery stores without using coupons
Valerie says
I do the same thing with my bread ends. Haven’t bought breadcrumbs in years! Sometimes I cube them up, drizzle with a little melted butter and sprinkle with Italian seasonings and bake them when I need croutons for soups or salads.
Becky (Your Modern Family) says
Yum!
Shelley says
I save the bread ends to make Christmas Puddings with 😉
My brothers’ boss just asked If I could mail him one this coming year since he tasted 1 I had sent to my older Brother. I place them in shaped pans, my older brother I had sent a house shaped one with nuts, my younger brother got a star with No nuts since he is allergic though I sent some mini ones with nuts for his wife and son, my sister got a teddy bear that had nuts. His boss, who is a family friend would like a teddy bear Christmas pudding this year. Seems to go over rather well.
Becky (Your Modern Family) says
Love that idea!!
Nikkie says
I recently started serving 1 type of meat each week in an effort to save money. My family of four can easily stretch a roast chicken over 3-4 meals, same for a turkey breast. Ham is also easily stretched over a week. Beef is tough, we don’t eat many “meat centric” meals with beef; no hamburgers or tacos. Instead we stretch 1 pound of beef by incorporating it into casseroles, pasta dishes and salads.
By eating leftovers 1-2 days a week, having a weekly breakfast night (I alternate sweet and savory) and doing meatless mondays, we are saving quite a bit on our grocery bill. It is a little challenging to make sure we don’t get bored, but I’m not wasting pounds and pounds of leftovers every week!
Becky (Your Modern Family) says
Great tip! Our kids LOVE breakfast nights. 🙂