Meal Planning Made Simple #2

So now that you have set up your binder...what's next?  Meal planning alone is not enough when it comes to working within a budget.  What I mean is, if you plan to eat lobster tails on Thursday night, you're not going to be able to stay within a $50.00/ week budget.  

So after you set up your binder, start looking for budget friendly recipes.  If your weekly grocery budget is $50.00 a week, then you should look for ingredients that fall into those guidelines.  I like to look for recipes that include chicken, pork, or ground beef.  I will also cook with turkey (if I can find a good sale) and ground pork.  Last week I made a dish with turkey sausage and my family hardly knew the difference.  I also look for recipes that are 10 ingredients or less (5 is best!) to help me stay within my budget.  I love finding a recipe that I can change to accommodate whatever I have in the house too. Be open to new ideas and try new things.  I wasn't eager to try ground pork at first (my parents didn't use it growing up) and I was totally against ground turkey too, but now, whenever I have a recipe that calls for ground beef, I easily substitute ground pork and my family would never be able to tell the difference.  

Surf the web or go to the library.  I love the library!  You can take out a new copy of  "Taste of Home" magazine at the library for free and you usually get 3 weeks with it.  That is plenty of time to take down the recipes.  You can also access thousands of recipes online.  Take a few minutes with Google and you can usually find recipes tasty budget friendly recipes (don't forget to check out my growing recipe index!)  

Be willing to go vegetarian for a few meals.  Meatless meals are healthy and usually cost a bit less per serving.  While they are in season, veggies like zucchini, summer squash, and eggplant are good meat substitutes.  They can be grilled and roasted and added to pasta for a very fresh and flavorful dish.  Farmers markets usually have these vegetables on hand during the summer months for a very reasonable cost.

Breakfast for dinner is a great option for families on a budget.  I like to look for recipes that we can make inexpensively like Quiche and baked breakfast casseroles.  Ingredients for these hearty meals are often very inexpensive and we can feed everyone for under $1.00 per person.  My family loves breakfast food like pancakes, waffles, and omelets too!  Breakfast night in our house usually happens semi-monthly.  

Living within a tight budget does not mean that you can't eat well, it just means making changes to your current habits to live within your means.  Be open minded and the ideas will come!