Money is really tight this week, need food ideas!
Find a Conversation
Money is really tight this week, need food ideas!
| Tue, 10-02-2012 - 2:41pm |
Hi all,
My budget is really tight this week, but I am determined NOT to use a CC to bridge the gap. After all of our bills are paid this cycle, I only have $100 for groceries. I know that may seem like a lot to many of you....I am counting on your frugal grocery habits to help me out. So for $100, what should I buy to get my family through this week? We cannot have wheat, soy, milk, any nuts or any fish due to allergies. (BTW, I usually spend $150-200 per week for our food/household items). I have ground beef and boneless chicken breasts in the freezer, brown rice, brown rice pasta, and quinoa pasta in the pantry......and not much else.
Thanks in advance for your great ideas!!
Latest from the board
- Treating this like a pregnancy 3
- My accountability vent below... 3
- Up up up, my bills keep going up . . . 6
- Both good news and bad 5
- Balances & count down update 3
- For Those Who Don't Believe in Using Coupons 6
- Anyone Else Feeling Budget Fatigued? 13
- Organized finally 4
- Consumer debt free! 13
- Board update, sort of.... 1
Memeber Support
Visit our Member Support area or browse the iVillage Help forum
| Q: | Where can I change my password? |
| A: | Log in, go to Edit My Preferences, and click the Account tab. Make and save your changes. |
Pages
Soup is always good. You can buy boullion cubes - both beef and chicken - and add them to boiling water. A bag of carrots, should be around $1.00. Frozen peas, beans, corn - less than $2.00 a bag. One chicken breast should make soup for a meal. You can cook rice or pasta and toss it in. Also, a can of stewed tomoatos is nice in soup
Stuffed peppers - a can of tomato paste, an onion, a cup of rice, a little bit of hamburg browned with the onion, one pepper for every adult, 1/2 of one for kids. Cook the rice, par boil the peppers. Mix the meat/onion with the rice and tomoato paste, stuff the peppers. Bake at 350 for about a half hour.
Fried potatoes and ham - cut up potatoes, fry with a little onions then add the ham. You can buy a piece of ham at the deli in one piece - a quarter of a pound can go a long way. Use some king of frozen vegetables.
Pasta and sauce, with a little ground beef.
At this time of year, apples are pretty cheap - you can eat them raw as snacks, or if you cut them up with a little butter, flour, cinnamon and sugar and make a nice apple crisp - bake for 350 for about 30 minutes(my defalt cook time!)
Oh, and breakfast for dinner....Brown and Serve sausage is cheap...fried or scrambled eggs or omelets with whatever veggies you like. I don't know if you have a substitute for milk that you can use in pancakes...you can make potato pancakes with mashed potatoes (3 cups), flour(1 cup), and an egg, and then shape them into patties and fry them...good with applesauce.
I was going to say breakfast as supper as well. Eggs are fairly inexpensive and good for breakfast too, hardboiled to take for work for lunches as well. Any kind of noodles you have with a bit of parm and butter salt and pepper is super cheap side dish or you can make a chicken caserole with the pasta. Use the meat as an ingredient instead of the main focus and you can make it last a couple of meals.Quesidillas with the chicken or beef should go far(lunch or dinner). Find some bread on sale that doesn't conflict with your allergies and freeze it, take it out as you need it so it doesn't go bad. Rice with a can of soup and bit of burger or chicken with some vege works great too. Lots of options. I need to use what I have as well! Good call! You will feel great when you accomplish this!
I was going to suggest quiche. I have found an easy "crustless quiche" recipe on allrecipe.com (or use a premade pie crust. Eggs can stretch.
stuffed green peppers (since you already have rice & beef. You can make a bunch and freeze what you're not using for another day.
Since you have chicken breast (or you can buy a cheaper cut of chicken) boil it with some veggie (carrots, celery, onion). Use the broth for a soup base and take the chicken out and use it for something else (shredded chix tacos, chicken salad, chicken enchiladas). I have a huge pet peeve when people waste the broth from the chicken. Boiled chicken breast (1) makes a great broth (just add seasoning & noodles for soup), and (2) it is more tender than a fried chicken breast.
Norma
"Patience is the best remedy for every trouble"- Plautus
This thread made me think of my mother. She had a system that was easy and cheap. On Sundays, we always had a really nice roast for mid day dinner. On Mondays, she made whatever she wanted. On Tuesday, we had something made from leftovers fom Sunday dinner. Wednesday was 'Prince Spaghetti Day'. Thursday night was eggs. Friday was fish (we weren't Catholic, but she figured you might as well eat fish once a week). This was usually either frozen fish sicks, tuna casserole, or fish cakes. Saturday was hotdogs, beans, brown bread. Maybe coleslaw is there was extra money. If they went out on Saturday, we had a big treat - TV Dinners - the kind in those foil section trays.
It might have been boring, but I don't think we cared. We are both healthy and varied eaters today...my dad still is disappointed if he doesn't get hotdogs and beans on Saturday night.
Norma
"Patience is the best remedy for every trouble"- Plautus
Big bags of carrots are also cheap...
To the OP, how about making your own cookies/granola bars/etc? I find those things SO expensive and they aren't as healthy as homemade. I save lots of $ doing that.
Dee
Pages