Secrets to Feed Everyone Without Being Terrified of Blowing Your Paycheck

Want to know my secrets to feed my family of 5 for less than $100 a week? It’s really easy, but it takes a lot of planning and forethought.

Before the week starts, my husband and I sit down to plan our meals for the week. We usually just plan out dinners and make enough throughout the week that we have enough for lunch as well. Also, we usually have at least one night a week where we eat leftovers.

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Our secrets to success are: we plan our meals around what we currently have in our pantry or freezer, and we shop the sales! The latter is a HUGE step for me because before I started making a conscious effort to do this we would end up with multiple things that we didn’t need and sometimes it would go bad. There is nothing like spending your hard-earned money on food and then letting it go bad!

As far as breakfast goes, my kiddos LOVE overnight oats. Overnight oats are also a very cheap breakfast when you think about it, just oatmeal, yogurt, and milk. I add in some fruit and a little peanut butter for my kiddos and they gobble it right up!

Here is the meal planner that I use now! For the life of me, I could not find a weekly meal planner that I loved and that actually worked for me, so I decided to create one. Get yours now in the store!

The meals I plan out are not just rice and beans either! My husband and kiddos are big meat-eaters so we have meat with every single dinner. We also have our normal meals that we like to eat on a rotation basis. Recently I’ve been trying new recipes to put in our rotation that fit within the budget.

Here are some of the recent recipes I’ve tried:

Walking Tacos

I mean, walking tacos! This was one of my favs growing up! How much easier can it get when you just make the meat and throw everything in a bag?? Recently I made this and put it in a bowl because I didn’t want to buy the expensive individual bags of chips, so I bought the bigger bulk size. Personally, I like doing this with Fritos the best but I’ve heard Doritos are also a good option!

Burritos/Tacos/Enchiladas

These are another staple in our house that take hardly any time to prep, and are cheap. A lot of how cheap we can be comes from having beef and other meat in the house already. We eat venison, and we also save up and buy beef and chicken in bulk.

Casseroles

One of our favorites as a family is tater tot casserole. We use this recipe from Cowboy Kent. Sometimes we will sub the chicken for beef, or you can remove it altogether if you want. It’s hard to find a meal that everyone will like, but this is one of them!

Stir Fry

I’ve brought back stir fry to my family of 5. I forgot how much I liked this until I started making it again! I remember being a kid though and not liking it so much, so this one was a gamble. Thankfully it did pay off and my kiddos love it. To make it stretch, I always make rice to go with our stir fry.

Sandwiches

These are easier than walking tacos! My family loves all kinds of sandwiches so if we do this one night it can be anything from PB & J, egg salad, tuna salad, or grilled cheese. Then I throw in something refreshing like carrot sticks, or fruit or something. These nights my husband and I save for the ones that are really busy and we need to whip something up in a flash.

Other secrets to success

So one of my secrets (or not-so-secret) was to plan my meals for the week. The other one is to plan around the sales each week. I usually go to Winco because this is the cheapest option around where I live. I also hit up Costco or Walmart depending on my need.

The other reason why I go weekly is because we can’t use up our produce fast enough when I buy for 2 weeks at a time. So then our plan goes to all heck, and we end up buying food out or going back to the grocery store to buy the things that went bad. That’s not good on the budget!

Budgeting - Yes, that is very important!

In my post on how to budget your paycheck, I list out my grocery bill as $350. I pull that money out as cash as soon as I get paid (which is every two weeks) and I have the tellers break it down to something more manageable for going to the store. The other reason why it’s more than $100/week is because when I say “groceries” I actually mean household. This includes all our toiletries, household cleaners, etc.

**Related: How I budget my paychecks

Sometimes we spend less than the $700 a month that we budget for, other times we spend a little more. I always take out our grocery money in cash though so we can’t go “over”, but at times we do have to stretch one month into the next. Again, it takes planning, and knowing your household and how fast you go through things.

Plan for Personal Care Items

Remember, using a weekly meal planner of some sort will keep you from going crazy, trust me, I know! I was always letting food go bad because I didn't plan around what we already have. Not just groceries either, personal care items are also on this list. These can certainly add up when you are out shopping, so knowing when to buy them and maybe trying to stagger is the best!

I've included a household personal care item list in this weekly meal planner as well. I know most people get these at the same time they are getting their groceries, so why not?

Get yours soon and let me know what you think! You will be on your way to budgeting and meal planning right!