Weekly Menu (for six people including three teens)–As you know, I am all about encouraging people to live their priorities and values.
For over two years, our priority has been to feed our family of six for $100 or less each week. Money has been tight and the grocery budget seemed like an easy place to cut back.
While saving money is important, and most people can do more to save, we have decided to increase our grocery spending to a more realistic number for our family size (we basically have 5 adults in our house ). My priority will no longer be “feeding my family on as little as possible”, but “feeding my family within reason.” Nourishing our bodies will be the focus rather than controlling the food.
I will still use all of the money saving methods I outlined in my FREE ebook Save More-Clip Less, but our spending will be more in the range of $500-$600 a month instead of around $400. You may not see any big changes to the menus, but we will have bigger portions and more food in our house (which can only be a good thing with 3 teenagers!)
If you need to bring your grocery spending more in line, you can see 2 years of $100 Budget Menus here to get started. You can also print your own customizable menu planner form here.
*Items marked with an asterisk were purchased in previous weeks in the $100 Budget and are in the pantry, fridge or freezer.
Click purple links to go to recipes!
BREAKFAST
Homemade Waffles with DIY Waffle Syrup (in honor of National Waffle Day 8/24!)
Fried Eggs with Spinach, Black Bean and Corn Salsa
Cereal with milk
Egg and Cheese Bagel
French Toast, sausage*
Yogurt, banana
Cheese Toast, fresh peach slices
LUNCH
Peach Mango Smoothie, popcorn*
Turkey Sandwich, carrots and ranch dressing* x2
Homemade Pizza Bagels
Nachos with avocado slices
PBJ, apple slices with cinnamon
Leftovers from dinner
DINNER
Steak and Peppers, rice*, watermelon
Porkchops, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, mashed potatoes
Taco Bowls (Beantastic Taco Meat, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, sour cream served on corn chips), corn
Dinner with friends (love it when I don’t have to cook!)
London Broil*, steamed green beans, rice*
Breakfast for Dinner: Scrambled eggs and bacon
Spicy Chicken Thighs, Black Bean and Corn Salsa
Read what we do about snacks here.
What are you eating this week? Leave a comment or link. 🙂
Please Note: I post my weekly menu to encourage menu planning and to give meal ideas, not as a nutritional standard. You should feed your family based on your priorities and values.
If you would like menu planning help, check out eMeals*–weekly menus based on your local store’s sales including recipes and a grocery list! Click here and use promo code PEACEFUL for a 10% discount off of eMeals already low prices!
*affiliate link
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For more menu ideas, check out OrgJunkie Menu Plan Mondays.
Our grocery budget has been noticeably less now that our oldest daughter left for college. Not that she was a huge eater or anything. I buy less milk, yogurt and cereal. So I can imagine that it’s hard to feed 3 growing teens on just $100, especially if you want to try to buy more produce and catch some good deals when available.
Love your menu plans. You have great variety, which I am trying to implement in our menu. I tend to cook the same things over and over.
Thanks Dianna–I feel like we have a lot of the same thing over and over too. 🙂
That’s wonderful your income has increased where you can increase the amount you spent at the grocery store! Why dance around it and say ‘we have decided to increase our spending for nutritional value.” But why not just say the real reason why?
I appreciate your postings.
The reason I stated is exactly why we increased the budget–no dancing here! 🙂
I can’t imagine Kimberlee dancing around anything! I subscribe to many, many blogs, and some of them are owned by bloggers who claim to be transparent but don’t always seem to be (even to themselves). But Kimberlee is about as transparent as they come. What you see is what you get!
That’s great! I really couldn’t figure out how you did it on $100 a week (although I read your menus). I couldn’t figure out how it was enough. We seem to always be running out of food at my house and with the cost of food escalating, it is a problem. I’m looking forward to the new series.
Monday I’m making a crock pot Beef Stew recipe I found on your site
😀
Yeah! 🙂
Here is my weekly menu, as well as an explanation of what we do for breakfast…http://www.servingjoyfully.com/2012/08/20/weekly-meal-plan-819/
I’m glad that your finances have increased to the point where you can afford to spend more on groceries 🙂
Thanks Crystal!