Thrifty Couple Weekly Menu Week of 4/12!

Here’s the Thrifty Menu for this week!!

As a recap of how our menu works:

1. We don’t necessarily have a day-by-day plan for our lunches and breakfasts or snacks, just our dinners.  We have a list of ideas for those meals that week, and so we wake up eating selections from the list. For lunches, we also have a list of possible lunch ideas for that week, but most lunches end up being leftovers, which is why we have a loose plan!
2. Although we have stayed within our $240 per month budget (covers groceries, toiletries, household, and diapers), we haven’t necessarily tracked how much each meal costs us and thought it would be fun to figure it out and share it with you as well.  We will be laying out the cost of our dinners!
3. Desserts are planned last minute as well! We usually crack open a box of cookies, however, we lay out ideas and then sometimes make something special!
4. Our Sunday dinner plans are varied, we try to have guests from church over every other week, if we know in advance, we usually put a roast in the crockpot, or prepare a casserole. If it is planned last minute (as many are) we have homemade chilis and stews in the freezer to heat up, frozen entrees and sides to heat up,  or lots of pastas to quickly feed a crowd! Thank goodness for a full pantry! Anyway, if it is just us, we usually have leftovers, lunch or snack items, or simple prepared meals! So on our menu, you will find Sunday’s marked with a “?”
5. Our goal for this site is to share the deals, freebies, hot finds; but we also want to share how we live as a larger family on a tight budget everyday and ways that we try to live thriftily in every area of life….. so this would be one of them!

Here are the ideas for breakfasts this week:

• Fresh Baked Banana Bread
• Breakfast sandwiches with
• Cereal and fruit

Here are the ideas for lunches this week:

• Leftovers
• Soup, chips and veggies
• Burritos
• Cheese Sandwiches and tomato soup

Here are the snack ideas for this week:

• Cheese curds
• Oranges
• Celery and cream cheese
• Graham crackers

Here are the dessert ideas this week:

• Dutch Apple Pie
• Frozen Yogurt with fruit

Dinner Menu:

• Monday: Crockpot Chicken, Roasted Red Potatoes, green salad, bread and butter
• Tuesday: It’s A Guy Stir Fry, Brown Rice, Homemade bread, green salad
• Wednesday: Lasagna, fresh steamed veggies, salad, garlic bread
• Thursday: Tacos, Spanish rice, refried beans
• Friday: Family Dinner Out
• Saturday: Crockpot Roast with carrots, celery, potatoes and onions, drop biscuits, green salad
• Sunday: Low key soups, sandwiches and leftovers!

Monday: Crockpot Chicken, Roasted Red Potatoes, green salad, bread and butter

• 1 Package of all-natural chicken thighs = $2.40
• Red Potatoes .50
• Salad and dressings $1.00
• Bread and butter .59

Total Cost: $4.49 for the whole meal for 6 = about .75 per serving!

Tuesday: It’s A Guy Stir fry with Beef, rice, homemade bread, green salad (we made a double batch of stir-fry as we had dinner guests over, so cost calculates with a second family joining us!)

• Beef for Stir-Fry $2.00
• Vegetables and sauce for Stir fry $3.80
• Rice about .30 worth
• Homemade bread and honey butter (bread was MAYBE .10, but the honey butter was .42) .52
• Salad and dressings $2.00

Total Cost: $8.62 for the whole meal for 10 = about .86 per serving!

Wednesday: Lasagna, fresh steamed veggies, salad, garlic bread

• Lasagna noodles $1.66
• 1 lb. hamburger .99
• 1 can pasta sauce .47
• 1.5 containers of cottage cheese $1.32
• Broccoli .78
• Salad and dressings $1.00
• Store bought Garlic Bread $1.99

Total Cost: $8.21 for the whole meal for 6 = about $1.36 per serving!

Thursday: Tacos, Spanish rice, refried beans

• 1 lb. ground beef .99
• Spanish Rice about .32 (.12 for packet of spice and .10 for rice)
• Taco shells .78
• Ingredients to fill tacos (like cheese, sour cream, etc.) $1.87
• Dehydrated refried beans about .20 worth? This is from a large can of dehydrated beans!)

Total Cost: $4.16 for the whole meal for 6 = about .69 per serving!

Friday: Family Dinner Out – remember, this doesn’t come out of our grocery budget, but our eating out budget!

Saturday: Crockpot Roast with potatoes, carrots, celery and onions, salad and biscuits

• 2 lb. Beef Roast $4.50
• Veggies for roast about $1.80
• Homemade drop biscuits about .10
• Salad and dressings $1.00

Total Cost: $7.40 for the whole meal for 6 = about $1.23 per serving (plus lots of leftovers for Monday’s upcoming dinner!)

Sunday: Low key sandwich, soups or leftovers! Cheap!

COST SUMMARY FOR THIS WEEK’S DINNERS: Cost for the dinners this week $32.88 for the 6 of us, plus one night with dinner guests!