Part 4: Meal Plans

We have covered the two little things that you can do to cut your food bill  and contribute to better health too.  We have found ways to get your protein at the RBP a start the journey to build a stock for emergencies. Emergencies can be as little as a snow storm, a sick child,  or the flooding of the main road so that the grocery stores can’t restock.   Yes, that happened and it was Christmas to boot.

Let’s  talk about meal plans.   Meal plans save you from the pizza delivery demons.   Being organized reduces stress.  If things are set up, almost anyone in the family can finish dinner if you are otherwise occcupied.

Have a plan or plan to fail.   There are no magic surprises if you have a basic stock of food on hand that you can make meals from.   Having a few aces in your hole doesn’t hurt either.   Always have a few easy, cheap meals in your pantry or freezer.   I buy Foster Farms chicken patties when I find them on sale .  If you have pasta and pasta sauce , you have chicken parm in a snap.

We always have ground beef , already cooked , in the freezer packed in meal sized portions.   It is a versitle base for any number of meals.

The basis for a lot of this organization is making a list of ten to fourteen meals your family will eat.
After your list is complete, and you have analyzed it for budget breakers, you can list the ingredients that you will need to stock.   This list should include economical sources of protein (2.00 a pound is my target price ) and the ingredients and side dishes as well.  Asparagus and water chestnuts are out of reach for most super economy meals.   Stick to basics.

Ideas:
Spaghetti and meatballs
Mac n cheese (real scratch)
Pork chops and dressing
Pork Roast
Pulled pork sandwiches
Nachos
Chilli
Vegetable bean soup
Chicken Roasted with garlic bread and oven roasted root veggies
Chicken soup
Chicken Pot Pie (one crust )
Chicken stir fry
Breakfast for dinner
Quiche (impossible pie )
Sloppy joes
Chicken chimichanga
Chicken and noodles
Pork stir fry
Shrimp stir fry
Baked lemon salmon
Tuna cassarole
Tuna patties
Salmon patties
Pork stew

Make a list of ingredients you will use to make your meals.  Note the things you can buy in bulk and
use for several dishes.

In our house that would be diced tomatoes, Other that tomato paste, I dot buy a lot of other tomato
products.   Simplifying your list by using versatile ingredients makes life and budgets a lot easier.

Pasta sauce and pasta are items you can find on sale often and thre are almost always coupons for them and that doubles your savings.

Buy 5 and save 5 sales can be a little time consuming to plan, but they can save a lot of money especially  if you can pair them with coupons.   I have saved as much as 91 percent with coupons.   So much for coupons are a waste of time.

Our groceries for the three of us has been less than 55.00 a week.   That is 45 percent of th USDA stats for poor people.   They call it thrifty.   We eat well and we dont eat rice and beans  as a steady
diet.   We dont have our food delivered, we dont eat junk food a lot, we cook scratch food efficiently. I rarely spend more than twenty minutes cooking dinners.   Bulk cooking and propeer  kitchen appliances help remarkably.

We have a matrix for meal planning to make the whole process fast and easy.

1 beef, 3 chicken or pork , 2 vegetarian, and 1 fish or shellfish.
This  affords us a variety of foods.

Others use a these based matrix.   Soup, Tex-mex, italian, etc.