Wonder what in the world we eat on a $200 grocery budget? Here’s our frugal menu plan for the last two weeks. It shows exactly what our family of 5 ate!
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I’ve found that a lot of people are really curious to know just what exactly we eat on our $200/mo. grocery budget. I mean, do we mainly consume rice and beans with the occasional side of chicken? Or can we actually eat rather normally?
So if you are one of those people that has been skeptical or if you simply want ideas for frugal meals, hopefully, this frugal menu plan showing what we ate the last 2 weeks will be helpful! Maybe you won’t consider our menu plan normal, but I think we eat pretty well and we are happy with our meals. So that’s good enough for us! 🙂
If you are interested in learning more about how we eat and grocery shop on a $200/mo. grocery budget here are a couple of other posts you might enjoy reading too:
- All of my $200/mo. Menu Plans.
- All about how I plan my $200/mo. grocery shopping trips and do my shopping.
- The easiest way to save money on groceries.
Also, before you actually read our budget-friendly menu plan, here are a couple of things that are helpful to know:
- Our family of five consists of two adults with fairly big appetites, a 6-year-old boy, a 3-year-old girl and a 13-month-old girl.
- I buy lots of fruits and veggies in bulk from local farmers/orchards in the summer and then preserve them by canning or freezing. (Check out my step by step photo canning tutorials here!)
- I have a stockpile– my cupboards are full from previous shopping and here’s why. When I can get pasta for free with coupons, I buy as much as I have coupons for. If I’m able to get flour for $0.50/bag like I did last fall, I’ll buy half a dozen and put them in the freezer to use as needed. I do this as much as my budget allows, on as many items as I can and as a result save lots of money. Then when I go to plan menus, I simply plan our meals around what I already have in my cupboards and freezer, as much as possible. Obviously, I still might have to buy a few things at regular price here and there, but by stocking up when the price is at rock bottom I save a lot.
- I cook almost totally from scratch. That means when I make a cake, I rarely use a cake mix. (Why should I when this yummy chocolate cake takes all of 5 minutes to mix up?) I make my own bread totally from scratch. I rarely use pre-packaged sauces. I make my own cream soups and pie crusts. Making your own food is typically less expensive and healthier too.
- We rarely snack. By eating “heavy” food like granola at breakfast we don’t get hungry until lunchtime. And the same goes for the afternoon. Our lunches are big enough that we usually are fine until dinner time. When we do need a snack, I try to keep it mostly healthy by offering fruit, nuts or maybe No Bake Energy Bites. We don’t always do it perfectly though, and sometimes end up having chips or cookies instead.
- Our breakfasts consist of Easy Homemade Granola or Baked Oatmeal, the occasional bought cereal that I was able to get for $0.50/box and sometimes some fruit too. I know that might seem awfully boring to some of you, but we actually all really enjoy it and prefer it over other breakfast food. I also have a homemade iced latte, homemade frappe or some other fun beverage every morning. It’s just one of the little things that I do to add a bit of sunshine to my days!
Below you will find our lunches and dinners. (If we ate something other than our usual breakfast, I’ll note that too.) Monday through Friday, 3 days a week the lunches are just for the two youngest and me, the other 2 days my husband joins us.
Our son gets lunch at school and 3 days a week my husband takes a packed lunch with him to work. His lunch typically consists of sandwiches, fruit, homemade yogurt and sometimes random leftovers too.
Get my FREE $50 Aldi Meal Plan here! It has 7 easy dinners for a family of 5.
Our Frugal Menu Plan for Our Family of Five
WEEK 1
Sunday
- At my in-laws all day
Monday
- Homemade Breakfast Burritos (from the freezer); Oranges
- Creamy Crockpot Mexican Chicken served with rice; Green Beans; Homemade Applesauce
Tuesday
- Various Leftovers; Easy Homemade Yogurt; Home Canned Peaches and Frozen Blueberries (I preserved)
- Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup; Sheetz Philly Cheese Steak; Homemade Applesauce; Homemade Chocolate Brownies (my recipe is similar to this one)
– A new Sheetz gas station opened up nearby and we got a bunch of coupons for free food items. One of them was this Philly Cheese Steak that I was planning to send with my husband as part of his lunch. But he insisted that we all enjoy it, so we did! (We don’t often get this kind of thing due to our tight budget, so it was kind of a treat.)
Wednesday
- Various Leftovers; Easy Homemade Yogurt; Home Canned Peaches and Frozen Blueberries (I preserved)
- Macaroni Beef Skillet; Cooked Carrots (with a sweet and sour sauce on them); Homemade Applesauce; Homemade Chocolate Brownies
Thursday
- Leftover Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup; Cheese; Home Canned Peaches and Frozen Blueberries (I preserved)
- Leftover Creamy Crockpot Mexican Chicken; Leftover Cooked Veggies; Homemade Applesauce; Blonde Brownies (an easy chocolate chip brownie)
Friday
- Various Leftovers; Oranges; Easy 3 Ingredient Healthy Fudge
- Homemade Chicken Alfredo Pizza (used homemade Healthier Alfredo Sauce and homemade pizza crust and topped with chicken, caramelized onions and of course cheese); Peas; Homemade Applesauce; Ice Cream Bars
– This homemade pizza crust recipe is awesome! Not only does it need no time to rise, but you can also have it ready to go in the oven in 30 minutes! And it’s really tasty too. The only thing I do differently is pre-bake the crust a bit before putting on the toppings.
Saturday
- Leftover Creamy Crockpot Mexican Chicken; Leftover Beef Macaroni Skillet; Easy Homemade Yogurt; Home Canned Peaches; Easy 3 Ingredient Healthy Fudge
- Homemade Cream of Tomato Soup (my recipe is similar to this); Sweet Potato Rolls (bought at a local discount store); Cheese; Homemade Shortcake with Frozen Crushed Strawberries (I preserved)
WEEK 2
Sunday
- Had a shared lunch at our church—didn’t take anything!
– I was to help my mother-in-law make a big roaster full of scalloped potatoes and ham, but she insisted on doing it all and letting me have a break. So sweet of her! - Spent the evening with my husband’s family- took enough hot dogs for everyone and 2 qts. of ice cream
Monday
- Various Leftovers; Easy Homemade Yogurt; Apples
- Creamy Chicken and Rice Casserole; Green Beans; Homemade Shortcake with Frozen Crushed Strawberries (I preserved)
– I really loved this chicken and rice dish! So many of these types of casseroles take cream soup, but this was just a great from-scratch recipe. The Parmesan cheese and Ritz cracker topping really make it yummy!
Tuesday
- Various Leftovers; Easy Homemade Yogurt; Home Canned Peaches and Frozen Blueberries (I preserved)
- Leftover Homemade Pizza; Salad with Homemade Mexican Dressing; Homemade Applesauce; Oreos and Milk 🙂
Wednesday
- Kids: Eggs in a Nest (eggs made in toast); Me: Leftover Cream of Tomato Soup; Cheese; Apples
- Cream Cheese Potato Soup with Ham; Salad with Homemade Mexican Dressing; Bread Pudding (skipped the sauce and sprinkled with brown sugar instead)
Thursday
- Kids: Eggs in a Nest (eggs made in toast); Me: Homemade Breakfast Burrito (from the freezer); All: Easy Homemade Yogurt; Oranges
- Leftover Creamy Chicken and Rice Casserole; Green Beans; Homemade Applesauce; Cheese; Best Ever Chocolate Cake with Ice Cream
– This was actually a small birthday party for our 1 yr. old and my parents and a good neighbor/friend ate with us. And yes, I totally served them leftover casserole! I added fresh Ritz crackers to the top and no one was any wiser. Not that they would have cared anyway. That’s the beauty of family and good friends- they don’t care!
Friday
- Various Leftovers; Easy Homemade Yogurt; Home Canned Peaches and Frozen Blueberries (I preserved)
- Scrambled Eggs; Sausage; Toast with Homemade Apple Butter; Frozen Fruit Slush; Decadent Frosted Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
– We had guests that joined us for the cheesecake dessert.
Saturday
- Home Canned Vegetable Soup (this is a similar recipe); Cheese; Home Canned Peaches and Frozen Blueberries (I preserved)
- Ate out
– Ended up getting a free meal because the restaurant we went to was understaffed and was out of a bunch of things, so they offered to refund us our bill!
Regina
Thanks saving for some recipes
ThriftyFrugalMom
You’re welcome! I hope you enjoy the recipes you make. 🙂
Barb
Mooching from family & church and scamming restaurants doesn’t appeal to me. How can you eat ‘various’ leftovers when you don’t cook enough to leave over?
$200 a month is about what people on food stamps get per person so I find your claim very sketchy.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Hey Barb, thanks for your feedback! I hear what you are saying with feeling like maybe it’s not fair to say we have a $200 budget when we sometimes share meals with family or have shared meals at church. The thing is, that kind of thing is actually pretty rare. And there are plenty of times that we have guests and are feeding extra people. So really, it all evens out I think!
As for the various leftovers part. I looked over this menu and you are right, we did eat a lot of leftovers. Two things that are helpful to remember: I had food from the week before I started this menu that we were finishing up. Also, my husband took a packed lunch, so it was just my 3 small kids and I eating the leftover lunches, which meant, it didn’t really take that much food. And I’m not sure why you thought that I don’t cook enough to have leftovers. I actually often double recipes for the precise reason of having leftovers to eat at lunches, which is part of what was happening here.
Yes, people that get food stamps actually do get considerably more than we do for grocery spending! But, thanks to using coupons strategically, shopping sales and stockpiling and being willing to eat simply and God’s graciousness, we’ve been able to make our budget work and not need to depend on food stamps. I talk more in depth about how I shop, cook and make this all work in lots of my other blog posts- feel free to check them out if you’d like! 🙂
Ultimately though, my goal in sharing my menu plans isn’t to make anyone feel bad about their grocery budget being higher than ours or to toot my own horn or anything of the sort! Because hey, just because we have a $200 grocery budget doesn’t mean everyone else should too! I share these menu plans and talk about our budget choices in hopes that it can inspire others to think of creative ways that they can cut costs, things that will work for them and their lifestyle, so that hopefully they can experience more financial freedom.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment!
Dani Safford
Your blog always comes up whenever I start Googling ways to cut my grocery budget down! We’re also a family of 5 but my kids are all much older than yours (I have two teenage boys and a 9-year-old daughter.) It’s amazing to me that you’re able to stick to such a low budget. We have some dietary restrictions in my household (diabetic husband and I’m a vegetarian and prefer to eat low carb) so I always wind up making multiple dinners every night. Snacks are what seem to consume so much of my grocery bill because the kids need 2-3 snacks plus a sandwich or entree for school every day. Currently I’m spending $250-$350 per WEEK on groceries and still feel like we never have enough food! It’s really amazing that you’re able to do it for so much less.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Well, I love that Google likes me for that topic, because saving money on groceries is a passion of mine! 🙂 But as much as I’m convinced that everyone can find ways to trim their grocery spending if they are willing, I also realize that everyone’s needs are different and do not expect most people to be able to have my grocery budget. And dietary restrictions would really make it a lot more challenging to have a lower budget too. We are blessed to not have any of those, although I do try to limit carbs. (We don’t eat pasta much and I try to not serve bread or doughy things like pizza more than once a day.)
You mentioned that snacks make it hard for you to keep your budget low. Here are a few ideas that may or may not help. You may be already doing this, but buying larger packages of an item and then dividing them up into Ziploc bags is usually considerably cheaper than buying snack sized options. Another idea is to plan their snacks around what is on sale as much as possible. And of course making homemade snacks is great too, if you have the time! Things like No Bake Energy Bites and Flourless Chocolate Muffins are easy to make and do well in lunches. Even making your own party mix is fairly easy to do and typically less expensive, especially if you buy store brand ingredients. But…the costs still add up, don’t they?!
Vanessa
This was a good read! It is nice to add in some meal planning where you can eat somewhere else instead of at home!
ThriftyFrugalMom
Thanks, Vanessa!
Ashleigh S Smith
By chance do you have a Email Address I can Email you at i have some Question’s i would like to ask but not on here if you don’t mind me having your email address, and also do you have any Youtube video’s?
ThriftyFrugalMom
Hi Ashleigh, I just sent you an email so you should no have my email address. 🙂 And no, I don’t do Youtube at all. I may have time for that some day, but right now, videos feel like a whole new world/thing to learn and I just don’t have the time to invest in that.
Tara
My husband and I are looking for ways to cut our grocery budget down…right now we are spending weekly what you spend in a month. We also have a family of 5, with 3 children (ages 8, 7, and 2) with one on the way. I see that we could save money by freezing and canning (do you have an additional freezer/refrigerator for storage?) and by just using what we have in the pantry. Based on what you have shared, my question is: After breakfast, do you just make one meal that you use for both lunch and dinner that day? Thanks.
ThriftyFrugalMom
Hi Tara! Sounds like you are at a similar busy stage of life. Congratulations on the new little one that’s on the way! You asked about freezer/fridge storage. We do have an additional freezer in our basement, which helps a lot because it allows me to freeze produce as well as things like bread, shredded cheese and meats when I can get them cheap and stock up. We only have one fridge though. It sure would be handy to have a second one because sometimes the one we have gets very full! But it doesn’t seem worth the expense at this point.
As far as whether I make one meal for both lunch and dinner. No, we have separate things. For lunch we’ll often have something easy like sandwiches (I can often get quality lunch meat fairly cheap at a discount grocery store, so that helps keep that cost down), refried bean and cheese quesadillas, white bean dip with tortilla chips, leftovers or eggs and toast. Then we pretty much always have yogurt and fruit as well. Dinners vary a lot…they are usually fairly simple but we enjoy a lot of variety. Does that help answer your question?
Ps. I’m going to email you as well…hopefully it won’t go to spam. 🙂