Need meal ideas for feeding your family on a budget? Here’s my latest frugal budget menu plan sharing the simple recipes that our family of six has enjoyed recently!
I can hardly believe it, but this is the fiftieth frugal budget menu plan that I’m sharing with you all here on my site!! That’s a whole lot of menu plans, you know?
I posted my first meal plan on a whim five years ago and never dreamed that it would become such a popular thing!
But apparently, there are a lot of other moms who, like me, need all the ideas they can get to keep them inspired as they feed their families on a budget!
So if you’re ever making menus and feel blank or you find yourself struggling to answer the “what shall we have for supper?” question, come on over and take a look through my budget menu plans!
There are plenty of ideas!
New to my Frugal Meal Plans?
It might be helpful to know a few things first:
Our family of six consists of two adults, an 11 ½-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl, a 6-year-old girl and a 3 ½-year-old boy. All of our kids have hearty appetites and tend to eat more than many kids their age.
Having a stockpile saves me money. If an item that we use goes on sale, especially if it’s a particularly good sale, whenever possible I try to stock up.
Sometimes the saving seems small- it may only be $0.25 an item. But doing that with multiple things does add up rather quickly! Then when I plan my menus, I first look at what I have in my cupboards, fridge and freezer and try to plan as many meals around that as possible.
I use my freezer a lot. I freeze so many foods to extend their shelf life- everything from cottage cheese to zucchini to onions! Another thing I like to do is cook up extra meat, rice and even things like soup and then freeze them to save time later. Both of these things help save me time and money too.
I cook almost totally from scratch. That means when I a cake, I make it from scratch. I rarely use pre-packaged sauces. I make my own cream soups, homemade Bisquick and pie crusts. Making my own food is typically less expensive and healthier too.
We rarely snack. By eating hearty 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 Homemade Granola or Baked Oatmeal, the occasional bought cereal and sometimes some fruit too. I know that might seem awfully boring to some of you, but the simplicity of it works well for us. I also have a homemade iced coffee, homemade frappe or some other fun beverage like Warm Vanilla Custard every afternoon.
A little side note: I occasionally get asked why I only do a two weeks menu plan instead of four weeks. To be honest, it’s mainly for my own convenience. Keeping track of everything we eat gets to be a little tedious. So only doing it for two weeks helps me not get bogged down with it.
Frugal Budget Menu Plan
WEEK 1
Sunday
- Various Leftovers; Peas; Rice Krispie bars
– a sweet friend shared some of her homemade Rice Krispie bars with us - Homemade Grilled Tuna Salad Sandwiches; Easy Fruit Smoothie; Homemade Popcorn
Monday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Canned Peaches; Frozen Blueberries
- John Wayne Casserole; Green Beans; Rhubarb Crisp
Tuesday
- Zucchini Fritters; Organic Yogurt; Canned Peaches; Apples
– I can’t find a recipe quite like mine for the Zucchini Fritters, but if you Google you’ll find lots of recipes that are somewhat similar that you’ll probably enjoy as much as we do these. - Creamy Sausage and Potatoes; Lettuce Salad with Mexican Dressing and Homemade Ranch; Leftover Rhubarb Crisp
Wednesday
- Refried Bean and Cheese Quesadilla (used my homemade refried beans); Organic Yogurt; Oranges; Apples
- Easy Mexican Rice Bowls; Store-Bought Cookies
Thursday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Frozen Blueberries; Oranges
- Curry Chicken and Rice Soup; Lettuce Salad with Mexican Dressing and Homemade Ranch; Deviled Eggs (my recipe is similar to this one); Apple Dump Cake from Scratch
Friday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Frozen Blueberries; Oranges
- Super Easy Beef and Macaroni Skillet; Peas; Homemade Chocolate Brownies
Saturday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Apples; Oranges
- Homemade Cream of Tomato Soup (my recipe is similar to this one); Cheese; Peas; Leftover Homemade Chocolate Brownies
WEEK 2
Sunday
- Various Leftovers; Peas; Peanut Butter Cream Pie (my recipe is similar to this one, although I make a homemade pudding instead of using a pudding mix)
- Tuna Toasts; Easy Fruit Smoothie; Homemade Popcorn
– My husband made the toasts and loosely followed this recipe for the bread. Then we made homemade tuna salad and ate it on top of the toasts. So good!
Monday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Apples; Oranges
- Leftover Curry Chicken and Rice Soup; Green Beans; Leftover Peanut Butter Pie | Cookies
Tuesday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Canned Peaches; Frozen Blueberries
- Chicken Stroganoff; Peas; The Best Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bars
Wednesday
- Refried Bean and Cheese Quesadilla (used my homemade refried beans); Organic Yogurt; Apples; Plums
- Garlic Chicken Pita Bread Pizzas; Lettuce Salad with Mexican Dressing and Homemade Ranch; Homemade Vanilla Pudding
– I found a bunch of pita bread on markdown and made pizzas with it. I loosely followed this Garlic Sauce recipe and then topped them with chicken, sliced tomatoes, sauteed onions and cheese.
Thursday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Bananas; Clementines
- Easy Mexican Bean Soup; Lettuce Salad with Mexican Dressing and Homemade Ranch; Leftover Vanilla Pudding
Friday
- Zucchini Fritters; Organic Yogurt; Bananas; Clementines
– I can’t find a recipe quite like mine for the Zucchini Fritters, but if you Google you’ll find lots of recipes that are somewhat similar that you’ll probably enjoy as much as we do these. - Honey Garlic Chicken; Rice; Lettuce Salad with Mexican Dressing and Homemade Ranch; Bought Donuts/Brownies (my husband brought these as a surprise treat)
– I like to double or triple the sauce part of the chicken recipe and then we eat it over rice.
Saturday
- Meat & Cheese Sandwiches; Organic Yogurt; Grapes; Clementines
- Country Potato Soup; Lettuce Salad with Mexican Dressing and Homemade Ranch; Leftover Vanilla Pudding
Lynn
I hope this doesn’t sound mean but why do you have peas and meat and cheese sandwiches so often? Sweet potatoes were on sale and I bought them for $.45/lb, I bought 8 but made 3 for a family of 5 with teenagers. Also, you give the kids organic but lunch meat is so bad for them. It is high in salt, even low sodium. I bought broccoli and we ate it raw at lunch and another crown steamed at dinner. When pineapple goes on sale, can it in pints, there’s no sugar in it. You can use any stock pot that is deep enough to cover the pint jars.
Lydia Beiler
The peas and meat and cheese sandwiches are just what we enjoy and what works for us. Are they the absolute healthiest options? Probably not. But I shoot for the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the time we eat from scratch, fairly healthy foods. If the other 20% we aren’t eating the absolute healthiest, I’m okay with that.