Menu Planning Around Budget Foods And Leftovers – Frugal Challenge
We know that our grocery budgets are probably one of the first places we can comfortably cut expenses. Most of us think about clipping coupons and shopping sales as the best ways to trim the food budget, but did you know you can take an even more aggressive step towards some big savings?
Many frugal homemakers have started planning their family dinners with their food budget in mind. Instead of regularly making the same meals they’ve always made, they are replacing several dishes each week with a frugal alternative and planning these menus in advance. These dishes often include a variety of dried beans and peas, a less expensive cut of meat, and “reinvented” leftovers.
My challenge for you is to try this approach for just one week and see if you save money on your food budget… along with saving yourself a bit of stress!
Let’s see how it works.
First of all, you need to create a meal plan for the week. Develop a menu for 7 days, beginning on the day that you want to serve a big meal. You will use this big meal to create at least one additional meal with the leftovers. This, in and of itself, will save money because you will be cooking two meals at once, using leftovers, and not stopping at fast food places.
For instance, if on Wednesday everyone is home at the same time and a nice, big dinner is in order, plan a hearty pot roast cooked in the crock pot. Choose a large roast so you are guaranteed leftover meat to use in open-faced sandwiches or beef soup. Cooking in a crock pot allows you to choose a budget cut of meat like a rump roast because a crock pot cooks the meat at a low temperature for a long time which breaks down the tougher cut into a fork-tender meal. You are saving money in a couple ways with just this one meal by creating leftovers and by using a budget cut of meat.
Another option might be to bake a large ham when you find a good sale price and serve it with a big dish of scalloped potatoes. Choose ham with a bone so you can use it to make Split Pea and Ham Soup later in the week.
You could choose to roast a chicken and then boil the carcass and leftover scraps to make broth, which you can use for Lentil Soup for another day. You can shred the leftover chicken and turn that into chicken salad to make sandwiches on a night when you want to eat light.
These are just a few options of where to get started with your big meal, but you see where this planning can really take shape now.
When you decide which day to begin, sit down with a pad and pencil and figure out what large meal you would like to make on day one. Then start searching for recipes that are nutritious and frugal that will use up leftovers as your week progresses. When you plan your big meals, keep in mind how you can use those particular leftovers for another meal using inexpensive, but nutritious, foods like black beans, lentils, dried peas, garbanzo beans, navy beans, and the like.
If you haven’t tried to plan a menu for your family in the past, this will be an eye-opener. Once you get one week of menu planning behind you, I know you’ll be patting yourself on the back, congratulating yourself for having nutritious, delicious, and inexpensive meals on the table every night for your hungry family.
This is a great way to save money on the grocery bill because no one feels the penny pinching with dinner on the table every night! I sincerely hope you’ll try this frugal challenge on your family this week.
Tags: dinner planning, family meal planning, frugal family budget, frugal family meals, frugal meals, frugal menus, menu planning
October 26th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
I’ve been menu planning for a year. Since the hubby and I were let go it’s been very helpful at lower our expenses.
I was referred to your blog since I’m still looking for ways to lower our expenses.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Thanks for the reminder. Made turkey breast (clearance) and made leftovers into enchiladas.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:51 am
I have been planning my menus for about year in half now. My family loves it because they know what’s for dinner (and they can help plan the menu) plus it makes things easier for me because I know what to thaw out and what- if anything- I need from the store.
Sometimes I use the school menus the kids bring home as a guide to make sure my kids are getting a square meal.Making sure I have a vegetable and fruit with each meal.
October 30th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I plan around bargains that I find in the stores. Today, I got 24 pounds of russet potatoes for $4 because some of the 10 pound bags had come open. The store rebags them and sells them for
$1 a bag. I weighed the bags and they average 6 pounds each. The store also had milk marked down to 50 cents a quart, so I got 9 quarts. I also got ground chuck for 99 cents a pound because the butcher in the store ground too much of it today. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time. I was able to fill my freezer with meat and the frig with milk. My two teens will be very happy and I’m happy that my grocery bill was less than $22. Of course, it helps that I have a really well stocked pantry and other meat in the freezer to fall back on. Now, I just have to sit down and make out 2 weeks worth of menus!
October 31st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Yes, yes, yes… so many great and smart ways to be a “frugal gourmet.” Thanks for the great methods outlined here. It’s a shame Home Economics was dropped from school curriculums years ago, our country would be in much better shape if our citizens still learned how to be wise consumers in school. Keep up the great tips and insights!
November 1st, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Thank you for the great comment, Patti. I thought I was the only one who thought the old “home ec” could be giving our young people some much needed value today more than ever. How did the school systems get it so wrong? I can’t see how learning how to run your own finances, your own home, and raising a family in a fiscally responsible and environmentally sound way can be bad. And, don’t even get me started on nutrition! Thanks for the comment once again and thanks for reading! By the way, I’ve really enjoyed scrolling around on WorthTheWhisk.com… very beautiful and GREAT NAME!
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Our school district still offers home-ec, but they call it something else. My son will take it next semester and it is a required “elective”. While I’m glad to have this course as a back up to lessons learned at home, I think children learn best by following the examples set at home. Both of my children can cook, clean up after themselves, do laundry, make a shopping list (with coupons and sale items), and plan out nutritious menus. Since they are both teens now and I work outside the home, they need to be able to fend for themselves as well as help out until their father and I get home from work.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 am
Wonderful post! This is what I do every week and have been doing for the past year or so on my blog. I love to do a big meal on Sunday night or Monday and use that meal in different ways throughout the week. If I make meatloaf, mashed potatoes and veggies on the first day, I’ll take some of the meatloaf and put it aside to use as beef topping on our pizza later in the week. Part of the mashed potatoes are saved and added to a can of tuna and some of the leftover veggies to turn into my “faux” crab cakes. I even sometimes make a very large batch of the mashed potatoes and make my “lazy mom’s tater soup” with some as yet another meal that week. The meatloaf can be stretched even further and turned into a “meatball soup” one night. Add a side of crackers and you’ve got a meal.
For us, Roast Chicken with roasted potatoes and carrots, gets turned into enchilada bake, then mexican corn soup, “breadless” chicken parm, roasted carrot soup with potato chunks, chicken and rice casserole and finally the last of the chicken is used on top of our pizza for the week(we have homemade pizza every week).
This is the best thing to do on the weeks when we want to put some extra money on a bill or something unplanned comes up and we need a little extra money. Meal planning already saves money but using a “rubber chicken,” “rubber roast,” or “rubber meatloaf” always makes it even better.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
I plan around bargains that I find in the stores. Today, I got 24 pounds of russet potatoes for $4 because some of the 10 pound bags had come open. The store rebags them and sells them for
$1 a bag. I weighed the bags and they average 6 pounds each. The store also had milk marked down to 50 cents a quart, so I got 9 quarts. I also got ground chuck for 99 cents a pound because the butcher in the store ground too much of it today. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time. I was able to fill my freezer with meat and the frig with milk. My two teens will be very happy and I’m happy that my grocery bill was less than $22. Of course, it helps that I have a really well stocked pantry and other meat in the freezer to fall back on. Now, I just have to sit down and make out 2 weeks worth of menus!
November 14th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I just love cooking with my crock pot especially in this cool weather we are having. Thanks for the great post and ideas!