What Cheap Meals are Made Up Of

One thing I've noticed over the years of living frugally and even super frugal, is that the cheap meals are usually based on the following foods:

• Rice
• Beans
• Potatoes
• Tuna
• Eggs
• Vegetables
• Oats
• Flour
• Cornmeal
• Pasta

Planning meals around these ingredients will ensure to keep costs down. Sure, you could live off of ramen, boxed mac/cheese and other processed 'cheap' foods but I don't think they fill you up as well as the above foods and they sure aren't as nutritionally sound. I've gone through a lot of recipes the past few days and it seems that a lot of cheap meals I'm finding include processed foods, canned creams of this and that and ready-made mixes. My goal has always been to use pure foods and make them as cheap as possible. I prefer making homemade cream of chicken/mushroom, etc. for meals than using those nasty cans that are full of who knows what lol. I also want to know what is in my food and those ready-made mixes have things that sure don't sound like food to me.

With the above cheap foods in my arsenal, I'm searching for meals that utilize these to get the ultimate cost-saving meals. My brain is hurting from all the storming going on up there lol......this will probably be the hardest I've tried and thought through a meal plan and I'm not even close to being done yet. There isn't anything new under the sun, but it sure is hard to find that old stuff that has been buried by convenience meals, but I endeavor to uncover it and share it with you all!

 

Living Debt Free - Our Continuing Story

We are moving towards our 2nd year of living debt free and I have to say that this is the life we want to continue living.  Not only are the chains and/or burdens of debt gone, but the feeling of them gone and the freedom to purchase as we have means available makes life much more enjoyable.  We no longer give in to impulses but rather think them through according to what we can afford, not what we could afford if we borrow the money off of someone else; credit.  The scripture is very true:

Proverbs 22:7

".....the borrower is servant to the lender."

Truly, you are a servant or slave to those you borrow from and with that comes the burden, the chains and the stress of paying them back to be 'free' again.  The problem isn't that there may be a time you would need to do that for an emergency, the problem is when you live that way purposely.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

"But godliness with contentment is great gain.
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

There are no downsides to living debt free because you learn contentment through what God blesses you with in your life.  You don't borrow from the world's system of "got-to-have-it-now" because you know what that leads to - stress, marital problems, discontentment and a multitude of other burdens that will eventually steal your joy.  Living debt free is the tool that can instill peace, contentment, financial freedom and joy into your life and your family.  Our marriage was only ever in turmoil when we were in debt.  Now that the chains have been broken off that bound us, we are freely enjoying life together in a commitment to not sacrifice our joy for a dollar bill or what we can have.

The scripture above speaks of those that covet after money, or those that will be rich - in other words, those that "got-to-have-it."  Having a credit card and/or credit gives way to that sort of lifestyle, but with it, comes temptation, snares and MANY sorrows!  You can be rich without debt and still right with God, however, these scriptures speak of the others that seek to be rich in the wrong ways and with the wrong motives.  Leaving out God and His Word for your financial decisions will only dig your hole a bit deeper and your way a lot rougher in life.  It just isn't worth it!!

I like what Clarke said in his commentary on the above scripture:

It requires but little of this world’s goods to satisfy a man who feels himself to be a citizen of another country, and knows that this is not his rest.

To those that don't have their minds fixed on this world and all its dainties, they are satisfied with little.  I know I have a mansion coming one day, so I'm not going to sacrifice my joy or my family to try and get one in this world that God didn't give us the means to afford.  I've learned to be content in the home that God did provide for us for the time being, even though it may be a mobile home, it is a HAPPY home!  I truly do love this place and though I may wish for a fancy house, I would rather not trade what we have now for the snares that that fancy house may entrap us in.

God brought us on this journey a few years ago when we were drowning in debt of our own making and then on top of that, we had the unfortunate event of hospitalization without insurance, which was in reality another problem of our own making.  For, had we had insurance, we wouldn't have added to the burden we were already under.  We didn't take the easy way out, we didn't take charity that is reserved for those that truly need it, no - we knew we made this bed and we had to lie in it.  We paid off those debts over years and we didn't repeat the same mistakes, we rather chose to do a 180 and go the opposite way - living debt free and insuring our health, life and worldly possessions.  Looking ahead and preparing for the future, rather than being unwise and only caring for the present.

If you never learn the lesson in the financial department and change your ways, you will only continue on the hamster wheel as yet another crisis will soon bring you back to where you didn't win the battle.  The key is to win the battle and change!  Then, and only then, can you have true financial peace that comes with God and contentment.

$100 a Month Grocery Challenge - Meal Plan

We are nearing the last month of freezer meals for dinners, so I don't have to plan those except for the weekend casseroles, which I do monthly.  I only purchase dinner meals on the 3rd month of my budget cycle, which you can read about here.  I decided to list my plan for breakfast, lunch, snacks and desserts and you can view our dinner meal selection here.

Breakfast
Oatmeal
Egg sandwich
Egg with toast
Pancakes
Scone with jam

Lunch
Bean burrito
PBJ sandwich
Egg salad sandwich

Snacks
Carrots and hummus
Almonds & Yogurt
Popcorn and cheese
Fruit, hard-boiled egg
Shake or smoothie
Pita bread brushed with olive oil
Chips with salsa or refried beans

Desserts
Granola bars
Coffee cakes
Oatmeal cookies
More to come.....

I'm still planning what my weekend casserole meals will be as those are the meals with meat.  We have been doing lasagna twice a month and chicken divan twice a month but we are all tiring of those.  I may try out a taco casserole and chicken enchiladas.

 

How to Spend Only $100 a Month in Groceries

I wanted to explain how my budget system works with my meal plan.  With this system, I stockpile and buy enough to make dinner freezer meals for 3 months.  I spend small amounts on certain months and then a large amount the month I buy for my 3-month freezer cooking and keep my stockpile going, which will be next month in June.  It all averages out to $150 a month.  Let me explain:

Month 1 - spend $100

Month 2 - spend $100

Month 3 - freezer cooking shopping/stockpile, spend $250

Average costs of groceries over 3 months = $150 a month

So in order to make it on an average of $100 over 3 months, I will need it to work something like this:

Month 1 - spend $50

Month 2 - spend $50

Month 3 - freezer cooking shopping/stockpile, spend $200

Average costs of groceries over 3 months = $100 a month

I can't really cut down on my stockpile month too much, so that means that the other 2 months are pretty lean.  It is easy to do it on the $150 budget, but will be a challenge on this budget for sure.  I could do $75 for months 1 & 2 and then cut my month 3 down to $150 but I'm not sure I can get that month's food AND 3-months of dinner meals AND keep my stockpile up cutting it that low.  I will see how this month goes and go from there.  Once I get canning going next month, I can can soups, sauces and other things that will lower our budget even more.

The main way I save money is buy making homemade foods - this is not just meals, this is snacks, condiments, bread items and desserts.  Making homemade organic whole wheat bread, pita pockets, pizza dough and on and on is FAR cheaper than buying it from the store, and it tastes better!  This will require a LOT of work on my part but since I'm coming upon my second trimester, they say you get a burst of energy during this trimester and I'm counting on that.

I realized this was a 5-week month, so I'm trying to not do the bulk of my shopping until next week, so I can just purchase for 4 weeks.  I suppose you could call this eating-out-of-the-pantry week.  This also gave me more time to plan.

$100 a Month Grocery Challenge

I'm doing a challenge of living on $100 this month.  This does not include toiletry items like toilet paper, toothpaste, etc., it is just grocery food items.  The reason I'm doing this is because we have spent SO much money on take-out, store-bought bread and convenience items since I was on bed rest for 5 days and also being sick during this pregnancy.  Then our car messed up twice, costing us about $1,500 to fix and it is already having another problem and then the medical bills that I have incurred through this horrific experience are piling on top of all this.  There is more, but those are the major reasons besides - hello, I'm pregnant and we have a baby coming lol.  That alone is expensive!

My new month doesn't start at the beginning of the month, it starts this week, that is just how the paycheck falls and when I get my house money.  This won't be extremely hard for me to manage because we already live off $150 a month with the occasional splurges.  I'm aiming to knock out the splurges and lower the food costs by $50 from what we spend now.  This will take more work for me as I will be whipping up more snacks homemade and get back to baking my bread, but I miss that and am so tired of the store-bought items that don't seem to fill you up!

I will be following some of the ideas from when we lived off $80 a month in 2008 here, with the exception of adding in a few meals of beef and chicken on the weekends.  The meat and cheese will be the most expensive items to purchase, since we buy them organic.  I'm planning everything today and tomorrow and part of Friday and then will do the shopping.  If time permits, I will post my meal plan soon!

My mom has tried to get me to can for years, and after getting tired of paying $2.50 for organic soup, I decided it is time to make my own and can it!  So, I will be starting that up hopefully in June and will try and post the process as I learn!

 

Free Printable Monthly Budget Worksheet

*Coming back soon - I've just reopened my blog after being closed for 5 years and I hope to update the free printables by January 2019!