I only have $300 for groceries

[spring978]

We have had some major housing issues come up so I will only have 300 dollars for Augusts groceries. I have to feed 3 teens 2 adults and one toddler.

We dont eat packaged food and we rarely eat meat, eggs cheese and milk are fine.

Can you help me plan our August meals please.

Thanks

[1growingsprout]

I would start with what you already have in stock and go from there. Involve the teens, let them know whats up for this month, see if they are willing to pitch in and get odd jobs for food they want etc...

[JenBuckyfan]

I think I'd go for different pasta meals and buy things like buckwheat, millet, etc that you can buy for a decent prince in bulk. I'd also shoot for making soups that can be filling and used for leftovers.

[2 in August]

Watch the ads for sales and coupons.

Do you have Meijer stores by you? If so, look at mealbox meijer, they have printable coupons that along with store sales have come up with getting food free or almost free. (pasta was on sale last week 2/$1 and they had coupons for $.50 off a box of pasta.

Go to HotCouponWorld and look at the forums for stores near you and what other people are getting for pennies.

Shop your pantry and freezer first. If you don't have an inventory, pull out everything you have wherever you stash food and write it all down. Then start planning on what you can make from what you have. After that figure out what you can make by only buying 1 or 2 ingredients. I've done some odd combinations, but I can feed us out of our cupboards and freezer for at least a week.

Get a 10lb bag of potatoes (or whatever size is on sale). They are cheap and versatile. Bake most of them up. Use some as a side dish for a meal, use others as a baked potato bar to stretch left overs, make twice baked potatoes, chop them up with a little onion and fry with a little oil or butter for breakfast. Use the others for mashed potatoes. A tiny bit of meat, lots of gravy and some veggies to round it out won't cost much.

Go to the $1 store and see what they have in their food section. Sometimes I get really good deals, other times it's a bust.

Look for Aldi, Sav a lot, Big Lots, scratch n dent or salvage grocery stores or amish grocery stores. You can find some good deals there. I just got a Zatarrans rice mix for .65. They are always too spicy for us so I add extra rice and a half a bag of frozen corn and it feeds us for a couple days, but we're a smaller family.

There is Angel Food Ministries. They sell food to anybody, there is no income restrictions. A box of food is $30. Sometimes it's pretty processed, other times it isn't so bad. For another $15-20 you can also get extra boxes of either meat or veggies.

Lastly, there are food pantries and such and while most people don't want to use them, if you can't feed you family or you have to choose between $ for food or paying your bills, there is no shame in getting a little help.

s

[holidaymama]

Try planning a once a month cooking. Plan your month's meals, of course with quite a few pasta and bean and soup dishes. If you plan on a big pot of soup that should feed you a few times. Same with the other dishes. Make one pound of hamburger make three pasta dishes. Also, lots of rice and frozen vegees...add a couple of scrambled eggs and you have healthy fried rice that fills you up like a meal.

I found that if you buy the bulk of your month's supplies at once and have very little leeway in changing, that you can probably buy it all for about 200...now this means the meat is found on clearance or on sale.

That leaves you $100 for produce and milk. You could use powdered milk mixed with regular milk if things get really tight. Do you have like a farmers stand that you can get great produce prices? One thing that we will do is to go to Costco and buy a case of apples and oranges for about $10 a piece, and they stay good a month.


Bake your own bread and biscuits and corn bread. Serve with every meal as a good filler.

Good luck! For some, $300 is their budget...maybe they will post. When I think about it ours isn't much more for food, since I include diapers and household products in our $500/month budget...we are a family of four.

[texmati]

soup? lentil or bean soup is filling and healthy and cheap.

[MamaChel]

That's about what we have for a family of 5. A big step is looking in your pantry and freezer first to see what you have to work with. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Do you have a farmer's market nearby? We spend ~$20/wk @ the farmer's market on our produce for the week. this week I splurged and got 2 qts of berries instead of something else, then I got a qt container of zuchini and yellow squash, a head of lettuce, some tart cherries, and some peaches.

Buy what your family will eat and don't limit yourself to "traditional" meals. We frequently have breakfast for supper: scrambled eggs, pancakes, etc. I like to eat things like beans for breakfast or just cheese and olives or something.

Look for sales on foods your family eats.

Some favorites in my house include: enchaladas (refried beans-I make my own) cheese, and sauce made from tomato paste and onions. You can make burritos by just cutting the sauce out. Chili can be stretched to 2-3 meals, especially if you make chili-cheese burritos by adding it to tortillas. Soups with home made bread or rolls are nice too.

Stir fried veggies over rice or noodles, fried rice, pilaf, etc are all easy and can be cheap.

[KnockedUpButtercup]

If you rarely eat meat, are you familiar with TVP? It stands for Texturized Vegetable Protein. Basically, it's the solid material left over when soybeans are pressed to release their soy oil...just pure soy protein w/ almost no fat.

It's the prime ingredient in expensive "Veggie Crumbles," where they rehydrate it, flavor it, and color it, then sell it for use in place of ground beef.

It comes in little (dry) crumbles, and I buy it at Whole Foods for $1.99 a pound. That pound of TVP will rehydrate to many times its size...it says to use water, but I usually use veggie boullion, then double up on my spices for whatever I'm adding to the recipe (Italian, Mexican, etc). I add the spices straight to the TVP instead of later in the recipe, then I go ahead and use it like ground beef in things like Spaghetti, Tacos, Shepherd's Pie, Taco Soup, Sloppy Joes, etc. (TVP Sloppy Joes are particularly good!)

It only takes 1 cup of dry TVP to ultimately replace 1 pound of ground beef.

You can't really make meatballs or meatloaf out of it, but there are some good veggie burger recipes out there that use it as an ingredient.

Holly

[lilyka]

beans beans the magical fruit . . . . throw in some rice for good measure.

do you have any friends with gardens? this is the time of year people are over run with zuccinni and squash.

time to clean out your pantry fridge and freezer. get crackin'

find coupons where ever you can. plan around sales etc,

[EnglishRose]

Start with what you have

I agree with the PP's: take inventory of what food is already in your house.

If you post your inventory here, I'm sure the Food Budgeting Pros in this forum will be able to help you.

[JessicaTX]

is that 300 supposed to include your toiletry items and cleaners as well? or just food? I'd take pantry inventory, then divide the money up into how much is available per week and try to stick to it. The times I've tried to buy a months worth of food at once we had nothing left in the final week, though I'm not a good planner. I would divvy up the money and stick it in envelopes in my underwear drawer to make sure we still had food available at the end of the month. We do a lot of stir fry when money is low. Veggies from the garden or farmers market, lots of rice and a bit of seasonings.

[hmkrueger]

Check with some of your local farms that do CSA programs...the ones in our area have a flexible plan for the CSA boxes that people have to skip picking up b/c they're on vacation, something came up, etc. Plus a table where people can trade out what they can't or won't use. Also check with the farms that have stands at farmer's mkts b/c they may be able to give you produce after mkt. Normally the kinds of farms we have near us donate to a local food pantry, but since they are family farms, I'd imagine the farmers would be willing to work with you. If none of the above is feasible I would check with local food pantries in churches and social svc agencies b/c those pantries are there specifically to fill in the gaps for families!

[Kaitnbugsmom]

inventory & plan from that first. then see what you need to fill in from there. We usually have about that much to spend for 5-6 people. We get a Sam's club account through dh's civilian employer {had to buy it this year since he's deployed} We start with basics, 5 dozen eggs are $8, a bag of pancake mix is $4, a gallon of syrup is the same, bag of potatoes are $4-6 depending on size of potatoes, apples run around $1/lb prebagged.

Watch for sales, kroger does 10/$10 alot, and their bagged frozen veggies are awesome, we use them for everything from meatloaf to stew to just by themselves with a little mrs dash.

[boobybunny]

Spring,
Where are you? I am in Eugene.
Can I share the bounty of my garden with you?

I have yellow squash, zucchini, snap peas, lettuce, spinach, and even some broccoli... soon to have tomatoes, beans and peppers. Then in Sept, I should have cantaloupe and pumpkins out my ears.

[SuzyLee]

If you have any neighbors going on vacation, ask if you can harvest their garden while they are gone. I am getting pounds and pounds of green beans and yellow squash while my neighbors are gone this week. If you can get stuff now (before August) make it into caseroles and freeze it for August.

ETA: beans and rice many ways. Dry beans are super cheap.

[Zamber]

http://www.cindysporch.com/pages/kitcheninv.shtml

I find these inventory sheets helpful.

[DaMajha]

Originally Posted by KnockedUpButtercup

If you rarely eat meat, are you familiar with TVP? It stands for Texturized Vegetable Protein. Basically, it's the solid material left over when soybeans are pressed to release their soy oil...just pure soy protein w/ almost no fat.

It's the prime ingredient in expensive "Veggie Crumbles," where they rehydrate it, flavor it, and color it, then sell it for use in place of ground beef.

It comes in little (dry) crumbles, and I buy it at Whole Foods for $1.99 a pound. That pound of TVP will rehydrate to many times its size...it says to use water, but I usually use veggie boullion, then double up on my spices for whatever I'm adding to the recipe (Italian, Mexican, etc). I add the spices straight to the TVP instead of later in the recipe, then I go ahead and use it like ground beef in things like Spaghetti, Tacos, Shepherd's Pie, Taco Soup, Sloppy Joes, etc. (TVP Sloppy Joes are particularly good!)

It only takes 1 cup of dry TVP to ultimately replace 1 pound of ground beef.

You can't really make meatballs or meatloaf out of it, but there are some good veggie burger recipes out there that use it as an ingredient.

Holly

Where in the store would you find this?

[lilyka]

either in the bulk bins or in with the random baking stuff. If you can't find it ask a manager.

[SeekingJoy]

At Whole Foods it is in the bulk bin section.

[retro.mama]

Originally Posted by KnockedUpButtercup

You can't really make meatballs or meatloaf out of it, but there are some good veggie burger recipes out there that use it as an ingredient.

Holly

FYI We make great meatballs and meatloaf out of TVP, breadcrumbs, and a binder (eggs, sometimes cottage cheese).

If you've never eaten TVP, try just one meal before buying in quantity. It has the same graceful effects of beans.