I need some ideas!

I grew up in a bad farm economey so those food dollars did have to stretch - we had a garden and put up most of it; however not everyone has the time or space for one. Your meat and potatoe dishes are nice, but it's not stretching it. A simple casserole of elbow maccorni, with cheese, chicken and cream of celery soup. You can always add veges too (corn, peas, onion, etc). I'm not talking hamburger helper either - personally, I can't stand those mixes, it's good old maccorni. We lived on those. I have to admit that maccorni doesn't fill a person so I'd always make casseroles and use potatoes. Diced potatoes, meat, cream of chicken or celery soup as a base and then add other stuff I came across it. The thing is it's filling - plus a one dish meal is easy, less mess to clean up and you can hide a vegie in there or two because of the flavor. I swear there was stuff in there that no one ever knew. Snacks with children are hard too. But I remember eating a lot of carrots, celery, popcorn and apples. The healthier the snack the filled up they will be. Those processed over the counter stuff is nice, but it's empty calories. I think in terms of what they're eating is going to determine how full they stay.

Try shopping at cheaper grocery stores,like Aldi's or Save-a-lot. IF you're married,make your husband and/or kids take lunch to work/school. Try replacing store-bought stuff with homemade,I make my own noodles. Not because I'm so poor but because it's very easy and why should pay for something I can make myself? Potatoes,pasta and eggs are cheap,maybe you should experiment with that.

I have two kids and a tight budget. We dont have a discount grocer around here that I know of. When we had to cut our budget I went to as basic as possible. Homemade everything, I make our laundry detergent, bar soaps, and almost all of our meals. At first it was a hard and necessary change, now that things are not as tight I still keep things on the same budget because I have learned to love the simplicity of it all. We eat little meat and lots of whole grain. We buy in bulk and the same meals a few times a month. We are also a lot less picky then we used to be. Good luck and treat it like a game or a challenge.

i would suggest home made soups. we eat a fair bit of soups and pastas during the winter and i find that you can get a soup bone for a fairly cheap and we also have a bread maker (that was given to us) and a pot of soup and some fresh bread are great things to have for dinner on a cold winter night.

I plan meals around what the biggest sale items are for the week. When roasts were on sale buy one get one free, I bought the two biggest that I could find and cut them each in half to make four. I also look for meat on the days that the store normally marks things down for quick sale.

I know that not all of us live in the same area but here is one recipe that I hope will help you cut your costs a little bit. I have a family of 5. Three of which are teen age boys. I have been trying to make more casseroles to fill them up. Here are a couple that you can throw together that I hope your kids will like. 6 medium size potatoes, cleaned and diced 2 pounds of ground beef or turkey (turkey is more economical and a bit healthier) 1/2 medium onion, chopped into small pieces 1/2 pound of frozen corn 2 cans of cream of mushroom or chicken soup. salt, pepper, garlic for taste First fry up your ground meat. Place into a large bowl, mix in the potatoes onion and frozen corn. Mix all together in the bowl. Throw in some seasonings and mix again. Heat your oven to 350. Next, mix in the soup with your other ingredients. Spray a casserole pan down with cooking spray, place everything into your casserole pan, bake for about 1 hour. If you want you may put some shredded cheese to add a little something extra. Total cost on this casserole is $10.00 There is a great set of books that actually can also help you cut costs in other ways. "The Tightwad Gazette" Even though these books are a little old, there are still sure fire ways to cut your costs in them.

I love this site. http://www.thriftyfun.com/ It has so much that helps to save money on so many things. The first thing is to have oatmeal for breakfast instead of cold cereals. It is so much cheaper and so much better and more filling than the cold cereals. My family likes it made with maple flavoring and raisins and sometime other dehydrated fruit. You can get the quick cooking kind and add some jam to make some like those flavored mixes. We have pancakes from scratch at least once a week. You can find a recipes for a mix on the web. My family likes sourdough pancakes. If I have some left over I freeze them and the kids warm them up in a slow skillet. Any recipe that calls for ground meat I use half of what is called for. Make every thing from scratch. You can find recipes for any mix you want to have on hand like bisquick mix. I fix a bean soup with corn bread or chili with tortillas often too. recipes for hamburger helpers. http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf114072.tip.html Creamed soup mix. http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf31678626.tip.html Make Your Own Casserole Sauce Mix http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf600368.tip.html

We will make things like casseroles - tuna casserole or shepherd's pie are great because they are filling, taste good, and have pretty cheap ingredients. We pack the leftovers into individual meal sizes and my husband takes them for lunch, or we have a leftovers day.

We are a family of 5 so we've been trying to stretch our budget too. One thing we've been doing is tv dinner night. Banquet meals are only $1.00 at walmart so we can feed us all for $5 a day. We also make spaghetti. If you buy cheap spaghetti, and sauce it feeds enough and doesn't cost much. We even just buy the good sauce we like and it still feeds us all for around $5. You also can get banquet pot pies for around 50 cents a piece. We make them with some mashed potatoes and gravy and you've got a good meal. Also, go to www.angelfoodministries.com and see if they have a host site near you. You can buy the basic package for $30 and then they have great specials for $20. For the basic package you are getting like $70 worth of food.

Definitely Aldi's. Their canned vegetables are only .40-some cents, about half what you pay in some stores. The quality is every bit as good there as I've had anywhere else. Their fresh broccoli is the best I've ever eaten, so I always buy there. Butter is also way cheaper there than even WalMart brand on sale. I have been stocking up when I see it for $1.99, but even when it's $2.19 its much cheaper than elsewhere. Bread at Aldi's went up a few centers, but at $1.19 for a 20 oz loaf, it's still very much a bargain rather than the cheapest WalMart brand, which I think is $1.30-some for a smaller 16 oz loaf. I always buy several loaves and freeze them. I use a lot of cream of mushroom and tomato soup, and Aldi's beats anyone else hands down once again. Where else can you buy it for .49 ? I don't buy a lot of fresh meat there, but the frozen boneless/skinless chicken is a super deal. Inexpensive things to stretch a meal: Pasta Rice Eggs

We also have 6 mouths to feed on a daily basis, and 7 on weekends. We make money stretch for groceries by first buying the cheap stuff, then, making the chepest meals we can. One of the easiest and cheapest ones I make frequently is chicken soup with dumplings. You buy the Mrs Grass, or Campbell's dry chicken noodle soup mix, make it according to the directions, Use Jiffy Mix and make dumpling batter with it by simply adding water to it until it is a thick, but not really doughy consistancy. When the soup boils, drop spoonfuls of the dumpling mix into it and turn the heat down. Stir it occassionally. Keep it on a low heat and covered, it is ready in about 20 minutes. We use the entire box of soup mix when we make it, and about 1/3 of a medium sized box of Jiffy mix. It is cheap and easy to make and fills them up pretty good. I try to buy groceries with meals in mind and buy family packs rather than smaller ones.Let's say I decide to buy hamburger meat. I will buy a bigger package and split it up at home and put the meat in freezer bags to freeze for later. 5 pounds of hamburger easily makes 3 meals for us, but if funds are really tight, we will decrease the amount of meat we use in things like spaghetti and ge four meals out of it. Another meal we make that is cheap and easy is my husband's goulash. All you need is a medium size box of macaroni noodles, a can of tomato juice and some hamburger. Yu make the noodles as you normally would, brown the hmburger in a seperate pan, when the noodles are done, drain them. Add the tomato juice and browned hamburger. Mix it well, and season it with onion and garlic powder if you like., Myhusband always adds pepper and salt to his. It feeds all 7 of us and none of us are hungry after we eat. I hope these ideas are at least a little helpful for you.