Cheap Meals For the Poor

I have been having money problems for years. I can give you great advice. Stock up when stuff is on sale. I mean buy lots of quantity of things when they are cheap. Stock up on pasta, macaroni and cheese dinners, canned tomatoes, mixes for chili, enchiladas, tacos, etc. Also get spaghetti sauce and beans, vegetables, etc. when they are on sale. Many of my meals include spaghetti and meat sauce, sometimes no meat sauce just the tomato sauce if we are really really broke, tacos, enchiladas, salads, hamburgers, etc. Good luck, I have a family of 6 so it is always a challenge as we live on one paycheck. Have a great day and happy myLotting!!!

How far do you wanna go? If you wanna go to the extreme level, then the cheapest meal just to fill you up is to get a loaf of bread at end of the day when it's reduced price, and have that with glass of water. Don't need to use fridge, which require electricity, to store it. Don't need to heat it, which also use electricity and/or gas.

We all need to economize these days but we also need to keep the meals nutritious. One very cheap meal for my family is beans and corn bread. Something else I make is chicken and a pasta with a frozen vegetable and a jar of Alfredo sauce. It stretches the chicken and gets the vegetables in the kids too. Sometimes we have waffles and eggs or pancakes and eggs. Something really cheap is bread and milk. I was raised by my grandparents and sometimes we would have just milk and bread sprinkled with sugar. It was pretty good as I recall. I just will have o have that some time soon when both the kids are gone at supper time.

Its worth it to sign up to get your sunday paper delivered to your home. I pay 1.50 a week for the paper but there is often significantly more than that in coupons. Even if some weeks you only end up using 1.50 worth of the coupons it makes up for the cost of the paper and often I use more than that. Shop the sales and use coupons with them. I pay about $100.00- $130.00 per month on food, some of which is stocking up on good prices and I am actually getting about $150.00- $170.00 worth thanks to the sale prices in combination with coupons. I buy those reynolds oven bags and chop up cheap produce like onions and potatoes and throw in some frozen veggies and whatever sauces i have and chunk up some meat and throw that in there and put it in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees and it almost always comes out delicious and I eat it with rice. Delicious, good for you, and cheap and there are always leftovers. Also as I've noticed from some of your other posts, you are in an even more difficult situation, but a lot of churches and organizations will offer a box of food ranging from 20.00 to 70.00 for a months supply of food that they can get at cheaper prices because its for a charitable organization. I had a friend who relied on that after she lost her job until she was able to get a new job.

Vegetables..:)

Do you have any dollar tree stores by you? If you have a store that sells items for a dollar, you can buy some things in there, if not I go to Walmart and buy a lot of items. There are two people in my family and I am able to keep my food bill down to $25.00 a week. I have a lot of recipes that do not use many ingrdients. I will list what they are called and I will send you a PM with the recipes. I have a sheppard's pie recipe. I have a pizza casserole recipe. I have a bbq biscuit. I have a recipe for Taco Salad. I have a recipe for chili dog bake. My husband is diabetic and cannot eat any boxed meals such as Hamburger Helper or canned food such as Chef BoyRDee.

Lots of suggestions allready. I'll add this on the bread side, see if you can get hold of a breadmaker. You can bake good bread every day with little effort or time spent and it's much better and cheaper than the store bread. I've been baking my own bread with a breadmaker for several years now and there's no way that I'll go back to store bread. Failing that, you can make soda bread, just flour and baking soda then mix to a dough with milk or, (better)Buttermilk and bake. It does not keep, so you'll have to bake daily. But it's cheap and filling.

we are sort of in the same boat as you and we try to eat cheap meals all through the year. we make a lot of soups during the winter and use the bread machine that we got for free. we also eat a ton of pasta. its fairly cheap and pretty versitile (you can get all sorts of recipes for free from the internet). we buy meat only when its on sale and then stock up. also, pancakes are a pretty cheap meal too, we have it with fruit (seasonal or canned) as well as syrup. you may want to check the library to see if they have any books for cheap meals. hope this helps.

I have discovered an organization called Angel Food Ministries. They distribute food thru host sites (often churches) for a reduced cost. The basic box is $30 and includes enough meat for one week for a family of four. It also includes some vegetables and eggs. I have gotten this one time, but plan to order a box for August. Check the website, http://www.angelfoodministries.com/ to see the menu and find a host site. Hope there is a host site near you.

I'm sorry u are having such a heard time. I don't know what u & your children like to eat but i buy store brands when i buy thet are alot cheaper than name brands. Dried beans such as great nothern & pintoes are very reasonablr & i love them. U may not like corn bread but give me a bowl of beans & cornbread i am happy. Hope things get better for u.

I hope the info was of some help, another cheapo product is Ramen noodle soup, you don't even have to heat it, I just make it with hot water, add vegies and beans if you don't have meat, serves about four you can always add more vegies.

Some of the cheapest meals are the best for you. Dried beans are one, you don't even have to put any meat in them, served with rice makes a complete protein. Mac and cheese is also fairly cheep, combine this with a good serving of vegies. Jello is fairly cheap and you can put cottage cheese and fruit in it to make it more nutritious. Depending how many you are feeding these can all last several days. Can you get food stamps? Can you also go to the community food bank, often they will have canned good which you can use. Hope this help some. Blessings

Hey you don't have to worry, as credit crunch may happen to anyone at anytime, uite unpredictable it is! Well, even with less number of ingredients and yes, inexpensive ones, you can prepare real good meals. I am here talking about some budget meal that will help you a lot to to reduce the money spend on meals. Try out this link, they have quite a vast collection of budget meal ideas, which i found to be impressive. http://www.ifood.tv/network/budget_recipes/recipes Hope you find this helpful! :)

We have also been eating cheap, because of no money. our garden has been coming in so we have been eating a whole lot of vegetables. Fried cabbage with egg noodles.... Just fry the cabbage in some butter, salt and pepper, make the noodles and add all together. I picked a mess of green beans yesterday. today we are going to have them. as im cooking the green beans ( because they are fresh they take a few hours to cook) I add some onion, salt, pepper. Ill fry one pork chop and then cut it in pieces and add it to the beans to add some flavor. and then ill add a couple of carrots, and then a few potatoes. ( i usually make enough for us to have 2 days) This is one of my favorite meals. and everything is from the garden except the pork chop. pancakes is also a cheap meal, or french toast. I usually try to add some fruit with it. Pinto beans, mustard greens, and corn bread is also a good cheap meal. If we had not put the garden in this year i do not know what we would be doing right now.

Rice and pasta dishes are usually inexpensive to prepare. Using cream soups as sauce bases is a good way yo utilize money too. Unfortunately you will have to reduce your meat intake, because that seems to be the most expensive food out there as a whole.

Do you have a Dollar Store near you? I do and I'm lucky. They have fruits and veggies for a cheap price. Also, farmers markets are a gold mine as well. Some grocery stores will sell some day old meats at a discounted price. I've gotten some steaks, good quality steaks for a couple dollars. Let's see...rice, noodles, pasta...stuff like that is good. If you find a great sale and make something, make lots then you can freeze them for later. Just toss in something else with it when you reheat it so the family won't notice. ;-) One thing you must keep in mind when cutting back on money, don't cut back on the vitamins and minerals. Canned foods, though tasty and quick as well as cheap, often have more harmful stuff than good so you're not doing that good by it. Dinner ideas: ~Fried hamburger meat and onions over plain white rice and salt. ~A bag of potatoes can go a long way ~left overs makes a great soup ~bread pudding is good *Pleiades