How I Meal Plan for Under $75 a Week

Hey friends!

I don't know about you, but I am a planner. I love making lists, organizing things, and knowing what's ahead. Something that I do every single week no matter what is meal plan and I give myself a budget of $75 a week to make sure we stick to our financial goals. Here's a list of tips & tricks that I use and a sample of a week of meals in our house. This is simply our meal plan budget; it does not include alcohol or my once a week trip to Starbucks (:

Meal plan template

Tips & Tricks:

- I sit down every Friday with something caffeinated & my phone and make this "skeleton" list (stationery from Brake Inc) and fill in the date, any nights that I know we will for sure be going out, or if we're traveling.

- I do not go into the grocery store. There are way too many tempting junk foods that will catch my husband's eye and blow our budget. I use the Walmart Grocery app/website to order my groceries ahead of time (everything is the same price as in store) and do free curbside grocery pickup every Sunday morning. I love that you can see your balance any time that you add something to your cart, keeping you on budget.

- I try to avoid buying processed foods because they're a waste of money. For example, it's 50 cents to buy a sweet potato and chop it up into fries and oven roast them rather than buy a $3 bag of frozen sweet potato fries.

- I try to do recipes that will have leftovers for another night's dinner

- I make our lunches (10 total) and a big frittata for breakfast for the week every Sunday, keeping our expenses down

Sample Week Meal Plan

*this menu does not follow any strict diet plan/restrictions; I am gluten free, but we eat as "normal" as possible. That being said, we try to eat as healthfully and clean as possible and I believe good carbs are good for you.*

Breakfast for the week: Caprese Frittata (I left out the bacon)

Lunch for the week: Homemade chicken salad on top of salad greens with peppers & pretzels and homemade hummus

Sunday: Our Sunday night ritual is hanging in the backyard with a beer and talking about our goals for the week while my husband grills - Homemade burgers (with no bun) & homemade sweet potato fries & roasted broccoli

Monday: Baked eggplant parmesan & pasta with homemade pesto (3 normal eggplants & a whole box of pasta will give you enough for 2 nights)

Tuesday: Hellman's Parmesan chicken with baked sweet potato and oven roasted broccoli

Wednesday: Eggplant Parm & pasta leftovers

Thursday: Roasted Whole chicken (use Kerrygold butter to season) with yellow rice and steamed asparagus

Friday: Homemade chicken soup (use bones & leftover meat from the roasted chicken for this) Freeze any leftovers into Tupperware containers for an easy dinner in the future. Trader Joe's mirepoix comes super handy for recipes like this.

Saturday = out

Grocery List

- 1 dozen eggs

- Roma tomato (x 2)

- Shredded Mozarella

- Chicken breast (get the large tray. Use 4 pieces for Sunday's chicken salad & 2 pieces for Tuesday's dinner)

- Green onions

- 1 lb salad mix, get leafy greens

- sweet peppers

- bag of pretzels (we get gluten free)

- 2 cans chick peas

- lemon x 2

- garlic

- tahini

- grassfed beef

- sweet potato x 3

- fresh broccoli

- 3 eggplants

- marinara sauce

- Parmesan cheese

- Whole Chicken

- Kerrygold butter

- Yellow rice

- Asparagus

- Carrots

- Onion

- Celery

This week's total = $72, woohoo! What are easy dinners that you put on your meal plan?

xx

Lil