Food is one of our biggest expenses, but one mom, who feeds a family of 7 on just $300 a month, shows us that it's possible to eat well without cutting coupons or relying on Ramen noodles every night.
Jen Wallwork Dominguez spends $3 per meal to feed herself, her husband, two teenagers, and three preschoolers. (We're fans of the $4/day cookbook, but that's $4 per person. Here, Jen is feeding 7 people for $3 a meal.)
There's no real magic here. It's all basically smart shopping and planning. She shops solely at ALDI, probably the cheapest grocery chain, avoids organic and processed foods, and relies on cheap food staples such as eggs and beans.
The most important part of her plan, though, is the rotation of the cheap ingredients. Ingredients do double duty instead of being used for just a single meal, which helps make those food purchases go further:
I've found the single, best way to save money on groceries is to use what is always least expensive and use it a lot. As such, there's no great variety in my menus, no exotic ingredients that I buy for just one meal. We eat dinner on a two week rotation, lunch and breakfast on a weekly rotation. Yes, it can get a little boring. When that happens, I go looking for something else that uses primarily those same cheap ingredients. God bless the Internet.
If you look at her 14-day meal plan, the meals are pretty basic, but still appetizing, with dinners including a tilapia dish, lunch taco salads (made from leftover taco night ingredients), and hearty breakfasts as well.
While using meal planning to save money isn't a new idea at all, and cooking like a peasant is a time-tested way to feed large families for cheap, it's inspiring to see a real life example of how to carry out this strategy on a day-to-day and monthly basis.
How I Feed a Family of Seven for $300 a Month | Life in the Circus via Forbes
Photo by o5com.
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