Eating Frugally

This national budget scare has a lot of people second guessing their spending habits, and deciding to cut back. I think that is a wise idea!

I wanted to encourage you with some inexpensive recipes and meal ideas.

Tonight for dinner we are having lentil tacos. 

I admit, I was the first to think no one here would like them, but surprisingly everyone loves them. The lentils themselves are under $1 to feed a family of 6! I add spanish rice to ours (again under $1 total) , and we get a few days of lunches out of this meal as well! Then use what you have (sour cream, cheese, guacamole, salsa, lettuce etc) to dress them up!

 Lentil Tacos

1 cup dry lentils

1 small can of tomato sauce

1/4 cup taco seasoning(or 1 packet)

Mix together and add water to cover. Boil until tender (adding water as necessary)

Rice is very cheap. It makes a great breakfast as rice pudding, or you can serve almost anything over rice. Keilbasa on rice, chili over rice, stew over rice. The possibilities are endless. Spanish rice, cilantro lime rice 

Potatoes are really cheap and actually pretty nutritious too.

We love Greek Potatoes, baked potatoes, potato soup, or even just broiling diced potatoes with Italian dressing. Or frying some diced potatoes for breakfast with another frugal, healthy favorite, eggs! Keilbasa and potatoes is another favorite here too!

Beans are also super cheap and easy to make. I cook mine in my crock pot. I try to make 1 batch a week for lunches. We recently tried a new way to dress up our bean burritos and it was really delicious too!

Here is a healthier rice and bean recipe too.

Oatmeal is a super cheap, healthy breakfast! Make it yourself and buy it in bulk (we buy 25 lbs of steel cut oats at a time!). If you use steel cut oats, soak them overnight to make cooking quicker in the morning, or just used rolled oats if you prefer. Sweeten it (we like real maple syrup or succanat, but you could use sugar or brown sugar) and then dress it up. Coconut milk, coconut oil, apple butter, jam, shredded coconut, nuts, granola, even sprinkles or chocolate chips are often found in our oatmeal! My children love a little peanut butter stirred in too. I can feed our whole family oatmeal for breakfast for under $1.

Just cooking at home saves a lot of money! It is so expensive to eat out!

Here is a previous post of mine about making restaurant inspired food at home.

And there is always homemade pizza. I can't believe how much it costs to order pizza anymore! We've been switching it up with the homemade pizza too. I've made calzones (dough pockets, stuffed with cheese and toppings, then dipped into sauce), pizza roll ups, even chili cheese pizza!


And here are some of my tips on cutting back a food budget.