Planning and Buying Economical and Healthy Meals

According to a Gallup poll, Americans making fewer than $30,000 a year spend $127 a week on groceries, or $18 a day. The average family in many neighborhoods earns fewer than $19,000 a year, or less than $365 a week, to pay for utilities, rent, clothes, transportation, and food.

The average MONTHLY benefit per person for SNAP is $126 or $1.40 per meal.

With a little planning, we can still provide economical and healthy meals to our family.

Here are a few ways to stay within your budget when grocery shopping:

• Write a menu plan and develop a grocery list before you shop.
• Use the grocery sale flyers to develop your menu.
• Never shop hungry.
• Buy only what is on your list.
• Leave the children at home.
• Shop only once a week.
• When planning menus, cook items that will have leftovers to eat later, can be frozen, or used for more than one meal.
• Buy dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, rice, and beans in bulk.
• Replace meats with beans in stews and chili, or use smaller portions.
• Most casseroles, soups, and chili that use meat in the recipe will taste just as good with one-half or three-fourths of the meat called that is for.
• Buy produce on sale.
• Use coupons and reward cards—they can make a big difference!
• Have breakfast for lunch and supper—it can be less expensive.

Planning Your Menu

Fill in the chart below with menu ideas for five days.

1. You can plan one or two days as “leftover” or “surprise” days if you prefer some flexibility.
2. You can plan for breakfast, lunch and dinner, lunch and dinner, or just dinner, and you can plan for every day or five days, whichever fits best into your family’s life. Planning at least five to seven meals will provide you with the most economical food plans.
3. Lunch choice: You can list several foods or ideas for the children for lunch and post them so they can make their own choices.  Be sure you include fruits, vegetables, proteins, and grains in each meal choice.  You can make a column for each of these and put several choices for them to mix and match, or you can put together several whole meals, and they can choose.
4. Be sure to plan your menus after the shopping ads come out, so you can use them.  They are available for free from your store, in the mail and newspapers, and on the Internet at the store’s website.