Are you looking for more affordable dinner options? Me too! Our family has been relying too much on convenience foods lately and our food budget has gotten out of control. I really want to work on reining it back in. I know a lot of other families are on a very tight budget right now as well. I lived with my grandmother for several years just before I got married. She was a woman who had grown up during the Great Depression and taught me a lot about being resourceful and using every part of what you have. She was also on a very tight grocery budget because she had a fixed income. I lived with her for three years, and I drove her to do her grocery shopping for several years before that. I am here to tell you that she was not really a couponer, but I never once saw her pay more than $50 for a week’s worth of groceries. Now that I have my own family to feed, I can appreciate that even more!

For this post, using Mommom as my inspiration, I wanted to challenge myself to come up with a week-long dinner menu for around $30 that could feed more than one person. 

I wanted to use real prices, not just estimates, so I went online to my local Peapod grocery chain and actually added all of these items to my cart. The total came to $26.41 before tax. That leaves room to stock your pantry by adding some spices, butter, or an onion pretty easily and still stay on budget. Here is a screenshot of the order:

Here’s what I came up with. These are the actual prices right now for my region in Pennsylvania. The prices for things like eggs might vary according to where you live, but hopefully this menu will still be relatively affordable.  

Shopping List: 

Frozen spinach, store brand $0.99

Frozen Corn, 1 bag $0.99

Shredded cheddar cheese $2.50

Whole chicken- $7.75

Canned black beans, store brand (2) $0.69 each

Canned corn, store brand $0.79

1 box of Brown Rice $1.99

Eggs- Grade A Medium (2 dozen) $2.19 per dozen

Store brand sandwich bread $0.99

Taco seasoning- $0.89

16 count whole grain tortillas $1.69

Organic carrots- 16oz bag $1.29 

Tomatoes with Mild Chiles, 1 can, store brand $0.79

Day 1: Roasted Chicken and Carrots

Today we are going to roast the whole chicken. I like to roast a chicken by covering it with butter, salt, pepper, and oregano, and putting it in a 13×9 baking dish 350 oven for about 2.5 hours, tented with aluminum foil.  If we don’t have any butter, that’s fine. we will just baste it every 30 minutes or so with its own juices. I peel and cut about four carrots into sticks and let them roast in the same pan as the chicken. I like to add just enough water to the pan to cover the carrots on the bottom. (Not a lot because you don’t want it to boil over and make a huge mess in your oven.) 

When the chicken is done, we are going to cut a good chunk of it off (about 1/2 of the meat) and reserve it for later. Let it cool, then remove the skin and shred the meat. Save it in the refrigerator or freezer. 

Also save the chicken carcass (the bones). We are going to use it as a base for making our own chicken stock later in the week.

If you have butter and flour on hand, you can also make an easy gravy with the pan drippings. Just melt a teaspoon of butter in a small pan, then add a teaspoon of flour. Let them cook together for one minute, stirring constantly. Then use a whisk to incorporate the drippings from the bottom of the pan where you cooked your chicken. You might also want to add some salt and pepper.

Day 2: Chicken Corn Soup

Today we are going to make soup. We are going to eat half now and put some in the freezer for a rainy day. Start by putting the chicken carcass in a large pot and filling the pot with water. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally. (You can also do this in a slow cooker set on low while you are at work or overnight.) Ta-da! Now you have homemade chicken broth that is going to be the base for your soup. 

Remove the bones from the broth and discard them. Then follow the rest of my chicken corn soup recipe, just substitute the frozen corn from our shopping list for the fresh corn in the recipe. Make sure that you have still reserved some chicken, because we have one more chicken recipe coming later in the week. 

Day 3: Breakfast For Dinner

We might be getting sick of chicken by now, so we are going to take a break and do breakfast for dinner. Use 1 dozen of the eggs for scrambled eggs (or whatever kind of eggs your family likes best) and toast. 

Day 4: Chicken Tortilla Soup

We are making soup again. This time we are doing a quick and easy weeknight version that comes together in under 20 minutes. Once again, I’m going to suggest that you freeze whatever your family doesn’t eat so that you have another meal on hand for later in the month. 

In a large pot, place the remainder of the chicken, 1 can of black beans (rinsed and drained), 1 can of corn (drained), 1 can of tomatoes with mild green chiles, and a packet of taco seasoning. Fill the pot with water and heat everything together. 

In the meantime, remove two or three tortillas from the package. Cut them each into 8 piece wedges (like a pie) and spread them onto a cookie sheet. Sprinkle them with salt and a little oil if you have it, then bake them at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes. 

Top each bowl of soup with a sprinkle of shredded cheese and a few of your homemade tortilla chips. 

Day 5: Spinach Fata Served with Brown Rice

My husband and my son both love my mother-in-law’s fried spinach recipe. The cheese makes it very kid-friendly. If you do not have seasoned bread crumbs on hand, just make your own crumbs with the heal of the loaf of bread on our list. Serve this over a bed of brown rice for a very affordable, quick and easy meatless weeknight meal. 

Day 6: Black Bean Burritos OR Burgers

Cook some of the rice and heat a can of beans, and fill tortillas with the rice and beans mixture. 

If you have any shredded cheese left over by this time in the week, you could also make cheese quesadillas. (My husband doesn’t like beans or potatoes or several other low budget foods, so I understand those of you who have issues with picky eaters. Although I do still serve those foods, he just picks them out.) 

Alternative: If you aren’t into the idea of burritos, you could do black bean burgers on toast instead. (You will want to add an onion to your shopping list if you plan to make these.) The Pioneer Woman has a great recipe here. 

Day 7: Use It or Lose It Day

Use up whatever you have left. Maybe your family likes egg salad sandwiches (mine doesn’t, but they LOVE deviled eggs), maybe you’d like to do a rice bowl with a fried egg on top, maybe you want to use some of your left over soup today. If you had black bean burgers on toast yesterday, then you should still have left over tortillas and you might want to do breakfast burritos for dinner tonight. Mix it up and have fun!

Breakfasts and Lunches:

If you are following a $50 weekly budget like my Mommom did, you should still have about $20 of wiggle room to add fruits (bananas and apples or applesauce are affordable options in our area), and breakfast items. As an adult, I now will often eat yogurt or a banana for breakfast and my kids like cereal, but Mommom often gave us oatmeal or occasionally toast with cinnamon and sugar on it. I’d recommend picking up an additional loaf of bread and some tuna, celery, and/or peanut butter for lunches. Popcorn kernels also make a great snack. They are a little pricey up front, but one container last for several weeks and you can pop them yourself in the microwave without any butter or oil, which makes them a healthy choice. If you bought potatoes and onions and did not use all of those ingredients for your dinners, consider using some of them to make hash browns. 

Our grandmothers used up every bit of what they had and usually cooked meals that consisted of whole foods for their families. If we get back in the habit of doing the same, it will be healthier, tastier, and better for our budgets. 

If this post was helpful to you, don’t forget to pin it! I would love to connect with you further on Facebook and Pinterest. 

Visit Binkies and Briefcases’s profile on Pinterest.

You may also like:

Have you been wondering what sport would be a good fit for your child? Is golf good for kids?

When people first find out that our young kids play golf they tend to have one of the following reactions: 

That’s weird. 

You must be rich. 

Or just…Why? Isn’t that, like, really boring? 

To tell you the truth, I am not the biggest golf lover myself. If I had to choose between spending a Saturday watching The Open or, well, pretty much anything else, I know which one I would pick. Watching other people play golf is pretty boring. To me. But my husband and my kids are into it and it’s something they like to do together, so more power to them. The kids know who Bubba Watson is, and I know that, as an adoptive mom, I really appreciate that he is open about his family’s adoptions. I like that golf is something that my kids, their dad, their uncle, their grandparents, and even their great-grandfather can all do. 

And there are ten other reasons I think golf is a great for kids, as well. 

Disclosure: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. 

1. Math

As anyone who has ever played miniature golf at the beach knows, there is a lot of basic addition involved in golf and responsibility in keeping track of your own score. More so than many other sports played by young children. 

2. It Stays With You

Golf and tennis are two of the few sports that people continue to play into retirement. My grandfather is eighty years old and he still plays golf. It is a life skill that stays with you. But of the few options for lifelong sports, golf is the one around which most business deals are conducted, and I hope to raise children who eventually grow into adults. It is an advantage in the business world to know how to play golf, and preferably well. Learning while you are young gives you an advantage later. 

3. It’s Not a Contact Sport

If you are a mom who is too worried about potential injuries to sign your child up for football or if you have a child that has special needs that make him/her a little bit slower on the field than some of his/her peers and make it hard to participate in team sports or even individual sports that are timed, then golf is a great sport to consider! You can go at your own pace, be active for hours at a time, and it’s a multi-generational activity. 

4. Room for the Ladies

I also really like that because of the way that the game is designed, if you are part of a group of men playing in a tournament– say for a business outing– it is to your advantage to have a woman on your team, if she is good at the sport.  As my husband explained to me, he has played in several tournaments where the women’s tee box might be 80 to 100 yards closer to the hole than the men’s, but the woman on his team only hit the ball 40 or 60 yards shorter than he did, on average. Because in a tournament you often use the best shot from your team, collectively, that often gives the team with the woman a distinct advantage, as long as she has experience and is a good golfer. Eddie is not shy about admitting the fact that his ideal golf team would include a woman, and I know many men who feel the same way. How many other male-dominated sports can you say that about? (If you are not sure if golf should be considered a sport, try playing a round–without a golf cart– and see how your muscles feel the next day.)

5. You Play Against You

Other than those group tournaments, for the most part golf is an individual sport, just like swimming or running. If you are going to win or if you are going to lose, it is going to be because of you, because of a victory or a mistake you made on your own, not because your teammate struck out in the bottom of the ninth or someone else threw the winning touchdown. You get to own all of the highs as well as the responsibility of all of the lows. 

6. Gross Motor Development 

Our son has special needs and golf has been great for his gross motor skills. The big motions required for a drive and the smaller range of motion required for putting help him learn how to control certain muscle groups. He is willing to spend hours in the back yard practicing his golf swing, whereas he would not necessarily want to do hours of occupational therapy working on those muscles. It’s also great for strengthening his grip. 

7. Public Access

Golf gets a bad rap for being an elitist sport. Some of that is well-deserved because it is true that, unfortunately, there are places that exist that still have that attitude. But there are also plenty of public courses and driving ranges where you don’t have to be a member at all. Although not many people do bring kids, there is nothing stopping you. Our family just went to the driving range this weekend. You can just show up with your children and it costs just a few dollars to get a small bucket of golf balls. You can usually find gently used golf clubs in children’s sizes at yard sales or on Craig’s List. I checked this week and someone local to us had a set listed for $5. Once you have your clubs, the driving range is an affordable family outing. Or once you are ready for the course, most clubs offer steeply discounted twilight hours if you are willing to go out later in the day when there aren’t as many people on the course. Twilight hours are in the evenings, which are after school hours anyway and a great time to take out kids who are just starting to learn!

8. College

Did you know that in 2009 the NCAA said that there were a few hundred golf scholarships for women that went unused? That is not to say that getting any kind of athletic scholarship is easy, but there is certainly a big push to get more girls into golf right now. 

9. Access to Pros

Golf is one of the few sports where it is pretty easy to guarantee that your child can be taught by a professional. My uncle was a golf pro at a fancy New England golf club and, let me tell you, the process for becoming a head golf pro is a lot more involved than you might think. They do have to pass tests in terms of their own playing ability, and he also went to college for it. There are only a few schools in the country that now offer the PGA Golf Management program, and they have 100% job placement upon completion. The golf pros at country clubs are probably not playing at the same level as the professionals on tour (or else they would be on tour themselves) but they are still good enough to be professionals. They have dedicated their entire lives to that game. If you sign up for golf lessons, chances are those lessons will be with someone who really knows what they are talking about.  Experience is never a bad thing in a teacher. As fun as other sports are, a coach who is a professional is something I have just never been able to guarantee when I signed my son up for tee ball or pee wee football camp. 

10. It’s Easier (And More Affordable) to Learn as a Kid

It’s easier to learn just about anything as a child, before you start to form bad habits and are set in your ways, making them harder to correct. But it is also more affordable, as a general rule, to learn to golf as a child because there are clinics and camps pretty readily available. Nicholas is starting a golf clinic this week that is six weeks long and only cost $6 more than the price of one weekend round at the same course for an adult. Because most of our other extra curricular activities don’t cost a lot of money right now, and golf is something Nick has expressed a genuine interest in (he even went to the Women’s U.S. Open with Eddie this summer to watch!) we are willing to make the investment. And seeing her big brother do it has really started to get Abby interested as well! She is now following Brooke Henderson, the 17-year-old girl who was just granted full LPGA Membership. At dinner last night Abby was counting on her fingers how many years she has to go until she is 17, like Brooke, and can wear pink pants and play golf on t.v. 

This post contains an Amazon Affiliate link to child-sized golf clubs for your convenience. 

You may also like: