Friday, July 11, 2008
Rising Cost of Food
| By Lynn Forgy The rising costs at the grocery store have definitely put a damper on my menu planning. No longer can I plan to add potatoes to 3 meals - a 5 pound bag is $6!! That's crazy! Milk is $5 per gallon. Everything is going up. What's a person to do? I've been pondering this issue for the past few weeks, trying to re-work my menus because the items I was using have gone up so much and it's wreaking havoc on my food budget. This is particularly frustrating for me because I am trying to put all my extra money towards my DEBT SNOWBALL. Not only do I have less to throw at the snowball due to gas prices, but now with the grocery costs rising I have even less to pay on debt. My dilemma - I have $XX for groceries for the remainder of the month. (Yes, that's less than $100). I have 17 dinner meals I need to plan that I can buy for that amount of money. Ah, nothing like a financial challenge... Suggestion #1 - At Walmart, in the freezer section are bags of vegetables, seasoned and ready to eat (after you heat them of course). I can get a bag for less than $2, which will feed 3 people for 1 meal. Great, right? Except my 14 year old despises most of the vegetables that come in one of these handy little bags. Perhaps if I add a little cheese sauce? Cost = $2.00 per meal = $4.00 Suggestion #2 - Cheese sandwiches and hash browns for 2 meals. Cheese slices I can get for about $2.50 (the healthier version), and a bag of shredded hash browns for $1.60. Cost = $2.85 per meal = $5.70 And this is where my brain just freezes up. My fallback has always been potatoes, but now that the price has risen so much I can't use them as much as I would like. Rice is good, I suppose. But one can't eat just plain rice. Any suggestions????? Labels: food budget, grocery costs, help with menu |
posted by Krista at 7:01 PM
Rice can be easily flavored up--google for spanish rice recipes..my kids love it... Also you can simply add chicken broth, or beef broth. We also occaisionally use egg noodles cooked in broth as a side dish, add some butter and they are fulfilling too. Another thought is pasta dishes, homemade macaroni, ranch flavored pasta, or any other dressing on pasta--throw in some tiny peas, pepporoni, shredded carrots... and you get a nice pasta dish. Hope these help!