This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure here.
While grabbing the deals is a huge savings in our grocery budget, having a meal plan is another huge way to save. Putting them together of course is the only way to live on our $70 a week grocery/household budget.
Here’s our meal plan this week. Hopefully it helps you get ideas and see that you can save money and still eat great!
For our meal plan, we focus on what produce we get in our co-op every other weekend and then plug meals around the produce. It’s a joy to get a huge laundry basket full of vegetables and fruit for $25 and it challenges me to fit in lots of veggies to our meals each week.
Our Meal Plan
Monday – Lemon Garlic Chicken (instant pot)
This is a new recipe we are trying this week. We have a ton of lemons left from past produce weeks and lots of chicken. I will add mashed potatoes and green beans to finish out the meal.
I usually only throw one new recipe in each week, not that I have picky eaters but you want to know folks will eat what you took time to make!
Tuesday – Lipton Onion Soup Burgers, Rice and Corn
I’m not sure where or when we started making this, but it’s crazy easy and tastes great!
Grab hamburger, a packet of onion soup mix, 1 egg, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce.
Mix all of the ingredients together and form the meat into patties. Put them in a skillet and cook until done.
Wednesday – Dinner at Church
For the next Month we have Wednesday night Vacation Bible Club at church that they serve dinner with (for no charge). Night off for me!
Thursday – Baked Ziti
I think the whole world tries to make this dish harder than it is. Wanting to give y’all a recipe I went hunting for a simple one. Everyone is off making their own sauce and adding in all sorts of things… I’m not that person.
Here’s my 5 step method:
1. Cook a box of pasta until they are almost (but not fully) done.
2. Meanwhile brown some meat of your choice.
3. Open a jar of 50¢ pasta sauce and a can of tomatoes, mix them with the meat.
4. Mix the sauce and the pasta together, plus one 8 oz package of mozzarella cheese.
5. Top with another package of cheese and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.
Most recipes call for ricotta and other cheeses as well. Not only do I never buy them but my husband hates ricotta cheese, so we ignore that one in all recipes.
Friday – Pizza Night
Make your own pizza night is a Friday night tradition. I use this no rise pizza dough recipe most weeks. No one has time to plan 3 hours before dinner to start pizza crusts…
Some of you have asked about toppings. I use a can of tomato sauce and add Italian seasoning to give it some extra flavor and then have, peppers, onions, olives, pineapple, hamburger, pepperoni and fresh tomatoes for the girls to add as they want. Some weeks that changes based on what we have on hand.
Saturday – Broiled Salmon, Wild Rice and a veggie
Salmon is one of the items we grab from Zaycon or from the local Chef’s Store (a restaurant supply store) in bulk. It’s not on sale in any grocery store right now, so please don’t go tearing in and buy it.
This is our favorite recipe using a mustard herb glaze, though we also like this one with honey and garlic. Generally Salmon is on the menu twice a month so we just go back and forth between the two.
The veggie is up in the air since Saturday is our produce co-op day, so we’ll see what we get and pick something that works for the meal.
Sunday – Beef Pot Roast
We rarely change this routine… Every Sunday is either a beef roast, ham or pork roast. For a beef roast I use a simple recipe my grandmother taught me.
Season the roast with salt, pepper and garlic and then brown the roast on all sides (I do this straight in my dutch oven on the stove). Remove from heat and add one can of cream of mushroom soup and one packet of Lipton onion soup mix. I also add about 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar and 1 cup of water. Add in any veggies you want (we do carrots and potatoes). Cover and bake for 2 hours at 350 degrees.
I have a delay bake oven so setting it to start while we are at church we always come home to lunch ready and a house that smells amazing!
See our past week meal plans.
