I am attempting to feed 5 of us (both the older girls eat only occasionally) on a budget of $600 a month. Let me break this down a little bit further; that is 35 breakfasts, 31 lunches, and 35 dinners a week, or 430 meals a month.  Both the girls usually eat at school several times a week but both need a daily snack as well.   This amount includes pet care as well as all items except clothing that I purchase to use in the house, paper towel, toilet paper, hair spray, soap, deodorant etc.

Last month, I failed miserable by spending almost double that amount. So one of the things that I will be doing in November to even out the budget for the year is stretching our food.  I had originally thought that our chicken purchase would make 50 meals for 5 people or 250 meals. However I have already added at least 10 meals to this number. Here is how:
1. This is simple, depending on the amount of leftovers, I pack a dinner plate or so for me to take to lunch. For example- after 2 dinners of chicken pie, I packed two dinner plates for my lunches.
2. I use leftover chicken to make a different meal. The World’s best chicken was a disappointment alone, so I made chicken salad out of the remaining breast. The girls LOVED this and I know have eaten for lunch at least 2 days and I had a sandwich last night for dinner.  Another example is I used the remaining chicken breast from the Café Rio chicken for a pot of chicken and rice soup. I chose this because I had some carrots and onions as well that needed to get eaten. So out of the one bag of chicken, we are currently eating meal number 4.
3. Schedule a left over meal. We had leftovers at least twice last week. One of the meals ended up being a vegetable plate, which the kids thought was a great change.
4. This one is a great lunch suggestion- instead of buying individual size jello or pudding. Buy a box and make it at home. We use re-useable containers and once a week. I will make jello or pudding for the following week. The girls enjoy containers of popcorn, goldfish and nuttella with crackers. By buying in a large size and separating at home, I saved a ton of money!
5.  Use coupons to buy some convenience foods for the days you just don’t want to cook. We love pizza and I don’t mind making pizza but on days like today that we have spent busy in the house and outside, come lunch and I don’t want to take time to make the pizza. So we have several frozen pizza in the freezer, we used one of them today instead of running out for pizza or fast food which would have been $10 at best.

If we can control our eating out then our overall budget goes much better. Do you have any suggestion for stretch your food?