I have been creating a complete 2 week meal plan that is frugal and includes recipes and suggestions for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks.
Between our BHAG of paying off debt and my hatred of making decisions, meal planning is something I feel is a must do.
Yes, I still have to make decisions. But I’d far rather make them all at once than 3 times a day every day.
One thing I don’t do is assign foods to a certain day ahead of time. I like to choose from the list based on the chaos of a given day and what I’m feeling up to making at that time.
That means I’m still making decisions daily, but it’s simple enough to choose from an already created list.
After a brief stint of winter, we had a wonderful weekend of warm (for January) weather. But I hear the snow is planning to return. So I’m trying to create a nice mix of foods.
Our 2 Week Meal Plan
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I know exactly how it feels to not just want, but need, to slash your grocery bills.
It’s that one part of the budget that takes up so much money, but you have immediate control over that spending.
(Not like a mortgage…I mean, you can refinance but that takes for-e-ver.)
Her ideas are completely doable…even for people who are new to living frugally.
Breakfast: Simple and frugal when I can, cereal when I can’t.
- cereal
- homemade granola (Might try this recipe.)
- banana bread
- pancakes
- pumpkin french toast bake
Lunch
- sandwiches (PB&J, Nutella, PB&honey, lunchmeat)
- chips & salsa
- leftovers
- muffins
- soup
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Supper (with sides of potatoes, rice, noodles, and fresh cut veggies)
- steak (Here’s the story about why you keep seeing steak on a frugal menu.)
- lighter orange chicken
- baked spicy tilapia
- Taco Dump Soup
- grilled chicken
- chicken and bean burritos
- pork roast in the Crock Pot with Dr. Pepper
- baked or grilled chicken
- spaghetti and meatballs
- breakfast for dinner (brinner!) Usually ends up being sausage gravy, sometimes pancakes.
- leftovers
- big salads with leftover meats for toppings
- homemade pizza
- lasagna
Snacks and Extras include
- fresh fruit
- crackers
- cookies
- popcorn
- We will be attending our annual “Big Game” football party. This year the theme is Mexican food, so I’ll need a great recipe so I can bring home the coveted trophy once again! I’m not above cheating by asking you 😉 so if you have a winning, delicious Mexican type of recipe that will be a hit with the guys, leave it in the comment section.
Those are the meals we love and the new ones we can’t wait to try this week!
Be sure to follow my Pinterest board where I share tons of easy, frugal, delicious pins!
Follow Medium Sized Family’s board Food on Pinterest.
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Don’t forget to leave me a tip about your favorite Mexican recipe!
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
Jamie, I bet it does make meal preparation faster. You list all good foods, but you leave yourself room to be versatile.
That is great because I am sure it does not go according to plan all the time.
I enjoy having meals prepared ahead of time. I do it sometimes.
We’ve never made orange chicken before, but now I’m thinking we should try it. I think my oldest would really enjoy it. We also need to do the pork roast w/ Dr. Pepper meal.
I haven’t tried this orange chicken recipe yet, but it looks simple enough and sounds delicious to me! So we shall see. If you try it, let me know what you think of it.
If I was smart, I’d do a two week plan. But grocery sales require that I do it by week…so I go through every Sunday and spend about an hour on it (but it’s worth it, I suppose – my budget is 50$ a week and after coupons I spent 49.19$ and feel like I deserve chocolate now (which I do not have, ha)).
I recently made a new kind of burrito/enchilada thing…mexican rice, ground turkey, and enchilada sauce (oh, and cheese, lol). It was far more delicious than I thought it would be, and was told that we definitely need to eat it again for dinner!
That sounds delicious to me! We love taco type foods. Great job on sticking with the budget! You deserve a really cheap candy bar bought with a coupon. 😛
This is a terrific idea! I have been trying to learn how to budget more appropriately with groceries, so I appreciate this post very much! Thanks for sharing!
I plan the same way, I hated the restrictions on assigning days to the meals, so I freestyle as well! Good meals and I like how you plan out snacks as well. That’s what we struggle with the most is the snacking…I’m a fat kid, I can’t help it!
Jamie, I need to get better at this, I was doing so good for a bit, but lately it’s been crazy busy around here and it’s gotten a bit nuts! I still work to make food work for us in a few ways, to remake the leftovers into something new, but I gotta get back into the swing! Thanks for sharing this, it and you inspire me!
Planning ahead is always good, However i am not able to do it. I wish I could. I always makes dishes on the day. thanks for sharing with Hearth and soul blog hop,
I hate making decisions, too, which is why having each night be a certain theme for our dinner makes life easier for me, too. It just makes it easier to have limited choices and I can always choose an old standby (or cereal). Thanks for linking up at #FridayFrivolity & hope to see you again this week!
The limited choices is key for me! Thanks for hosting the link up. 🙂
Looks pretty similar to our 2 week plan. We almost always have spaghetti and pizza, plus I’m trying to use up a bunch of pork from the freezer.
Thanks for sharing on the Homestead Blog Hop.
I’m with you! I never assign meals to a specific day!!! Thanks so much for joining us at 100 Happy Days. I have loved reading your post. Hope you come back again this Thursday. http://www.akreativewhim.com/sleepless-solo