Making Recipes Budgetwise

 

I've been on a recipe kick now for several months.  The intent was to find something new that we'd like to eat.  I have several sources that I love to follow but I started to notice something.  Some recipes were simply not budget wise, though they sounded delicious.  Even those deemed to be budget meals weren't really budget friendly, in my personal opinion.  I could see so many exchanges that might be made and not affect the quality or taste of the recipe in the least.  Substitutions can be made in most recipes, and you'd have a far more budget friendly meal.

I realized too, that the most common 'budget' recipes all came in at around $10 for a family of four and that was just the main dish.   I suppose if you only make dinners then that is an acceptable amount to spend.  If you eat at home seven days a week that's only around $70, right?   When you consider that it costs around $70 to feed a family of four a restaurant meal, then I suppose it seems like a good exchange, one meal for seven.  (I can't judge about fast food meals as we seldom eat those and then we always order the cheapest option or best sale item).

I average spending about $400 a month.  This includes pet foods, personal care, cleaning and paper products, pantry staples I stock when on sale, stocking my freezer and making three full meals a day.  I'd say of the $400 I have available, I spend about $350 on food items.

I'm well aware of current prices.  I have the same budget now that I had 15 years ago.  I'm feeding fewer people and buying less food for eating right away, stocking up more overall, but my budget hasn't changed in all of that time.  Per the government guidelines, the average spent for a couple our age for food and only food, on a thrifty food plan in August of 2022, was $452.  A low-cost food plan averaged $525.  Remember that is for food alone and strictly for just two people.  

We typically serve two for breakfast 7 days a week.  That's 30-31 meals every month right there.  Lunches are also for two.  If we're going to eat out it will be at lunch, which occurs roughly twice a month.  We pay for those meals from an entertainment fund or allowance.  I make lunches at least 28-29 days a month.  We do eat leftovers for lunches at times, but it still costs us something to make the initial meal.   I make supper every night 30-31 days a month.  About 3 meals a week are for four.  The other four we serve two people.  This is usually where we generate any leftovers we eat for lunch, though occasionally I do freeze leftovers for future meal convenience.  On average, I'm making 88 meals every single month. 

If I take the average of $350 spent on food, which I feel is probably high considering that I stock up each month and don't use all the food I buy right away and divide it by 88 meals then we're averaging around $3.97 for each day's food.  Divide that by 3 (the number of meals I make most days) then my cost per meal runs around $1.32 each meal...So you can see why I feel a $10 dinner entree (again it doesn't include side dishes nor dessert) is not budget friendly but is in fact high.  You can probably imagine how I laugh when a food editor assures me that I can make dinner for $20 for four and calls that budget friendly.  

Over the course of the next few weeks, I'd like to make some budget-friendly meals.  I'm going to start with meals that other vloggers, bloggers, food editors and cookbook authors call budget meals.  I won't be including recipes that I have been making for years upon years.  Just new to me recipes, or recipes that I've only been using in the past year and have scaled down to what I consider a more budget friendly version.  I'll share both the original recipe and then I'll share my version, with substitutions that can help decrease costs.  I hope you'll enjoy this new series of posts.  

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