If you landed here because you’re curious about my $50 weekly meal plan, you’re in the right place, and I’ll be updating this page as I work through this challenge.
Here’s the question I’ll be trying to answer: Can we actually eat for a week on $50, using real food from a grocery store?
Here’s what I’ve bought for my challenge!
My grocery store ingredient list is just 20 items long, but I plan to make a lot of different meals from these — breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I even budgeted enough for coffee and homemade creamer.
I am also allowing myself to use the oil, spices, seasonings, and brown sugar I already have on hand, since those are not things we have to buy a weekly basis.
And here are some of meals I plan to make this week:
- ​Old-Fashioned Brown Beans​
- ​Two loaves of homemade bread​ — I also have a video for this one!
- ​Maple Oat Bread​
- ​Chicken and Rice​
- ​Pancakes​
- Chicken soup with dumplings
- Potato hash with eggs
- Coffee soup (ever heard of this???)
- Milk toast
- Baked beans
- Peanut butter banana cookies
- “Pan” jam
Note: I’ve decided it’s also fair to use foraged/preserved items, just as folks did during the Great Depression, when I have it or can get it. For example, I’ll also be trying to use:
- Our ​maple syrup​ (foraged from our maple trees on the farm this year)
- Walnuts (foraged from our walnuts last year)
- Preserved strawberries (preserved from last year’s strawberries)
- Preserved pickles (preserved from last year’s cucumbers)
- Dandelions and their greens (growing and foraging now!)
- Wild onions (growing and foraging now!)
Think I can make GOOD FOOD for two people for $50 a week? We shall see!
More to come!