8 Simple Budget Friendly Recipes

I have some simple budget friendly food ideas to share with you today.  None of these meal ideas are revolutionary, but they're all meals that are quick to prepare and are crowd pleasers.  That's a winning combination in my book.

I usually fix dinner 6 nights a week and then I try to cook lunches on the weekends for my family.  It saves us a lot of money and we'd rather pick up some quick take out for dinner when Friday/Saturday roll around.

I think I first mentioned last year that I was making a serious effort to not waste food.  We eat leftovers for lunches, eat the same meal two nights in a row and utilize our freezer to save any produce that in danger of going bad.  My system isn't perfect, but I've really improved in this area and we waste very little food.  Yay!

1. Avoid buying premade desserts
A dozen cookies is anywhere from $8-12 and you can make them at home for under $4.  Pies and cakes are at least $12+ and all of that adds up fast.  I understand there are times you have to go the store bought route for school functions and for allergy purposes, but if you have the option homemade is usually cheaper.

I made My Most Famous Recipe chocolate chip cookies and rolled them in mini M&Ms before baking them.  The result was bakery worthy looking cookies that were so good!!

2. Prepare extra meat at dinner time and save the leftovers for easy lunches

We love this Member's Mark Pulled Chicken from Sams.  It's $9.96 and we can get two dinners and two lunches out of it.  I like to make different sides when I eat it for lunch to make the meal seem fresh.  I roasted baby carrots and an onion this day.  It was such a good meal!  We try to grill an extra burger or two, extra chicken breasts, make extra roast, etc. so that we have leftover meat.

3. Breakfast for lunch or dinner

My family loves Hammy Cheesey Eggs with toast and fruit.  I will slice up deli ham or slice up the little precooked fourths of a ham from the store for this.  It keeps in the freezer and you can just take out what you need.

4. Make a big bath of soup or chili for the week

When the weather cools off I try to do one soup a week to eat for 2 dinners and several lunches.  We had chili a couple of weeks ago.  I'm anxious to try a new soup with tortellini and italian sausage this week.

5. Prechop and wash veggies for easy snacks

I usually spend one day shopping and chopping to prepare for the week.  I haven't been in the mood for chopping everything little for salads lately.  These veggie trays have seemed much easier.  I've also found that my family is much more likely to grab veggies for a snack if they're prepped and ready to grab in the fridge.

6. Rotisserie Chicken Breasts

My Sams sells a four pack of rotisserie chicken breasts for $3.98!!  That's $1 cheaper than the whole rotisserie chicken and it's our favorite part.  I try to stock up on these when I find them at Sams because you just can't beat that deal for fully cooked chicken.  We use it for dinners and lunches.

7. Rotisserie Chicken Leftovers

I added it to lunch boxes.  Packing lunches saves us so much money.  The whole family does it.  My son love to dip his chicken in honey mustard and my daughter prefers hers plain.

We used up rotisserie chicken in quesadillas for lunches at home.

We also made BBQ chicken bowls with the rest of the leftover chicken plus some leftover homemade potato wedges.  I just popped all of it in the skillet to heat it up.  It was delicious and no food went to waste!

8. Cook once; Eat several times

I made this Life Changing Lasagna recipe last week.  It was so good!  We ate one dinner from it and then Fletcher and I both had it for lunch 3 different days. 

What tricks do you use to same your family money on meals??