Busy Family Food Budget + Giveaway!

And I’m back with another #frugalfriday edition for all you MacroEd members out there needing a little Busy Family Food Budget help. Grab a paper and pen, pour yourself a cup of protein coffee, and enjoy reading how I accepted the challenge to build a meal plan for 4 people under $200 a week. Take good notes, because at the end of the post you will find a giveaway!

You’ve read about my Dave Ramsey love here and here, so you already know I adore his plan. Part of this path to financial peace is using a cash envelop system. Sunday night I shared a video showing you these cash envelopes that I have been sewing on my brand new sewing machine. I couldn’t stop creating, so Ashley suggested we give one of the envelopes away!

A couple of days later, this post pops up in the MacroEd Tribe Masterclass group: Ashley and I were quick to jump in with the rescue.

Ashley suggested you could “either budget your time or your money, unfortunately.” I suggested that I could try to help with both. And here we are with the “Busy Family Food Budget” so great that it would make Dave Ramsey proud. This breakdown was done on the fly at Kroger… so there was literally ZERO preparation… and it still turned out successful.

• 4 people
• Mom & Dad = Breakfast & Lunch = 28 meals / week
• 2 Kids = Lunch = 14 meals / week
• Whole Family = Dinner = 28 meals / week
• Total = 70 meals + 7 snacks for Dad = 77 meals

Breakfast: Sheet Pan Egg “To-go” Packs (Sunday Batch Prep)
Bake the eggs and liquid eggs. Throw in a square and either deli ham or bacon into a sandwich baggie. Done.

Kid #1 eats just PBJs… bread, JIF Creamy, and Smucker’s Blackberry Jam.

Kid #2 eats Mac & Cheese and Meat & Cheese Platters. Snag a 4-pack of Kraft Mac & Cheese microwavable singles, a block of cheese, and a bag of almonds. He’ll eat part of the rotisserie chicken you are picking up for your own lunches.

Dinners:

• Taco Soup (Crockpot so it is ready when you get home.)  = 8 servings (4 Dinners + 4 Lunches)
• Pork Shoulder (Crockpot so it is ready when you get home.) = 8 servings
• Grilled Chicken (Sunday Batch Prep) + Frozen Steamer Veggies = 8 servings
• Family Pack o’ Pork Chops (Sunday Batch Prep) + Canned Green Beans = 8 servings (4 Dinners + 2 Lunches)
• Cauliflower Fried Rice (Sunday Batch Prep: rice your cauliflower) + Frozen Stir Fry Veggies = 4 servings

Lunches:

• Zoodles & Meat Sauce (Sunday Meal Prep): 4 servings
• Rotisserie Chicken Mixed Greens Salad (Morning Prep): 4 servings

Time-wise, you’re looking at maybe 90 minutes of meal prep on Sunday to get yourself ready for the week. In the morning, you will get up about 15 minutes earlier to throw the stuff in the crockpot or prep your lunch. Invest in meal prep containers! They are worth it.

Cost breakdown:
82 servings came in at $134.11. I seriously walked around Kroger and “shopped” my way through all the meal plan items. That’s $1.64 per serving with minimal effort.

We came in $65 under budget! That means that the temptation to buy something quick if you just. can’t. help it. is a-okay! Plan a little bit and you’ll be so much better off in the long run.

Giveaway time! Use the hashtag “macroedfrugalfriday” to show me your best budget friendly food “moment”… be creative if you want! Use Instagram or Facebook! Be sure to tag Macroed, too, just in case. We will choose the winner of the Cash Envelope + cold, hard cash on Wednesday, May 3rd, at 5pm.