Mustachian Recipes

[cosmonaut]

MMM mentioned he spent around $5k/year (about $400/month) on grocery spending for their household of three.  I saw another thread in the forum talking about what types of food to eat (vegetable proteins, organic chicken, etc.) but I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share some of their mustachian recipes.  Right now my wife and I spend about $500/month on groceries, which I think is a lot considering we both work 70+ hours a week and eat out more than I would to admit. I don't think we buy a lot of pre-made or processed foods, but my wife does experiment in the kitchen and is always cooking up something new.

I would love to see what types of meals others are cooking as I attempt to lower my monthly grocery bill.

[Physics]

We also aim for $100/wk ($5200 a year) for our food, with varying levels of success.

It is totally doable if we don't go out to eat, which with our new daughter has been less of an issue. :P

We plan our week of meals and do a trip to Trader Joe's or Aldi's, it is pretty easy to get out of either of those with a week's worth of food for less than $100.  We also live close to a Whole Foods, but that is a different story.

This week, we had left over chicken noodle soup from the week before, then we had slow cooker pulled pork, and leftovers another night over rice.  A huge pasta casserole, which was good for another set of left overs and a lunch for me.  We are making a slow cooker chicken stew tonight, which will give us dinner tonight and tomorrow, and then we still have some ground turkey that will become a turkey lasagne for over the weekend.  I also buy baking supplies (flour, bread flour etc...) for occasional homemade bread.

[arebelspy]

A large part of our meals are often very cheap.  Chicken and ground beef goes on sale for cheap, other meats are usually more expensive.

But the best way to bring down the average cost of your meal is use cheap sides.  Veggies are cheap.  But especially: rice and potatoes.  10 lb. bag of potatoes for $3 or so.  Giant bag of rice for a few bucks that will last a dozen or more meals.  Those type of things really bring down the average cost of a meal.

Last night threw together some stir fry - rice, asparagus, broccoli, zucchini, steak (cut up).  Cost maybe a dollar per person.

Try adding in more rice into your meals, or make things where the "entree" part is smaller, but you have more "sides" like potatoes and veggies to make your meal cheaper overall.

[cosmonaut]

Excellent advice all the way around.  Thanks for the comments!