Feeding Your Family for $350/Month with Real Food Meal Plans (2024)

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By Tiffany, Contributing Writer

I stopped making New Year’s resolutions in my early 20’s. Although just a couple decades under my belt, I figured out that resolutions were really just a fancy way of saying big change. And according to tradition, these significant changes had to be practically earth-shattering… like “never ever eat sugar again” or “go to the gym and exercise every single day.”

I played the resolution game for a few years, but when year after year, none of my big changes came to fruition (despite my best intentions), I gave up.

First I gave up trying, and then I gave up resolutions altogether.

Big goals – when set without realistic expectations and a plan to achieve them – are nothing more than just lofty ideas.

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Big dreams have the amazing ability to set a fire under us to get moving on something we’d been stewing on for too long. But in order to get to the end goal, you need a game plan to get there.

Every year, two of the most popular New Year’s resolutions are get healthy and save money. In fact, these were MY exact goals just two years ago!

Instead of wishful thinking, I took charge and created a monthly meal plan. One meal plan turned into more, which then created shopping lists and ideas for having meals ready ahead of time… slowly, I had developed a system that helped me eat real food on just $330 every month, which in turn meant meeting both of my goals by the end of the year.

I know that eating healthy food without paying a lot of money is tough for many families, and it’s my passion to help these same families succeed in their own healthy living goals.

So I took everything I knew about meal planning, all my tips on shopping and saving, and all my ideas on streamlining work in the kitchen and created Frugal Real Food Meal Plans.

I know the idea of meal planning isn’t new to you guys, and you’ve probably heard of several meal planning services out there. In fact, I’ve tried out a few myself! But none of them really did what I needed them to. In all the meal plans I’ve tried:

  • There would be a plan, but no shopping list.
  • Or, I could CREATE my own plan… but that defeated the purpose of having one ready to go for me.
  • Or better yet, they gave me a plan and shopping list, but my budget can’t afford steak and lobster on a weekly basis. (And no, I’m not kidding on the steak and lobster!)

I needed a REAL plan. One that was simple yet delicious, and that included meals that my non-professional kitchen skills could pull of. And it needed to be 100% real food. No processed ingredients or boxed meals allowed.

The plan needed to be frugal. Creating a grocery budget is how we became debt free. Knowing how much we had control over our finances with a simple grocery budget meant keeping meals and ingredients simple and affordable.

The plan needed to come with lists. Tell me what to eat and what to buy. If it could tell me about how much I should pay, or what I can make ahead of time to make squeezing a dentist appoint, baseball practice, AWANA into a three-hour window just a bit easier, then it earned bonus points.

Practical and flexible is my middle name. My gut says that the typical CEO executive doesn’t quite understand the inner workings of a home and what it takes to run one smoothly (for the most part anyway, lol). The plan needed to be practical, in both meals that my family would eat and reasonable times to prepare them. I wanted flexibility so that I could move a slow-cooker meal to a busy Wednesday night and put the more time-intensive meals on a lazy Saturday afternoon. If it could tell me how to host company, or ideas for a pot-luck, that would be awesome too.

An affordable plan is key. Yes, the meals needed to be frugal, but the plan itself needed to be affordable too! My grocery budget is small, and there’s only so much wiggle room. The meal plan needed to cost less than dinner at Chipotle with my family in order for it to work in our budget.

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Frugal Real Food Meal Plans is all of these things, and so much more.

  • Simple meals with 100% real food ingredients you can find in the typical grocery store.
  • Designed with a frugal budget in mind, Frugal Real Food Meal Plans can feed the average family of four for as little as $350/month.
  • Shopping lists, pricing lists, prep lists and even suggestions for what to make when you’re hosting company!
  • With multiple ways to shop (monthly, bi-monthly or weekly), you can easily swap meals around to best fit your finances and busy schedule.
  • Designed by a busy mom, there are slow-cooker meals every week, ideas for freezer cooking and every recipe is at your fingertips, within the plan itself!
  • For less than the cost of two fast food meals, Frugal Real Food Meal Plans can easily fit into even the tightest grocery budget.

Frugal Real Food Meal Plans has two different membership options available: a month-to-month plan, and a 3-month subscription,and I have a very special offer just for readers of The Humbled Homemaker!

Use coupon code THH15 to save 15% off the 3-month plan!

Learn more about Frugal Real Food Meal Plans here.

Does your family use a meal plan? Would you like to try out Frugal Real Food Meal Plans?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for helping to support this site!

Feeding Your Family for $350/Month with Real Food Meal Plans (2024)
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