I thought it would be fun and maybe helpful for others, if I posted how we handle grocery budgeting and such to the site, so I’ve made a new category called 10$ dinners and a page called, “The Pantry” that I wll upload soon.

I thought about this after a friend of Slo’s thought he was being cheap because he was saying he couldn’t afford to go to Starbuck’s or to eat out. He said there is no way a family of five can eat on $10. Slobo wasn’t kidding and he’s not cheap. But it seems alot of people have forgotten the skills necessary to feed a family and make it good.

With a grocery budget of $500.00 a month for a family of five (three of which are ever-growing boys), my budget for the dinner meal is 10$. That leaves us $200 for breakfast / lunch / snack foods and healthcare, paper products, laundry detg. all that other non edible necessary stuff. As with alot of Americans, scraping by is the name of the game. It has it’s definite rewards. Better tasting, healthier food without alot of extra unnecessary ingredients is one of them and when the boys say they are hungry every 30 minutes, there is always something for them to eat.

Granted, alot of my recipes don’t fit the health food category because we love frying, drizzling, gravy making and lots of butter. But they are better than a McD’s hamburger or Olive Garden’s frozen pasta dishes anyday!

This budget makes it difficult to put up baking supplies, although it’s possible to keep some items on hand one or two at a time. Don’t want you to think for that budget that you could stock up too much. Additional income is needed for that. So, whenever I babysit, sell a garment at the Mercantile or other money comes in, I use it for that. The items I include in this ‘extra income’ budget can be found on the new ‘Pantry Page’.

I hope you find this information helpful. If you do, please leave me a comment.