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Cheap Meals

Frugal Meals

Not only are cheap meals simple to put together, but you'll find that they'll also save you a great deal of time and money.

For good measure, having fast and easy frugal dinner meal ideas at your fingertips is especially important these days with escalating food costs.

Below, are food tips that you'll find are cheap easy meals to prepare and savor.

Don't forget to visit frugal grocery shopping to cut your food costs substantially.

cheap meals

Low Cost Meals - Making It A Habit

Getting into the habit of cutting your food costs is a good first step. You'll find that bagging your own lunches (if you work outside the home) will be a huge money saver. Many people spend $5 to $10 a day on lunch. That really adds up to the tune of $100 to $200 a month. You'll also find cutting down on going out to eat dinner will keep extra cash in your pocket as well.

Cost effective bagged lunches can include a sandwich (turkey, P&J, etc) or pasta. You can throw a couple of apples or carrots into your lunch bag as well.

For breakfast, you can have toast, oatmeal, or an oatmeal smoothie. For the smoothie, we blend oatmeal, frozen fruit, protein powder if you wish, an apple or banana and there you have it, a delicious, nutritious and filling meal.

You'll also find that setting a budget for your groceries will help to prevent you from overspending. Setting a realistic number for how much to spend monthly on groceries will give you a good point of reference to work from. Our family of four, for example, spends no more than $400 per month which is definitely doable.

Cheap Easy Meals

Time is precious and we're all busy, so we like to keep it simple when it comes to our dinner meals. You'll find the following meals are definitely economical, delicious, filling and easy to put together.

Crockpot Sloppy Joes

Chili

Beans & Rice

Spaghetti & Meatballs

Casseroles

Beanie Weenies

Beef Macaroni

Mac & Cheese

Meat Loaf

Chicken Noodle Soup

Bean Burritos

Tacos

Taco Salad

Chicken Salad

Breaded Or Grilled Chicken

Hamburgers & Hot Dogs

Chicken & Rice

Buttered Noodles

Pot Roast

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Stir Frys

Soups

Salads

You'll also find a turkey, potato and cranberry meal to fall in the category of cheap meals when you get a turkey at a good sales price. If you have the freezer room, you can buy more than one turkey when on sale. This gives you the benefit of delicious cheap meals at dinner, not to mention those turkey sandwiches.

Brown rice, whole wheat pasta, salads and beans are not only good for you, but serve as excellent sides as well as meals in and of themselves. You'll also find they are excellent low cost meals.

We eat a good amount of salads. What's really nice is you can custom make a salad to your preference. You can add beans, cucumbers, cheese, chicken, tomatoes, carrots, brown rice, hamburger, you name it.

Here's another tip, a hot dog casserole. What you do is take hot dogs, slice them up, add mixed vegetables, onions and shredded cheese. Pour into a casserole dish and bake until done. Delicious!

One last tip on cheap meals that we'd like to share with you would be stir frys. You can cook this meal in olive oil or butter and add garlic, cooked brown rice, chicken, thawed frozen vegetables, mushrooms, onions, salt, pepper, meat or any combination that best suites you. A nutritious, delicious and affordable meal you'll enjoy. Our favorite simple, low cost recipes are listed here.

Wrapping It Up

We enjoyed sharing our tips on cheap meals with you. We eat these meals frequently because they're quick to put together, delicious, filling and very economical. We're confident you'll enjoy these tips and save a good amount of cash at the same time.

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