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GROCERY shopping on a small budget can be difficult, but one mom succeeded in feeding her entire family for a whole week for only $55.
Lori, a mother of four and savvy-saving YouTuber, recently shared her grocery store budget for a week along with nine easy recipes to make, all from the one shopping haul.
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She shared the extreme budget on her YouTube channel “Home Made Simple.”
THE BUDGET
“Sometimes the month is longer than the budget and when that happens, we have to find ways to save cash,” Lori wrote in the caption of the video.
“This video is all about feeding your family for an entire week on just $55 worth of groceries!
All the meals are nutritious and filling–but they are also friendly to the budget!”
The YouTuber did all of her shopping at her local Aldi store and initially started with a budget of $50.
She later explained that she needed to raise the budget by $5 in order to account for additional items she purchased, like baking powder, that she didn’t show previously.
Within the extreme budget, Lori purchased items like butter, cheese, ground turkey, crushed tomatoes, frozen mixed vegetables, carrots, pasta, rice, flour, and more.
She noted that typically she does not purchase items like eggs and milk as she and her family rely on those supplies by their farm animals at home.
Additionally, staple items like flour and butter might already be in your home kitchen, making the budget even smaller.
When feeding a large family, Lori emphasized the importance of purchasing nutritious items like beans and oats.
“I did try to include very nutritious meals and make sure that we were getting all of the big groups that we needed,” she said.
“Even if we are on a very strict budget, nutrition is still really important. And so I’ve tried to factor that in whenever I was making this meal plan.”
Ultimately, the YouTuber was able to create 10 different recipes for her family to eat throughout the week.
BREAKFAST
Lori detailed three breakfast recipes in the video: a sausage quiche, oatmeal, and pancakes.
All three meals use a low number of ingredients, some of which might already be in a typical pantry.
To make the quiche, the YouTuber said you only need 10 eggs, ¾ cups of milk, cooked ground sausage, and some shredded cheese.
Another nutritious breakfast Lori made for her family was oatmeal and apples.
“The package of oats that we bought at Aldi is a 30 serving container,” the YouTuber said.
“…If you and your family can just deal with the monotony of one thing for breakfast, this will get you through the week and have you full until lunchtime.
In order to make the simple dish, Lori used one cup of oats, two cups of water, a dash of salt, one apple, and one tablespoon of butter.
If you wish to spice it up, she suggested adding granulated sugar, brown sugar, or cinnamon to the mix.
The third breakfast recipe Lori detailed was homemade pancakes and syrup.
Using a basic recipe of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, butter, and eggs, the mother of four said the dish was her favorite Saturday morning breakfast.
Shoppers can save a few bucks by making their own syrup to drizzle on top with a tablespoon of butter, one cup of sugar, a dash of salt and ¾ cups of water.
LUNCH AND DINNER
Lori offered up seven different meals budget shoppers can make for lunch or dinner all under the $55 budget.
The first dish is a broccoli pasta bake, made of cooked shredded chicken, frozen broccoli, macaroni noodles, butter, milk, and cheese.
“The good thing about this meal is all in one dish so it’s easy clean up. So it’s simple, but it also is filling. There should be plenty for everybody and then some leftovers for lunch,” the YouTuber said.
She also detailed two other chicken based recipes: a homemade chicken pot pie and chicken rice soup.
For both meals, Lori sought to cut extra costs of buying cream of chicken or seasoned chicken stock.
Instead, she opted to make her own by using the remaining chicken stock from the chicken used in previous recipes.
“This will save us several dollars by not buying creamed chicken just for this week,” she said. “It really eliminates the need for buying the cream of chicken canned soup.”
Lori also opted to use her homemade chicken broth in another dinner/lunch recipe: potato soup.
This easy meal is made in one pot by mixing six tablespoons of butter, four pounds of diced potatoes, ½ cup of flour, four cups of milk, one teaspoon of salt, four cups of chicken broth, ½ tablespoons of pepper and one pound of diced carrots.
Additionally, the savvy saver layed out a chili recipe consisting of black beans, crushed tomatoes, chili powder, salt, water and sugar.
Lori revealed that her family likes to include ground turkey into the dish, however if families are looking to save a few dollars, they can leave the ingredient out.
She also detailed two very easy recipes for shoppers looking to keep things simple: a homemade spaghetti sauce and rice and bean bowls.
“But this meal by itself is very filling, very nutritious and it is about as cheap as you could possibly eat,” the YouTuber said about the rice and beans.
“So for any meal that you need to have filled in, this right here is a good filler for the rest of the week.”
Shoppers looking for the exact measurements used for all the recipes can find them here.
The YouTuber admitted that some families may get tired of eating the same meals throughout the week.
“But when you’re working on a really small budget, sometimes we have to sacrifice our cravings for our pocketbook,” she said.
“And that’s what this meal is going to allow us to do.”
