This meal plan for a family of four came out of a need to spend no more than $70/week on our grocery budget and ended up being a delicious menu plan that we revisit frequently.
Update: 4/5/20 I know how stressful it is right now to be cooking 2-3 times a day while you’re also trying to work, “home school”, referee kids, and get your house under control. We created an epic inspiration binder of the easiest cheap meals. These ideas are field-tested by hundreds of thousands of our readers and are guaranteed to help even the most overwhelmed mom stick to a meal plan.
And we’re giving it to you 100% free right now so you can use it to help you get through this time. And bonus: You’ll end up using it long after the pandemic is over.
Our $70/week Meal Plan for 4 People
I think anyone that’s ever met me knows how I feel about 15 minute meals. When we went through the 90 Day Budget Bootcamp and reduced our spending by over $23,000 a year, we realized that by planning for 15 minute meals every night we could actually stick to our meal plan (first time ever!) and because of that stick to our budget (also first time ever!) That program’s actually free now and completely life changing- so you should grab it while it’s free here. They make dinner so simple and easy that you end up eating at home because it takes longer to eat out than to go home and whip up one of these super simple meals.
When I first started figuring out how to create a budget we could stick to, I used a ton of convenience foods because raw meat scared the dickens out of me (no laughing! This is a judgment-free zone). Now, I’m pretty much over my raw meat fear. We flip between Freezer Cooking, slow cooker meals, and 15 min. meals.
Then we discovered stir fry only takes about 20 minutes and it earned a solid place of its own in our cooking line up.
Because seriously, when you’re creating a meal plan for a family of four you need easy solutions.
There are 3 major benefits to a stir fry: They are quick to cook, cheap to make, and can include tons of veggies. Jon used to love to get Chinese out and every once in a while, I would give in and we would head out.
Every single dish we made this week tasted better than anything I’ve ever had in a restaurant.
You don’t technically need one, but we purchased this Wok for our stir fries. The wok makes stir fry so much quicker and easier!
Consider the idea of fitting cooking gadgets into your grocery budget. By freezer cooking for one month, I was able to purchase a food processor, giant mixing bowl, stock pot, giant measuring cup and a 6 quart slow cooker all within our $120/week grocery budget (and still came in way under). The idea here isn’t to clutter your kitchen with useless gadgets, but to make intentional purchases of things that will make cooking easier for you.
If you eat 3 meals a day at home then you make 1,095 meals a year. You can consider yourself a professional chef with numbers like that and get the tools that make your job easier.
My favorites are a large slow cooker, a giant mixing bowl, a bread machine (mostly for the dough, I still bake in the oven), a wok, and a giant electric griddle (why make 12 pancakes when you can make 60 for the same time and effort and freeze them for super easy breakfasts? Or turn them into make ahead sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches).
Here’s an example of how low you can get your grocery budget with a week of stir fry (example uses 2 adults and 2 toddlers to feed). We used this grocery plan for the week that we purchased the wok so that we could fit the wok into our grocery budget.
Obviously, you won’t want to have stir fry every day for the rest of your life (although I’m seriously tempted).
This is just an example for the potential grocery savings. Most people don’t know how much they spend on groceries for one dinner, but many know how much they spend for the week. (If you have no idea… consider menu planning to figure it out. It’s the easiest way to save a few hundred dollars a month. Yes. You read that right, a few hundred.)
Need help reducing your spending?
If you need extensive help on creating and sticking to a budget, the best resource I can give you is the free step by step class called “Budget for Beginners Boot Camp” that walks you through not only how to create a budget, but how to set up the basic routines in your life that will support your efforts to save money. Because transforming your finances is about more than just the budget.
You can sign up for the Budget for Beginners Boot Camp class for free by clicking here.
Not a fan of stir fry but need super cheap quick and easy meals? Try these…
- 15 Minute Meals from a $5 Rotisserie Chicken.
- 3 Weeks of Cheap and Easy 15 Minute Meals.
- 2 Weeks of 15 Minute Meals from Scratch.
$70/WEEK MEAL PLAN:
Breakfasts:
- Pancakes with Banana
- Oatmeal
- Cereal & Milk
- Tomato and Cheese Omelet
- Peanut Butter Toast with Honey and Banana.
- Chocolate Waffles with Peanut Butter Syrup
- Scrambled Eggs, Banana Boats with Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chips. (To make banana boats, just scoop out an indentation in the top of the banana. Spread peanut butter in there and sprinkle with chocolate chips, crushed nuts or raisins.)
Lunch:
Leftovers from dinner each night.
Dinner:
Make a little extra of each for lunches the next day. We usually made the sauce as directed and then added extra chicken and veggies to give us more of the good stuff and less of the sugar. Click on links for the recipes. We add the snow peas, broccoli, peppers and onion to each dish in place of the veggies they have in the recipe to make it easier/cheaper on us.
- Orange Chicken Stir fry
- Honey Siracha Chicken Stir fry
- Weeknight Chicken Stir fry
- General Tso’s Chicken Stir fry
- Kung Poa Chicken Stir fry
- Sesame Chicken
-
Want more ideas? Check out my Stir Fry Pinterest Board.
Grocery List for Week:
For the above meal plan for a family of four.
Bananas: .88
Eggs: 1.39
Milk: 2.79
Butter: 2.29
Tomato: $1
Cheddar cheese: 2.79
Siracha: 2.99
4 bags of Aldi frozen skinless boneless chicken thighs or breasts: $5.99/3 pound bag
Orange marmalade: 2.69
Garlic: .99
Broccoli: 1.99/pound x 4 pounds
Snow peas: 1.98/pound x 3 pounds
Onion: 1.69/2lb
8 Yellow green and Red Peppers: 2/1.39
Sesame seeds: 3.19 (optional)
Scallions: .99
Dried Thai peppers: 3.99 (optional- We skipped these)
Unsalted peanuts: 2.39
Chinese black vinegar (If you don’t feel like making the trip to a specialty store, use 1 part rice vinegar, 1 part balsamic vinegar, and 3 parts water): $0 (We used the balsamic/rice vinegar from our pantry).
Sesame oil: 4.99
Pineapple rings: .89
Total: $69.50/week worth of groceries.
This would feed a family of four for about $278/month.
Feel free to add the cost of the wok into your list like we did.
Obviously, this isn’t what we eat every week. We use a combination of freezer cooking, 15 min meals, and slow cooking meals, but these wok creations are quickly becoming our favorite!
Pantry Ingredients:
These items are stored for a long time and the recipes need a smaller amount, so likely you won’t have to purchase a new container. Just run through the items and make sure you have each.
Ketchup: 1.19
Cornstarch: 1.19
White vinegar: 1.00
Garlic salt: 1.00
Chicken broth cubes: 2.29
Ground ginger: 4.29 (for a bag that will last you the whole year!)
White rice: 4.99 (10 pounds)
Rice vinegar: 1.99
Soy sauce: 1.19
Cocoa powder: 2.49
Chocolate chips: 1.79
Flour: 1.77
Sugar: 2.30
Peanut butter: 2.29
Honey: 2.49
Pancake syrup: 1.59
Oatmeal: 2.19
Brown sugar: 1.39
Salt: .35
Cheerios: 1.49
Canola oil: 2.69
Total: 40.96 (In the unlikely event you actually have to purchase these, you won’t need to purchase them again for a while).
We didn’t use coupons. We shopped at Aldi and then Wegmans for the things that Aldi didn’t carry and ended up under grocery budget (we budget $120/week), even when you factor in the cost of the wok.
We do use Ibotta though for all of our groceries, which helps shave a few dollars off without any effort. Read my full review of Ibotta here.
Groceries: $69.50
Wok: $21.00
$90.50 Total for the Week!
What’s your favorite meal pan to feed a family of four?
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Yep. Aldi – although we started buying pampers from Aldi too. They carry pampers for about $10 less than Target. It’s so tempting to order in…but it’s so much more expensive and salt (and other less than healthy additives) laden. Getting my healthy back – along with sticking to a budget. Aldi does the budget good!
Aldi amazes me! I love it!
Holy sweet mother!! where do you find eggs and cheese so cheap? A block of cheese here is $10 and eggs are close to $7 for free range! Do you use coupons?
Woah Heidi! I buy them at Aldi, but they aren’t that expensive at even the fancy stores!
I use to shop at Aldi. Now we also have Lidl…12 eggs $.35. Gallon of milk $1.35. Most things close in price but many much cheaper than Aldi.
Aldi’s eggs are COFA. Their cheese varieties all taste the same, yep, kinda weird. I only buy mozz there as I want swiss that tastes like swiss and cheddar that tastes like cheddar. Th shredded cheddar is ok as it’s going in a recipe. Their produce must be used in a few days, it won’t keep at all. I buy some canned goods there and milk n eggs becuz we cant afford pastured. The frzn vegs are now the same price as other stores and they’ve reduced selection too.
Mary, yes at 9009 Telegraph. My apologies for the comments of others. What a world we could live in if everyone treated each other with kindness. Good luck to you!
Thanks Brittany! I’m all about cheap meals! and mmmm… Cinnamon rolls… Heading to your site now!
I’m with heidi on the costs. Butter here 3.87, eggs (large) 3.90, cheerios about 4.00, Milk 4.35 gallon (2%). In Canada, budget shopping.
Woah!!! You guys are troopers! I’d be trying to fit a few chickens and a cow in my backyard for those prices!
It amazes me how different the prices are across the US!
I live in the south and those are the same prices for us too! This amount is way off reality for me too!
That’s about how much it costs here in Texas too
I never realized how lucky we are with grocery prices! I figured we would be more expensive since we’re on the outskirts of DC.
Oh, Aldi! Why aren’t you local?! Every time I read one of these posts I get all excited until I read “Aldi.” There isn’t a single location anywhere near me. We have some “cheaper” grocery stores but they add an extra 10% tax onto the already 10% sales tax in our state. So often times the “savings” aren’t really savings at all. Milk here is currently $3.45 a gallon, but I can usually find an 8oz block of cheese for about $2.00. Eggs here are about $2.00 for a dozen of large, but if you want free range or cage free they are more expensive. Unless you know a chicken farmer! Friends of ours used to keep chickens so for over a year I got free eggs. I have a family of 5 and no toddlers anymore. I am scared to think of where my grocery budget is headed as they grown into teenagers. However, I am really enjoying the stir fry recipes!
We’re having honey sriracha chicken tomorrow night for like the 70th time. I can’t get enough! And I can’t believe the difference in grocery prices across the country. I used to think that we would always have the highest since we’re right outside of DC, but now I’m scared to ever move! 🙂
Milk is expensive here too. 4.25 for 2% and a 2lb block of cheese is $5 with a dozen large eggs being 3.75
(We’re in western Okla.)
Ooh! Sounds yummy!
There is no way those portion sizes would feed my family of 3 teens (boys) and parents. I have started doubling every recipe and they still ask for more. I shop weekly due to the amounts they consume. . Can’t store it all. Spend over $200 and that with sales and coupons. I try to make the menu around the sales. The Aldi here is horrific! I walked in, and then out!
I’m dreading the teen years! I suspect I’m going to be drowning in those grocery bills. Aldi can take a little getting used to (even the good ones!), but once you’re hooked, you’re hooked!
Hi Jane! Snacks will definitely up your grocery bill. We aren’t big snackers and when we do, we try to make it ourselves (like cookies.. yum!).
My son eats enormous amounts like this when he plays sports. He will eat thirds for dinner, snack all night and still say he went to bed hungry. He only weighs 110 pounds. They need the nurishment for their growing teens who burn it off. Not all kids sit in front of the tv. I go without food so he gets the nourishment. He is more important. We don’t have those prices here in Colorado or have an Aldis
I have several fairly quick and easy meals to suggest:
1. Shepard’s pie
2. Ham casserole – cpoked pasta for the number of servings you want, spaghetti sauce – enough to make everything moist, cubes of leftover ham, motzarella cheese to taste. Mix together. Put in a casserole dish, Top with a bit more motzerella and some parmesan. Cook at 450 until top is browned,
3. Another casserole (family recipe) – for 4 servings: 1 # hamburger browned, 4 servings of cooked pasta, can of stewed tomatoes, sliced cheese. Put 1/2 the stewed tomatoes in a layer on the bottom, then 1/2 the hamburger, 1/2 the pasta and a layer of cheese to cover. Repeat. Bake at 400 until top is browned.
4. Roast chicken – not quick, but I make stock and use the leftovers for quick recipes like:
5. Chicken Corn Chowder – leftover chicken, can of cream corn, can of condensed chicken soup, can of condensed potato soup, package of frozen corn, paprika, cayenne to taste, milk, chicken stock. Put cream corn and condensed soups into a large pot. FIll cans 3/4 full with about 1/2 stock and 1/2 milk. Add to pot along with chicken and frozen corn to make it as thick as you like. Add paprika and caayenne to taste. Cook medium low (don’t scorch the milk) until warmed.
6. Chicken Vegetable Noodle Soup (also a little longer)
7. Chicken Pot Pie – 1 cup leftover chicken, 1 2/3 cup frozen veggies, leftover gravy or can of condensed chicken soup, uncooked biscuits for topping (Stonyfield Farms website has an awsome yogurt biscuit recipe that can be used here). Put all ingredients into a pie plate. Top with uncooked biscuit mix. Cook at 400 for 30 min
This is a great idea but I would need to triple it, i have two 14 year olds that eat me out of house and home!
I shudder at the thought of what my grocery bill will be when these kids are teens!
Love this post! I just started meal planning and at the end of the first week now. I didn’t have to plan last minute dinners like I usually do AND I haven’t been to the grocery store at all since my initial trip on Monday (unheard of for me because I often go 3-4 times a week).
I’m going to have to try out some of your stir fry recipes for next week!
xoxo
Lisa @ Fun Money Mom
Yay Lisa! I’m a huge dork but Meal Planning is so exciting to me! Suddenly, Meals become fun and not a huge hassle.
What about the meat?
Do you mean, where do I buy and how much meat? It;s in the shopping list in the post. 12 pounds of Boneless Skinless chicken breasts from Aldi.
lol Meat what is meat? Like taking on the National Debit to buy a decent piece of meat.
It’s too bad your pricings vary a lot from where I live, I could see myself living on this meal plan 🙁
Stirfry is sooooo delicious. 🙂
If you have some money saved up front, check with a butcher and get a quarter to half a cow. We ended up with around 300 pounds of meat for around $3 pound. Pricey up front, but when you can eat a nice steak for a few bucks it is worth it!
Awesome idea Cayla! We’re planning to do that this year. My husband told me I’ll have to clear out the deep freezer first so we’re trying to eat our way through that. 🙂
In eastern NC…our prices are higher for some items and we do not have an Aldi near… $3.79 milk walmart, $3.50 5 lbs of flour, eggs are $3 and up. The white cheap ones are $3 the free range etc are $5. I can get boneless chicken at 1.99 lb walmart . After our mortgage the food bill is the next highest bill we have. I’m seeking real solutions, healthy tasty meals that we can afford. I’m finding it difficult to say the least . I am excited to incorporate your stir fry recipes into our menu. Thanks
Adrienne, check out $5 Dinner Mom cookbook from your library (or buy it on amazon if you don’t have a well stocked library). She’s AMAZING. She has tons of super simple, basic dinners (and sides) using whole foods for less than $5 per meal. That book gets used almost everyday in our house. I’m having her simple oven roasted “fried” chicken and potatoes for lunch today and I had her chicken. broccoli and penne pasta last night.
I do like the idea of a menu plan and some of your recipes as a base, but agree that the meal size is adequate for perhaps three adults with little or no left overs :-), but easy to just add more veggies. I also live in an area that has considerably higher prices…butter 3.99 lb, chicken thighs $3.49, milk $3.99 etc..about 35 miles South of Seattle but have had some luck with Grocery Outlet. Thank you for the ideas!
Your so welcome Maridyth! Check to see if you have an Aldi grocery store within an hour. It would be worth the trip just to stock up on staples. It’s not really a grocery outlet, but they have amazing prices.
Winco or Shop N Kart are also cheap stores. So sad Aldi’s is not out west! Thankfully walmart is.
Woah! I need to move where you are!! I’m in Canada as well and i’d blow that budget in about 2 minutes at the grocery store….Cheese block $10.00 (however it does last a long time) it’s so crazy.
Last year while on vacation in Florida my husband and i couldn’t get over how much organic/free range/grass fed etc stuff we bought for so little! I had told him i’d of spent over $300.00 in one trip at home. I think our total was just about $100.00
I will try some of your receipes. Thanks for sharing!
That’s so funny, because we live just outside of Washington DC in a really busy area. I always thought we would have higher grocery prices! (Well, not higher than Cananda!). I’ve learned so much from posting this! Mostly, that I’m lucky we have an Aldi!
I noticed you don’t have links to the breakfast recipes. A little disappointing, but that honey sesame chicken was a huge hit last night. 🙂
These are definitely great tips and well calculated. MU hubby is the finances in the house because God knows if it was me we’d be homeless by now lol. I cook daily, mainly because I find some of the meals I make cannot be frozen. I do make pancakes ahead of time but trying to find a way to make it faster than pouring it in the skillet to make a dozen for the week.
Have you tried Oven Baked pancakes? Use your favorite pancake recipe, pour into a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet. Bake in the oven, 375 degrees for 12-15 mins.
But those of you who have higher prices, in general, make higher wages, also. I lived in DC for a year and prices were much higher than Ohio, but so were wages.
But so are shelter costs, gas, clothes etc. So the food is still too high for the wages made.
Need to reduce your cost on the food the prices are to low.
Maybe I missed it in all the comments, but where did you get a great big griddle? I’ve needed one for years!
Check Walmart or Amazon. The should have what you are looking for.
I live in Ontario, Canada. Although our prices are higher, I still really enjoyed this article and will be using ideas from it. Thank you, I can’t wait to look through the rest of your website for other tips and recipes!
I agree. I haven’t seen butter for 2.99 in about 3 years around Easter time. I try to buy four pounds and freeze 3 to get it that low in price. Orange marmalade here is closer to 4.59 for a decent tasting one also. The cheapy stores like 99 cent stores tastes awful.
I just bought butter last week (October 14, 2017) – Land O’Lakes even, not the store brand – for $2.99 per pound in Columbus, OH. A dozen jumbo eggs for 69 cents & milk $1.29 gallon at Kroger. While you can’t always stock up when things are on sale due to budget constraints and/or not all items keeping well, I try to stock up when I can and change up recipes for the week to include sale items. I rarely use coupons as I find that store brands are usually cheaper than the coupon price of name brands. I typically spend $50 – $75 per week to feed a family of 5.
Walmart butter is $2.56/# in July 2018, and has been for months now. But everywhere by me, milk is about $3/gallon and higher. I don’t price eggs, as we have hens, and about 8+ dozen in the fridge. We get chicken for pretty cheap in south AL, because of alllllll the chicken farms and processing plants by us. My mom pays way more than we do! It’s amazing the price differences. Yet each area has their lows and highs.
Oh Mylanta!!!! Food is nowhere near that cheap in Denver.
Thanks so much for the recipes and breakdown I am definitely trying these this week! My family only includes myself and my husband and 2 big furbabies, but I am constantly trying to find quick recipes that last us a day or two. That makes it easier on me and my husband who is in grad school. The prices are pretty much on the mark for me and I am in Georgia, actually with recent sales some are even lower! I absolutely love Aldi, my farmers market and I use a local store depending on the sales. I just bought eggs from Aldi for .69/a doz and my local Food depot sells local eggs for about the same price!
I agree that prices will change based on the location and thats to be expected but the foundation of larger meals and meal planning can help reduce excess spending anywhere.
Thanks again!
I feel so bad for all of you having to pay so much for food. I can’t even imagine what I’d do if I had to pay that much. We might starve. I live in Southwest GA. Milk around here is at most $3, eggs are usally $1.75 or less, butter is around $3 I think. I can get a good loaf of bread for $2. And I thought our block cheese was expensive. It’s not even $4. ?
We are in SW TN and our prices are pretty decent. We do have a neighbor that we buy eggs from (building our own coop this spring). Already looking into buying half cow for the freezer. We do meal planning and use ibotta and try to use sales to help. We have started freezer meals and that has helped a lot since my daughter (I live with my daughter, her fiance and my granddaughter) has just started working as a caretaker. Her hours vary and we have to make sure that the meals are done early enough that my granddaughter has time to eat and get everything done before bed as she has to get up early for school. Your recipes are great, we just have to increase for the big guy and enough for lunch leftovers. We are big on leftovers and extra for freezer.
If your in the north west try shopping at cash and carry. You have to buy some items bulk. But I get whole friers for $0.85/lb on average and am able to set a rule for all meats never to spend more than $2/lb and always come out with great cuts.
I love the $5dinner freezer meals for keeping my meal budget. Especially the plan she has for bulk cooking breakfast with the homemade muffin and pancakes mix. Wow was that a budget saver.
Wow, that’s awesome! Definitely something to check out. Thanks for sharing!
I am having trouble finding the recipe for the orange chicken stir fry. I have made it before and it is the easiest and best orange chicken I have came across. I only remember the orange marmalade but can’t remember the other ingredients. Can you please email me the recipe!?
Yes, could you please post this recipe. The recipe link brings you to a site that wants you to have a membership, pay, etc. No thank you.
I love this! Would love more examples just like this. I am always looking for ways to make life a little easier. 3 boys (2 teens), 3 dogs, full time job and a husband who is always traveling for work…this is great! Cheap, easy, gentle on the budget, eat at home
Yes, I am in the south, prices were higher here too. I thought possibly this post was a couple of years old, or I am buying in larger quantities due to my teens. Regardless, this was great meals and less than my usual trips to the grocery.
This is great, but all the dinners are chines cuisine. I’d love for something similar with maybe only 1 of these chinese dinners a week and some other optoins. I can’t each chinese food 2x a day 7 days a week! could you throw a similar list together using maybe some other options?I bet that would greatly change the price.
she has the links on the page, under dinner you click on the stir fry items she talked about
The orange chicken stir fry link does not work….very saddened by this lol
Here is a direct link for the orange marmalade chicken stir fry on the deals to meals blog
https://www.dealstomealsblog.com/2016/10/16/meal-under-10-orange-marmalade-chicken-stirfry/
I tried your list its good but I shop at Wal-Mart or other grocery stores I hate aldis but I have to tell you we substituted a few items and they ran about the same cost a bit lower in fact. No coupons used either just need to look for the deals. However I can not go with out my $8/wk for my cokes.
Hi, I found you from Pinterest and I’m looking at the recipes for the stir fry that you linked.
Question– Sweet and Sour chicken is coated and then fried in oil per recipe as is the Honey sesame chicken as is General Tso’s chicken, and the Honey sriracha chicken,— Are you coating these and frying them in oil & following the next step in the recipe OR are you skipping the flour/corn starch coating and simply stir frying your chicken with sauce and veggies???? I look forward to your reply on how you use or change up the recipes you linked to…..