Rock-Bottom Meal Plan for Those Weeks When Money Is Tight

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Things are tough in America right now. Many of us are forced to reallocate our money from one necessity to another and often, the thing that suffers first is our diets. If times are tight, you might find this article helpful.

It’s a meal plan created from recipes and strategies in my new paperback, What to Eat When You’re Broke. We released this in PDF format recently and readers loved it. We got so many requests to put it in hard copy format that we couldn’t say no! So, it’s available on Amazon now as a paperback.

The recipes in this article are all included in the book, which I’m selling just above cost. I hope you enjoy it, and please, give us a review on Amazon to help more people to see it when they’re searching for a way to feed their family during difficult times.

Flat Broke Meal Plan

This meal plan is per person per week. Multiply it by the number of people in your family. I’ve tried to make it as varied as possible, and there are a few things included that are not the cheapest on the market. They’ve been added for nutrient value.

Obviously, if there are allergies or foods that your family won’t eat, feel free to substitute.

I shouldn’t need to say this, but it’s impossible to write one meal plan that will work for every single reader. If you are vegan, gluten-free, diabetic, suffer from food allergies, eat keto, or strictly follow a particular nutritional lifestyle, this may not work for you.

With that being said, let’s look at our menu! Stars * indicate that the full recipe is available in the book and you might also have your own recipes for these items.

Breakfast

Day 1: Oatmeal with brown sugar and banana

Day 2: Cornbread* with butter and jam

Day 3: Leftover cornbread, sliced and heated with a butter and brown sugar drizzle

Day 4: Peanut butter and crackers, apple

Day 5: Rice cooked with milk, brown sugar, and cinnamon

Day 6: Biscuits and gravy*

Day 7: Scrambled eggs and toast OR homemade pancakes with fruit

Lunch

Day 1: PB&J, apple

Day 2: Pasta salad with tuna* (or canned chicken)

Day 3: Bean burrito

Day 4: Tomato soup* and crackers

Day 5: Cold peanut butter noodles with shredded cabbage*

Day 6: Tortilla pizzas*

Day 7: Leftovers

Dinner

Day 1: Beef and vegetable soup* with frybread*

Day 2: Baked beans with mac and cheese (canned and boxed easy meal for busy days)

Day 3: Fried Gnocchi* with canned marinara sauce

Day 4: Crockpot white chicken chili*

Day 5: Pasta with marinara sauce and parmesan cheese (add ground meat if it’s in the budget)

Day 6: Homemade pizza*

Day 7: Ham (slice an inexpensive canned ham or picnic ham and use the leftover for split pea soup), scalloped potatoes*, Christmas beans*

Six quick tips

Here are some ideas to make the meals more filling if this menu leaves you feeling hungry.

1.) Just add bread – whether it’s toast from grocery-store sliced bread, fresh homemade bread, frybread, or cornbread, adding some bread for sopping up sauces and broth makes meals feel more satisfying.

2.) Add more carbs – rice or pasta makes everything go a bit further.

3.) Add beans for more protein. When you’re making soup or chili, add one more can of beans to the pot.

4.) Baked potatoes make everything better. Looking for a cheap, filling, and tasty side? You can’t beat a baked potato. Top it with butter, sour cream or plain yogurt, and chopped green onion. Eating the skin adds fiber and other nutrients to your diet.

5.) Add cheap fruit. Bananas and bagged apples tend to be the least expensive fruit. Add one serving per meal to make it more filling and finish off on a sweeter note.

6.) Focus most of your money on one meal per day. If you fill up on less expensive items for breakfast and lunch, you can swing a better and more filling dinner.

This menu assumes that you probably have the basics in your kitchen, such as seasonings, spices, sugar, and cooking oil. In fact, you probably have much more than that. When I’ve reverted to this menu I am generally able to get very minimal groceries because I have plenty of canned goods and dry goods in my pantry. This just provides me with a great way to use them!

Don’t miss out on the paperback!

I really believe that this book can help you (or someone you know who needs it) to get through hard times. In it, I share many of the strategies that allowed me to keep my children fed when I was a flat-broke single mama. Those times were difficult indeed, but my girls actually look back on that food and consider it their comfort food today.

Most of the recipes require little in the way of hands-on time, because, in addition to being broke, I was also working full time, then chauffeuring my daughters to various places after I got off work. I had a household to manage alone, laundry to do, and other requirements on my time so spending hours in the kitchen simply wasn’t an option. If you have more time, you can cut even more money off these recipes by making each component from scratch.

Here’s the table of contents. I tried to make the book a lot of fun!