A weeks worth of meals

I thought some of you out there might be interested in knowing how I cook for our family. 

And I didn't have anything better to post about, but we don't need to mention that...

Anyway...

First off, a bit of background info. 
1.)  I have a Very limited grocery budget, $340.00 for the month for our family of 7.  This is all our family can afford right now.  However, thanks to the wonderful training from my mom when I was growing up, I'm able to make this work. 

2.)  We are not on any government assistance at all.  We have received benefits from WIC in the past, but I'm not comfortable with the amount of influence they want to have in our life and for that reason we have stopped receiving it.  But, I do occasionally visit a local food panty when a month is really tight.

3.)  Due to our budget restrictions, I don't buy organic, or even "all natural" unless those things come up on sale for a GREAT price.  I have had to come to grips with the fact that it is more important for my family to have enough to eat over not enough but organic.  Please understand that I am not saying that I have a problem with organic anything, it is simply not an option for us at this time.

All that said, here are the pictures of our weeks worth of meals.

Wednesday :  We decided to use some of the coupons that the kids earned from the summer reading program to go out for dinner.  There was only one problem with our plan, the restaurant that we chose to go to was no longer accepting the coupons even though they weren't expired!  "Note to self, call to confirm restaurant is accepting coupons before going!"  Our local Del Taco was having a special, 29 cent taco's, so we went there for dinner.  We don't normally go out to dinner so this was a GREAT treat!

Thursday:  Spaghetti, fruit salad (made with all the bits and pieces leftover from other meals), bread and butter, and a green salad.  And water to drink.  We drink water with almost all our meals.  No dessert, we are trying to cut back on the sweets.

Friday:  Pizza.  I didn't get a picture of this but you're not missing anything.  I didn't get to make my normal homemade pizza because we had company stop by right as I was getting ready to start the dough and by the time they left it was too late to make homemade pizza.  Thank goodness for Little Caesars $5 pizza!

Saturday:  I usually do a "smorgasbord" meal on Saturday, aka: leftovers!  This is a great way to make sure all the little odds and ends in the fridge get eaten up!  Also forgot to get a picture of this.  Obviously I'm not the best at planning out my blog posts!

Sunday:  On Sunday evenings we always have tea.  So, menu: tea, crackers, tomato slices, cucumber slices, and pizza bites.  Sometimes I will make scones but this was not one of those times.

Monday:  Cheese tortellini with spaghetti sauce, green salad, cantaloupe.  I'm sure you're seeing a pattern here...  We use up what we have on hand, it's one of the great secrets to making a budget work!

Tuesday:  A real winner, hot dogs and watermelon!  I spent most of the day shopping and by the time we got home at 6:15 I just wanted to get something on the table and get it over with.  Yet again, forgot to get a picture.

On second thought maybe I shouldn't post this after all.  It was quite an atypical week, I forgot to take pictures, I want to impress you all with how well we eat, etc., but... well, I guess I'll post this anyways.  :-)  

Hope you all enjoyed this little peak into our life, if you have any questions about anything feel free to leave a comment and I will try to get back with you!  :-)