We have a family of six and a budget of $150, but three of the kids eat dinner elsewhere two days a week. I'm the only one low carbing, though. I make potatoes, rice, pasta or homemade rolls for everyone else to have with the meals, and I just eat the protein & veggies. They also sometimes eat cereal for breakfast, and I might make them a wrap on a tortilla for lunch while I just eat the filling, but I also sometimes make them lower carb breakfasts and lunches like eggs or salads with meat & cheese. That's what I usually have. On a typical week I get lots of eggs & cheap, large blocks of cheese, get the cheapest cuts of meat (chicken thighs, pork shoulder), the cheapest veggies: lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green beans. Some days we do have a vegetarian dinner - quiche or fried tofu. I cook everything from scratch. We do have enough for some "luxuries" like hwc, spices, hot peppers, pastured butter. I also buy macadamia nuts & sunflower seeds in bulk. Sometimes we can find good deals on produce at the farmer's market in the summer, plus I grow some veggies at home - green beans, lettuce and garlic are easy ones to start with. We almost never buy beverages (except coffee) or go to restaurants. The kids qualify for free lunches at school, but of course those lunches were never very nutritious and have gotten worse - more "low fat" and therefore high carb - lately (they actually stopped offering 2% milk and started offering skim chocolate milk instead).
The main thing is to buy versatile, basic ingredients in large quantities and use the same thing several times (one head of cabbage makes two bowls of coleslaw, chicken makes soup and stir fry, etc.)
Last edited by Hazel_F : Tue, Jul-09-13 at 09:39.
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