[mummytothree]

Another meal planner here. I do mine for a month (it sucks shopping with 4 kids and Ilike to do it as little as possible!!) and I feed my family of 6 (2 adults and 4 kids) for about $350 bucks a month!!! That includes diapers for two kids (I've started buy for the new baby) and all other non food items!!! I have 3 staple dishes I make every month: Homemade pizza, Spaghetti and Tacos. I probably make them about 3 times each a month. Then every 5 day is a planned leftover night so that leaves me with about only 12 recipes I need tomake a month.

$40 bucks a month for meat sounds really high to me!! I buy our meat at Sam's club and I buy the best ground beef (93/7) and I spend about $18 dollars for that. I buy fresh Chicken tenderloins for about $17 dollars and then i always pick up a boneless pork loin for about $13 bucks and that all that meat feeds my family for 2 months!!!

Darcy's idea for freezer meals ia great help too....I have a subscription to a Taste Of Home Magazine called Simple and Delicious and every month they have 3 to 5 of these types of meals. You make one casserole and you frezze the second. But I bet you could google freezer meals and come up with tons of idea!!!!