Help/advise needed please...

skinnyinnotime

Buy things in bulk, like dry beans and rice, and load up when produce goes on sale or in in season and freeze leftovers whenever possible. Watch the newspaper or grocery store website for clearance deals. Make sauces and dishes from scratch, not out of a jar or package. Try making your own bread, on top of it being much cheaper (I worked it out to be about 67 cents a loaf for me, including the energy cost for the oven) it's healthier, because there are no preservatives, and you know exactly what went into it.

As for kids, it's easy. They eat what I cook or they don't eat at all. Just like I did when I was a kid. There's no "catering" involved, I'm not a hotel concierge, for pete's sake. I'm not a short-order cook, I don't do special orders. I think it encourages respect and appreciation for what they do have when you put up boundaries, and makes kids less likely to grow up self-entitled spoiled brats who expect special treatment.

THIS!!

Steph_in_Mississippi

I also find that buying family packs of meat that is on sale is great like chicken breast and can be versatile.

Example. Large pack of chicken. Buy it skin and bone in. You can easily de-bone and remove skin. Why pay someone?

You can put it in crock pot with taco seasoning or salsa. Chicken tacos. Kids love.

You can bake and/or barbecue.

You can grill it. Add with something inexpensive such as pasta with few frozen veggies. Kid friendly.

Always popular grilled chicken sandwiches. Or coat with cornflakes for a baked fried chicken.

Leftover chicken is great in a quesadilla.

Add with great nothern beans, onion, garlic, canned tomates for a white chicken chili.

Chicken and rice.

Chicken salad with diced eggs and mayo (I use light)

Top a fresh salad with chicken.

You can take a couple meats and make many meals. I find pork butt is very versatile also.

Good luck!

Plus when you have leftovers, put in the freezer for another night. Throwing away is a waste of money. I do understand. I have 4 kids. And they're picky. I'm fortunate enough to have a two year old that will eat anything and I refuse to feed him junk very much.

seeingthelight

Buying in season and on sale and freezing are the things I find most helpful. I look at the ads for my local stores the night before I shop to see what is on sale. If ground meat and salmon are on sale I buy 3 dinners of each and freeze them. This way I always have a variety of meats in the freezer. I buy what we can eat in a week of on sale produce and supplement with canned and frozen fruits and veggies. I try to cook from scratch as often as possible. I often find a larger cut of meat is cheaper so I either cut it up before I freeze it or cook it and freeze the leftovers. I often make soups with leftover vegetables, bones and meat. We love turkey noodle and split peas or beans with ham. When my children were at home we had a garden and canned or froze the produce and went out berry picking every summer. I remember an article on how people couldn't feed a family of 4 on government subsidies that equaled $50 a week, even though they also got hand outs of cheese and milk and some fresh veggies(yeh I'm old) - I was feeding a family of seven at the time on $50 a week. I mixed dry milk with my whole milk, baked bread, had tuna noodle casseroles, ground meat gravy over mashed potatoes, split pea and ham soup, meatloaf, and chicken, chicken, chicken, but the kids were healthy and so was I!