how to shop when you're broke and have a family

@youngmommy2 those are just such great ideas.
@ShelliesTrying , I suggest you stop worrying about certain foods being not so good like cereal and rice. The greater variety you add to your diet, the better it will be. The more home cooking you can squeeze in the more you will save, but it takes time and planning which I know is your limited resource.

Tinned tomatoes in all their forms are cheaper and last longer than their fresh counterparts. Tomatoes are the base for so many sauces and meals.

There were two cheap fast foods I kept in the house for my hungry teenagers. Those were canned baked beans and Chinese noodles. My children would snack on those after school instead of devouring the good stuff I had planned for dinner.

The two pieces of equipment that helped me save over the long run were my crock pot and my chest freezer. The crock pot for bulk cooking, and the freezer for bulk buying. Once I got going on those two I was able to save in other places.

I suggest you take the occasional money and use that to give yourself a leg up. Take a trip to that Big Lots! and stock up on the staples. Put aside a little of the money saved every week to buy on sale. This is how middle income families end up spending less money than the poor on food. It's having that little reserve to take advantage of sales.

Here's how a single chicken can make a few meals (depending on the size of your family!). Cook the whole chicken seasoned, in the crock pot resting on some potatoes. It comes out tender and tasty like Swiss Chalet chicken. You may save some chicken breast for sandwich meat later in the week if you like. After dinner, roast the chicken carcass in the oven for a few minutes, then put it back in the crock pot with some onion, spices, and celery. Let that simmer overnight. In the morning you have a lovely soup base that you can save for later or make a soup right there. Discard the bones and bits and save the liquid.

Dried beans and lentils are cheap and have that extra fiber and protein that is so good for us. Two great crock pot meals that children love are chilies and "sloppy joes". You can make a big batch and save the leftovers. These sorts of meals just taste better warmed up a second time.

I always had basic baking supplies like flour in my cupboard, powdered milk in case I ran out near the end of the month, and eggs. I never allowed myself to run out of eggs. With eggs I can make pancakes, muffins, omelet, scrambled, any number of delicious foods. I kept dehydrated onion and celery salt around in case I didn't have them on hand fresh.

I learned about this great link right here on MFP.

http://www.budgetbytes.com/

You should try making a large batch of pancakes from scratch and freezing them. You can serve them with some frozen fruit. It'd be cheaper than cereal.

You also mentioned your kids like beans. Try cooking dry beans--they are cheaper than canned beans. You can make a big pot of chili using dry beans and use just a small amount of ground beef for flavor. My husband and I eat beans and rice (and vegetables) at least once a week. It's a very cheap and filling meal.

Not sure how much time you have, but you could also bake your own bread. Sometimes you can find used bread machines at garage sales or on craigslist. If you don't have a bread machine, you can bake bread the old fashioned way over the weekend.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/homemade-bread-cheap-delicious-healthy-and-easier-than-you-think/

Don't follow recipes for meals. I normally cut up random vegetables, throw them in a skillet, season however I want, and eat. It's cheap and nutritious.

For fruit, I normally buy what's on sale.

Do you have access to WIC for your littlest one? It wouldn't be much, but it would help.

Have you considered making your own bread? The cheap bread at the store is a barren nutritional wasteland. Buying a jar of yeast and a bag of whole wheat flour would make a ton of bread that is much more nutritionally dense and more filling. You can also switch up the ingredients for different nutritional needs or what you like. Add nuts, other grains, eggs, dried fruit, etc. You could also make your own breads for breakfast, such as banana with almost-bad bananas, zucchini, cinnamon. Make your own whole wheat pizza crust and use up your almost-old veggies. If you are adventurous, you can experiment with making other breads such as pita, tortillas, or crackers.

You can make a lot of things at home cheaper and more healthfully than at the store. I was a single mother on a very low income with NO child support for a long time. Roast a whole chicken for dinner one night. I used to use this as a "fancy" Sunday dinner. Use leftovers in something like enchiladas (make your own sauce!) on Tuesday, then boil the bones and any vegetable scraps (peels, onion skins, and ugly ends off carrots or other vegetables, celery leaves) for broth, skim off the fat, and make soup that is lower in sodium than the kind you get at the store on Wednesday. Use up your older or frozen veggies in the soup and make croutons with your homemade bread.

Put cheap seasonal produce in a freezer or deep freeze. This can save time if you, say, grab a handful of green peppers and throw them in some scrambled eggs or on a homemade pizza. Grab a cup of frozen cranberries (I bought some after the season for less than a dollar a bag at Wal-Mart!) and toss them into one of your homemade breads.

I make my own cheese with my bad milk. So easy!


Have you tried a food pantry at a local church? A garden in the summer? One of those pick-your-own-vegetable farms?

I flatter myself to say that I am good at food budgeting and avoiding waste (a professional cheapskate?). PM me if you need more ideas!

This looks possibly helpful: http://www.leannebrown.com/

Free pdf cookbook focused on healthy low cost meals.

Check out sites : Hillbilly housewife and 5 dollar dinners. They both have helpful information.

It has a different texture, so some (like me) like it better.

Beyond that, oats are oats. There may be minor differences in fiber or protein content. There are types of oats (that would likely be more expensive) with additives and I personally would avoid those and add what I wanted myself, but that isn't about style of oat (rolled vs. steel cut).

I don't know if anyone has said this already but plan your meals in advance. It is okay to have a limited menu that you rotate.
A pot of soup is a good dollar stretcher. I try to have soup once a week. It freezes and reheats well. Bean based and lentil soups are cheap and filling.My dd's favorite soup is minestrone.
Cut up meat and put it in casseroles, stir fries, soups, on pizza, on sandwiches, etc. If you cook a whole chicken and take all the meat off that will probably be enough for several meals.
Use leftovers for breakfast or lunch.
Mix ground meat with beans or lentils to stretch it farther. I always mix beans with our taco meat.
Buy store/generic brands.
Buy things that are whole and skin, bone, shred, or divide the food yourself.
Spinach might give more nutrition than lettuce in salads, sandwiches, tacos.
Sometimes larger containers are cheaper per serving.
Oatmeal, dry beans, lentils, pasta, rice, onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, canned tomato, eggs, cream of wheat, bread, peanut butter are good basics for many dishes.
Tortillas and pita bread are not too hard to make.
My family has enjoyed recipes from http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Been there, done that. It sounds like you're getting great advise and doing a great job. Keep up the great work. Things will get better. On that note, I know you were asking for advise on the food and shopping end of things but I'm curious about work. You said you make only about $26K a year. Have you looked for anything better? Are you college educated to make it easier to get a higher wage? Can you look into certifications to get into another field that might be better for you? On that same note, you say your child support is sporadic. Have you pursued the courts to help fix that? You are free to not answer any of these questions. I know how personal they may be as I have been where you are and prospered (as I'm sure others here have also). I, too, was getting child support only periodically and had a very low paying job. I kept on applying until I found something better, and then better, and then even better, until I was comfy in my financial situation to be able to go back to school again to make myself even better for my children. Not here to push you down or brag, just food for though.