Combined Meals @ .20 per person for week

Well we have had dinner together for the last 3 nights so far. And I feel that I have never had such good food and company on a regular basis. There is 8 of us between the two households. Ages from 9 to 74 years old and we seem to have made all happy with the choices of food. First I have to let you know that we have several ways to procure food. Some comes from fresh veggies that my aunt has given to me that we have cut up and froze. Other is from the family that I do childcare from. They share what they have with us for supplementing the kids food here. Also, since I do not have a food budget with our bills, I pick up food from our local food pantry too. I watch for good sales at the grocery store like when they have fresh veggies on for $1.00 a bag.
Also we are not necessary having just small servings either. Most often we have plenty for seconds or even thirds for others. Also the left overs are lunch the next day. So we are getting more than just the one serving per person per meal from these dinners.

Mondays menu was:
Mexican Spaghetti
The 2 1/2 lbs of ground beef was on sale for .87 a pound. So that was 2.18 for meat. One small onion (.08 from 1 bag of 12 onions for 1.00), 1 jar of salsa (.99 a jar), 1 can corn (free from the food pantry), 1 packet taco seasoning mix(.49 a package), 1 box of spaghetti (free from food pantry), 1 package of grated cheese (on sale for $1.00 a bag). So that is 4.74 for the casserole. With two jugs of tea from weekend at Pow-Wow that was $6.00 for both gallons but only had 8 glasses comes to 1.50 for drinks. Giving a total of 6.24 for feeding a combined family of 8. That is .78 per person. Hummm seems good to me.

Tuesday menu was:
cooked apples (Free from childcare family)
kings bread (sale at 1.00 a loaf)
chicken a al king
That is 2 chicken breast at ($1.63), peas & carrots from the food pantry (free), flour and seasonings for sauce was at here already (approx .10 of product), milk from child care kids (free), butter (.10). With two jugs of tea from weekend at Pow-Wow that was $6.00 for both gallons but only had 8 glasses comes to 1.50 for drinks.
Giving us a total of 4.33 for 8 people is .54 per person.

Wednesday menu was:
Chicken Squash Casserole
3 Chicken breast (cooked day before) (2.45 cost), squash (free from aunt this summer/frozen), Onion (.08 from 1 bag of 12 onions for 1.00), croutons (free from food pantry), 1 can diced tomatoes & 1 can rotel tomatoes (free from food pantry), 1 & 1/2 packages of cheese (on sale for $1.00 a bag comes to 1.50). Drinks were from each household as to what ever each already had. So total cost was 4.03 which is .50 per person.

Nessa cooked Monday and Tuesday while I cleaned up. Wednesday I cooked and gave her the evening off. Which is good as she is ill and running fever.

Ok, well for Thursday we did a meal switch. Poor
Nessa is still feeling under the weather (fever of 103 will do that). So I fixed dinners tonight. Yeah, dinners. I had one pound of smoked pork summer sausage and she had a package of hotdogs. Well my hubby loves beans and weenies so he was happy. And I made a pasta/meat dish for
Nessa's home.
Thursday:
Beans and Weenies (Beans from the food pantry, Weenies from Nessa .89)
Sausage w/noodles (Sausage on sale .99, noodles w/tomatoes frozen from previous meal, cheese packet from box of Mac N Cheese that I did not use before)
Rolls for both families (partial of two different bags frozen, sales @ 1.25).
Meal total 3.13 for 8 comes to .39 per person.
And there is plenty for lunch for Friday. Love not having to cook that meal.
So are we saving better than expected? I think so. What is your thoughts?

Friday we had beans and cornbread from the food pantry. So zero cost. Also over the weekend we ate at the reunion and brought back left overs from there. Again zero cost. Since we hosted the reunion we did not have to bring our own food. We cooked 53 hamburgers and 64 hotdogs. Those were paid from with the reunion funds so again zero cost. Nessa's group had meals from their grandmother so they also had zero cost over the weekend.

That makes our first week totals to be:

DRUM ROLL
7 days of dinners for 8 people, 5 days of lunches for 3 people and 2 days of lunches for 8 people. Total of 87 meals served at $17.75 spent for the week of food equals .20 per person/per meal.


Oh, by the way, this blog will most likely be both here and at Nessa's til we get a new site up just for the combined meals that we are doing. We will keep you posted on that.