3/18 - 3/24

I could easily spend an entire paycheck at the store each week. Sometimes I make excuses to go to Whole Foods when I really don't need to. Luckily, Brett is quite good at knowing when we really do need to, and when I'm just having WF hallucinations. (That alone probably saves us close to $1000 each year).But now that new school bills are looming in the very near future, it's time to get serious. And since I couldn't find many $60 meal plans that were healthy, delicious and vegetarian, I decided that I would create my own. Armed with three $20 bills, we will eat. And we will eat well.

This is my first week of blogging about our $60 per week challenge! I've been doing it successfully for the past month, and I decided that putting it here would help me stick to it. There are plenty of areas to iron out, and I will work to make it better and more accessible each week. Other than that, this meal plan:

-is designed for two people (with one being a very physically active, hungry guy)

-is based around a lot of homemade goods

-is vegetarian (includes dairy and eggs)

-can easily be made vegan

-could probably be made cheaper if you do not buy organic

-does not include recipes unless an item is a link (each week will include more recipes)

-will eventually include nutritional analysis for recipes

-includes plenty of items that can easily be made ahead of time, frozen, or stored in the refrigerator

-runs from Friday through Thursday (will post on Friday from now on!)

-will eventually include a shopping list

-is not perfect

Here we go!

Breakfast

-overnight slow cooker steel cut oats with dried fruit

-egg with toast and fruit

-frozen fruit smoothies

-homemade bagels with fruit spread or organic cream cheese with fruit

Lunch

Most days, leftovers from dinner will be eaten the next day as lunch. Other days, these are what I rotate in:

-baby green salad with green peppers, tofu

-tofurkey deli slices (buy on sale and freeze! this is a treat!) on homemade rustic bread, fruit, slice of cheese, carrots or celery

Dinner

Friday

-Pizza on homemade dough, salad

Saturday

-No tuna sandwich on rustic bread, cucumber and celery slices, salad

Sunday

-Homemade tofurkey with mashed potatoes, salad

Monday

-Pasta with slow cooker eggplant sauce, salad

Tuesday

-BBQ Seitan with semi homemade mac and cheese, salad

Wednesday

-White bean kale soup with rustic bread, salad

Thursday

-Sloppy TVP's on rustic bread, raw veggies, salad

Snacks/Treats

-homemade vegan mint chocolate chip ice cream (it's gone. Recipe coming this week)

-greek yogurt with veggie slices

-hard boiled egg with veggies

-fruit with peanut butter

-dried fruit and nuts

We do not drink juice or soda. We do drink very little coffee (only because the kind we buy is so freakin' expensive), but most meals are served with water. I'm also a big fan of herbal sun tea. I may drink a few glasses of organic soy milk throughout the week, but I'm mainly a water/tea drinker.



If you're on a food budget, I'd love to hear what it is and what you can do with it! Happy cooking!