Meal Budgeting

One of my favorite classes this semester has been Food Prep 101! This is one of my only "fun" classes I've taken at school (meaning it wasn't required for my major or minor) and I've loved learning some life skills by taking this class.

Our final project is due the last week of class and we are required to come up with a week's worth of meals (dinners require recipes) in which we cannot spend more than $78 for the entire week on the 21 meals.

I know this will require some time, but I'm really looking forward to this assignment. It won't be long until I'm on my own and needing to budget like this for healthy meals and I think I will actually use it once I have created the meal plan.

I have a few resources I've already planned on using (which I wanted to share with you) and was curious if any of you had suggestions for meals I should make that are quick and inexpensive to make, or other resources you'd recommend I use!?

• mappingyourfuture.org - our teacher gave us this website to use to create our budget which gave us the $78 per month to spend on groceries
• My Plate Super Tracker - our teacher also gave us this one, to analyze our foods at the end of the 7 days and it tells us if we are reaching our goals for grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, protein, oils, etc.
• The Everygirl Blog - 10 Vegetarian Meals for Less than $50
• The Everygirl Blog - 10 Grilled Meals for Less than $50
• The Everygirl Blog - 10 Entrée Salads for Less than $50
• The Everygirl Blog - Ten Meals for Less than $50
• Eating Well - 5 Ingredient Dinners for Less than $50 - recipe for Black Bean Quesadillas ($5.81)
• ThirtyAWeek.wordpress.com - Great website that helps give ideas for cheap meals and how to make meals for less than $30 a week
• Better Home & Garden - Dinner Meals Under $3
• One website recommended: $25 a week for seasonal fruits, vegetables and grains and the rest on your meats for the week
• Another blog suggested: soups and stir fries for cheap meals.

I would love any and all suggestions you have for saving money on groceries and meal recipes!

Thanks,

A