Inside: The ultimate list of frugal meals for families! You’ll find a full year’s worth of easy dinner ideas to make your meal plan struggles disappear.
“Honey, what do you want for dinner next week?”
I used to ask this question week in and week out with the same response . . .
“Hmmm…..I don’t know.”
My husband was NO help at all when it came to dinner ideas.
I finally had the inspiration to snap a picture of my weekly meal plans, upload them to Google Drive, and copy the same meal plan every month or so.
I felt like a genius!
How Social Media Sparked An Idea
But, as I looked through Facebook, I noticed lots of other moms struggling to find good dinner ideas, too.
I read post after post saying:
“What are you making for dinner tonight?? I need some new ideas!”
“I hate meal planning. We always have the same few dinners every week.”
So, I thought, why not put all of my weekly meal plans together in a pretty format and share it with my readers?
So I did!
I’m so excited to share this eBook with you, filled with my favorite frugal meals for families.
Be sure to check out my ultimate list of frugal living tips for families here!
Here’s What You Need to Know
I want to clarify a few questions you may have about my eBook so you know what you’re getting before you buy.
I’m selling this eBook for a fee. Why? I invested A LOT of time in this project. Hours of work and love were poured into this ebook.
The price you pay covers a small chunk of the time spent to produce it.
I have lots of other free content on my blog for you if you don’t feel comfortable paying for this list of frugal meals! (And, you can sign up for my free printables below)!
This eBook does NOT contain grocery lists. The book is 150 pages long just with the weekly plans and recipes, so adding a grocery list for each week would make the book massive!
I also don’t know what’s stored in your pantry. Creating your own grocery list each week saves us both time because you already know what you have!
The dinner idea eBook DOES contain recipes for all of the complex meals. I made it easy and listed each recipe you’ll need throughout the year in the book.
I want to get you out of Pinterest and your cookbooks with all your recipes are in one place!
I don’t list recipes for dinners like hot dogs, breakfast, and sandwiches because I figure we all know how to make those by now…hopefully!
There are only 50 weeks worth of meals in the eBook. Why? Because throughout the year families are bound to be gone at least twice on vacation, visiting family, or you may have almost a week’s worth of meals taken care of (think during Christmas or other holidays).
Because of this, I chose to leave out 2 weeks of frugal meals. If you need all 52 weeks, just repeat your favorite week’s worth of meals twice.
I share easy frugal meals for Sunday – Thursday. Why? Friday is usually pizza night in our house and Saturday is our night to go out for dinner. However, you may need easy dinner ideas for 7 days a week.
If you do, I left two nights open for you to cook your favorite, go-to recipes. I may not have covered your favorite cuisine in my weekly meals, so I left 2 nights open for you to cook whatever you want.
I only share meat dinner ideas with chicken, beef, and pork. If you like to cook with seafood or any other type of meat, you can substitute your favorite meat in a lot of these frugal meals.
And if not, those 2 open nights I mentioned above are a perfect chance to use your favorite meat!
You can see what some of the dinner recipes are on my food blog, The Ashcroft Family Table.
I only included 1 chicken meal and 1 beef meal every week. I have a goal with this eBook to help families save money on their grocery bill by cooking more at home. That can’t be accomplished if you’re cooking with expensive meat every meal.
I’ve included LOTS of meatless dinner ideas and meals with a cheaper type of meat entirely (kielbasa, Spam, chunk chicken, etc.) If you’re not used to eating those types of meats, by all means, keep using chicken multiple times a week! But trust me when I say these recipes are tried and true in our house and my family loves them.
These dinner ideas all come with at least 2 side suggestions! One of my personal struggles with dinner is trying to figure out what to serve with it. My meal plan eBook is different from a lot out there because I share at least 2 side ideas with each dinner. I have done all of the hard work for you!
This is an eBook. Meaning it will be delivered to you in a digital copy.
Grab your copy of my eBook here!
The bottom line
This eBook is for you if:
- You’re tired of tacos and spaghetti every night and want to switch it up. These are some of my favorite dinner recipes (or were recommended by my other mom friends).
- You’re a busy working mom and don’t have time to meal plan every week.
- You don’t like meal planning and wish someone would just do it for you.
- You need easy frugal meals your family will want to eat.
- You want to cut down your grocery budget.
This eBook isn’t for you if:
- You already are a pro at meal planning and have several recipes you love to cook.
- You have special dietary restrictions.
- You eat super healthily with little-to-no carbs (sorry, there are pasta dishes included; although I do share several ways to make the dishes low-carb if needed!)
- You don’t like change.
If ALL of this isn’t convincing enough for you, I’m willing to give you 4 weeks of my meal plan for free!
I don’t want you to get my eBook if it’s something you’ll never use. I wrote it to be used and I want you to love it, so I’m giving you a sneak peek to make sure you do.
I included 1 week from each of the seasons so you can get an idea of what to expect throughout the year. If it’s not something you think you’ll use, then enjoy your 4 free weeks and I hope you’ll continue to read my blog.
If it is something you think you’ll use, then this eBook is for you and I can’t wait to make one aspect of your week a whole lot easier!
Get your copy of my eBook here!
What other moms say about my frugal meals
“This book is amazing!! Meal planning was such a chore and I would ask my husband “What do you want for dinner this week?” and he’d say “Um, I don’t know,” so that wasn’t really helpful. I literally don’t have to put any thought into meal planning because they’re all listed for me and the recipes are all really easy to follow. Every recipe we’ve had so far is delicious and becomes a new family favorite. I seriously love this book and can’t say enough good things!”
-Alex, mom of 2
I hated meal planning and figuring out how to get my kids balanced dinner choices. I was looking for a solution to both dilemmas and then Jessica came out with her ‘1 year of dinner ideas’ and I was so excited to try it out. Each week has a variety of yummy dinners and sides that my family loves. Jessica has made it easy and taken out the meal planning part by giving you a detailed week of meals. We love it and use it all the time. It’s the only cookbook I’m currently using and we are loving it!” -Madison, mom of 3
How can I be frugal with food?
One of my favorite parts of this eBook is how I weaved in my natural shelf cooking and frugal living tendencies.
I like to use items you’ll likely have in your pantry or food storage because that’s what I do every week.
I also like to incorporate the same ingredients throughout the weekly meals.
For example, one recipe will incorporate zucchini in the dish and another meal will use it as a side dish.
This will save your family time AND money!
You can get your copy of my eBook here!
RELATED: Try These Frugal With Money Tips (+ Our Family Budget Template)
Your Turn
If you have any other questions or suggestions for my eBook, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.
And if you’ve bought it already, I’d love to know what you think too!
I’ve got more great resources to share in my library of printables!
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