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So maybe you read the last post and you’re sold, ready to start but thinking how can I afford to cook more than one week of food at once? If you’re like me, money doesn’t grow on trees at your house! We need to find some money to make extra meals in one week to freeze for the next. Once you start the process it’s easy because if you cook for two weeks the first week you just save the money you would have spent on dinner groceries the second week to do it again the third week for the next two.
Most people I have ever talked to can “find” a week’s worth of meals with $20 or less. First take an inventory of what you have. Go through your refrigerator, freezer and pantry and list EVERYTHING. Now go through your recipes and see what you can make with what you have. Maybe you found some simple things like spaghetti and jars of sauce, or a bag of frozen chicken you forgot was in the freezer? Make as many meals as you can with what you found. Now, your next list is what you need only one or two ingredients to make. Maybe you found jar of spaghetti sauce but no noodles, put noodles on your list. Was there a box of frozen hamburgers but you have no buns? You get the idea.
If that still doesn’t do it for you go through your cheap recipes to fill in your week. One of my favorite “cheap” meals is fettuccini alfredo. Here it is in case you’re in need:
1 lb fettuccini noodles
1pkg. cream cheese
½ cup milk
½ stick margarine
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
Cook noodles. Mix cream cheese, milk, margarine and grated cheese. Heat till blended and pour over noodles. Yummy and about $2.50!
Still don’t have enough…here’s another one of my favorite cheap meals, mini turkey-loafs.
1 lb ground turkey (frozen roll)
20 crushed saltine crackers
1 can cr. Chicken or mushroom soup
Mix all ingredients and shape into mini meatloaf. Cook in microwave about 20 minutes or bake in oven till no longer pink in centers. I like to serve mashed potatoes with this one. This serves about 4 so I often double for my family. Costs on the mini-meatloaf are approximately $2.00.
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Your next step is to take your lists and get what you need for this week. Buy as little as possible. Say if you have $100 a week for groceries and you manage to spend only twenty (or even thirty) you save the rest to prepare for your freezer cooking. Now, you have the $100 for the week you’re cooking plus the $70-80 you saved from this week. Figure out how much you have to spend.
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Come back to find out what we’re going to do with that! Are you ready for the fun? Okay, I can’t lie it will be work but I get a great sense of satisfaction and I hope you will too! | 
