April Challenge- Feed Our Family on 40-50

I set a challenge for myself to feed our family on $40-50 a week, plus what we had in our pantry. The first week went well-ish, but went off-track for a few reasons.

First, I'll confess that we ate out once for lunch, because some crazy pregnant chick got a craving at the mall. Yeah, I know. When we totalled our food together, we realized that in one meal, we spent nearly half of what had been spent at the grocery store ($42.09, plus $3 for soda midweek, for anyone who's curious) on that one meal. Now, that was just embarassing, but it was a lesson learned.

The second reason is that a stomach bug hit our house early in the week, and we spent a few days on a bland and minimal diet, also prompting the soda purchase. We ate a lot of rice those days. Finally, we were treated to meals at other homes a few times as well, which always helps the food budget.

Turning what made last week's attempt a bit of a bust into something positive, I can stretch most of what was purchased on the first week's budget into this week's budget. So, with that said, a $16.37 trip to Costco for milk, produce and other staples this weekend has me back on track. I hope that will somehow make up for our mall food indiscretion.

Here's some of what we ate since beginning the experiment last Friday:

Breakfast:
Applesauce Muffins (double your applesauce and eliminate the oil- they're crazy moist that way)
Bagels with cream cheese and fruit
Cereal (we decided to get one bag of cereal during the first weeks' trip)

Lunch:
Quesadillas from leftover burrito ingredients
Bagel Pizzas
Macaroni and cheese (again, budgeting for one box on the first weeks' trip, Stinky's choice)
Rice
Good ol' PB& J's

Dinner:
Chicken, Rice, and Vegetable Bake
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Fettucini Alfredo
Easter Dinner Leftovers (thanks to the R and T families!)
Black Bean, Chicken and Rice Burritos

(almost all of these meals had fruits/veggies on the side, but I didn't record just what we had with them)

I'm looking forward to getting back to it this week. Do you have any budget meal suggestions?