Make Your Food Budget Stretch

There are some ways to change your diet to make your food money go further.
To help with dinner costs...

• Have breakfast once/week. (Pancakes, waffles, and eggs are inexpensive foods. You can add canned/frozen/fresh picked fruit. You can also add bacon bits to the pancake mix, then you don't have to have a side of bacon.)
• Have beans and rice once/week. (Stock up on rice at WinnDixie when it's BOGO 3lb bags for $2.99)
• Have pasta once/week. (Stock up on pasta when it's BOGO $1.39 or $1.67 when you have coupons at Publix or WinnDixie. Buy pasta sauce when it's BOGO with coupons for $1/jar, or make your own from canned tomatoes or puree when it's BOGO.)
• Have stir fry once/week. (Have it with rice or ramen noodles. Use the ends of roasts for the meat. Any vegetable can be added. Throw in some soy & worcestershire sauce and you're good.)

• Serve smaller portions. Most of us don't need a huge plate of food. Make the servings smaller, but allow people to go back for seconds. They'll think about it before they go back and may decide they don't need to at all. 
• Remember the small you cut something, the less people eat. It's strange, but it works. If you're having a pizza party, have the pizza cut into 10 pieces instead of 8. Most people know they'll eat "2" or "4" pieces and will limit themselves to that number. If the pieces are smaller, they'll still only eat that number. If sandwiches are cut into quarters, instead of half, people won't eat as many sandwiches.
• Buy roasts instead of steaks and then cut your own steaks, stew meat, stir fry, etc from that.
• Set an eat out budget and stick to it. When you can, use coupons and restaurant.com certificates.

To help with lunch costs...

• Take leftovers from dinner.
• Take peanut butter and jelly at least once/week.
• Buy snack type foods (chips, pretzels, etc) in larger bags and put them in baggies to take. (Pretzels are a better buy than chips, and healthier.)
• Make your own chips at home. Bake potato slices, sweet potato slices, corn tortillas cut into wedges and top with salt, season salt, lemon juice, or whatever you like. 
• Make non-microwave popcorn and take baggies of that. 
• Instead of baggies, use re-usable plastic containers.
• Buy drinks (Gatorade, soda, juice, etc) in larger containers and take them in thermoses.

To  help with breakfast costs...

• Only eat cereal purchased on sale with coupons. ($4-$5/box is way too much for the few servings that come in a box.)
• Eat eggs, pancakes, waffles, toast. (It stays with you better and encourages more family time in the morning.)

To help with kids wanting to eat out...

• Have a make your own happy meal day occasionally. Make hamburgers or chicken nuggets, french fries (possibly from real potatoes), cut up fruit, include yogurt containers, whatever you want to include. Wrap each item in paper, wax paper, or make your own cardstock clam shell boxes. Let the kids decorate their own lunch bags to put it all in. Include a small trinket for fun (stickers, toy, craft kit, etc).
• Have a make your own pizza night occasionally. If we order pizza, my son only wants pepperoni and my daughter only wants cheese. If we make our own pizza, they'll include ham, shrimp, greens, other cheeses, mushrooms, garden grown vegetables, etc. In other words, homemade pizza becomes much healthier and it's fun. If making the dough is too much of a pain, you can buy frozen bread dough cheaply. If you know someone who works at a pizza shop, you can sometimes get the expiring dough from them and freeze it yourself too cook when you're ready.