Family Meals Under $5 - Taco Salad

This is one of my favorite dinners because it pleases everyone. With 8 people in our family it's hard to find foods that everyone likes. It's also a one dish meal so there is less clean up and in the summer heat all you have to cook is the ground beef. We serve this "salad bar" style so everyone can just pick what they like and everyone is happy. It's also a good time to raid the fridge for any leftovers that could be added.

I'm putting down the basics. You can go all out with this dinner or just keep it simple. Of course keeping it simple keeps the cost down as does having a wide variety of vegetables to choose from in the garden.

Basic Taco Salad - $4.84

Tortilla Chips - $1.99 22oz bag = .99c for 1/2 bag
1 1/2 lb lean ground beef - $1.47 lb @ Trading Co. = $2.20
3c grated cheddar cheese - $3.98/2lb @ Super 1 Foods minus $1 off coupon Print Free Coupons- $2.98 = $.81c
1 1/2c salsa - $1.98/26 oz = $.84c

The salsa listed is what it cost at Wal -Mart. If you want this dinner to be cheaper, head out to the garden and make your own salsa like we do. Below is a list of what I grabbed to add to the salad. Like I said you can go all out.

Lettuce = free from the garden
tomato = free from the garden
onion = free from the garden
bell pepper = free from the garden
zucchini = free from the garden
shredded carrot = free from the garden

This week in Albertsons weekly circular they had a section that said "Introducing dinner for 4 for under $15" I did the math and for my family the dinner they had shown would be $28.96. If we ate like that all week it would come to $202.72 and for a 4 week month it would be $810.88! And that's just for dinner.

I realize that it takes some doing to keep dinner under $5 and that it's not possible every night. But I hope that you have learned from these posts that it is possible. If you have a dinner under $5 idea please send it in and share with the rest of us. I'd love to hear how you keep your grocery costs down while still feeding your family healthy, delicious dinners.


Live less, Live more
Renee

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