How to Feed a Family of 4 or More for Less than $200 a Month

by Melissa "Liss" Burnell

Grocery expenses have risen drastically and finding ways to trim the household budget without feeling like you're constantly "going without" is getting more and more difficult. Despite the economy and lousy gas prices, you can still feed a family of four or more for under $200 a month using these simple tried and true techniques. Discover how to slash your grocery bill, whether once a month cooking really helps your budget, sample 30 day dinner menu plan as well as tried and true tips and tricks for reducing your grocery expenses, all WITHOUT having to deal with coupons.

Genres: Reference, Money, Nonfiction, Finance, Cookbooks, Cooking

48 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 14, 2001

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Get the updated 2012 Guide. Same information as in this book, but updated, with recipes, tips and links.

[Missie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not realistic

Maybe it's due to the area I live in, but the prices listed in this book for groceries is entirely unrealistic. $30 for meat would only amount to a handful of meals.

[Brick ONeil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Both give the advice of going directly to a butcher or country farm to buy directly from the butcher, cutting out the middleman grocery store and paying $.75-2.00 per pound of meat. I really do not see how realistic that is for a majority of Americans out there, especially those of us that live in the cities and small towns that do not have direct access to an independent butcher or farm, nor do we have extra freezer space to put all that meat-half a cow, according to one of the books.

Another gripe I have, is they are both heavy on high-carb, high-calorie and high-fat content, so those of us with one or more health issue, such as heart disease, diabetes, etc cannot follow their advice.

The positive, is that they both talk about using coupons for household goods, cleaning agents and so forth, and using that money towards vegetables and other foods. I understand that people do not have enough money for healthy, nutritious vegetables and low-fat meats, but to emphasize high-carb and high-fat I cannot endorse.

I also commend both ladies for their cost-cutting measures, using store cards, coupons, buying in bulk when available. Good generic advice for beginning shoppers and families.

[Maryalene · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was originally published in 2001 so I don't think the pricing holds up anymore. For example, the author mentions finding meat for 29 cents a pound.

However, prices aside, I found this book to be a bit disappointing. The author never really went in-depth into her method for saving on groceries. It seemed to boil down to make everything from scratch and buy in bulk. Not bad information, but it would have been nice to have a little more. I also found the tone of the first chapter about her kitchen to be a bit off-putting as was the chapter on freezer cooking. She tried it once, didn't have a good experience and dismisses the idea for everyone with kids.

While I don't think there is much to be gleaned from the book on saving money, it does have a number of free recipes people might find helpful.

[Elizabeth Mackes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Links to her website

I got this hoping to find it useful. It has some good advice and menu plans, but instead of the recipes following the plan, it is linked to the author's blog. So, for the book to be useful, you must have internet access. I prefer the more traditional set up so that once my book is on my kindle, it stands alone. In addition, this seems to disregard nutrition for price. A better choice is the free PDF cookbook entitled Good and Cheap, a SNAP cookbook (Google it).

[Jeremy Corter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, so the book isn't what one might call a masterpiece. In fact, much of it is just rehashing what may find on other websites, like cooking ahead of time, using leftovers, blah blah blah. However, it did have some nice recipes and I liked the idea of a once a month "restaurant style" dinner by using a menu of frozen leftovers and letting the family pick what they want.

[Darinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Free Kindle ebook. Dated, but a few good tips. Not practical advice for a lot of families.

[Sheila Riggs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short and a bit out of date. Some good ideas but it's really a compilation of links to other sites. Nice to have it in one place, though.

[judi lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I was looking for.

even though this book had a lot of good ideas in it I want compounding books not something that's going to give me more work.