Dinner Prices

So for a long time I have been reading blogs about frugal cooking and how to stretch a buck when it comes to dinner. I have often wondered how much these frugal dinners REALLY cost and how much of a savings you get from applying their principles. So being the ever "quirky" person that I am I sat down with my grocery receipts tonight and worked out exactly how much tonight's dinner cost.....

Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Romaine Salad:
$5.76 Whole Chicken
$1.02 Potatoes
$0.37 Butter
$0 Romaine (WIC)
$0 Condensed milk (WIC)

Total: $7.15

Not bad for a family of 4 :)

Now as you know one of the basic principles of frugal cooking is to stack recipes so that you use the leftovers from one meal in a totally different meal the next night. Using the leftovers from tonight's dinner I will be making a casserole for tomorrow nights dinner....

Chicken and Rice Casserole with potato cakes:
$0.84 Frozen Veggies
$1.39 Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
$0.50 Rice
$0.94 Cheddar Cheese
$0 Chicken (leftovers)
$0 Potatoes (leftovers)

Total: $3.67

Again REALLY not bad for a family of 4 especially since this meal will also serve as lunch for the next day.

Plus I have the bones and skin from the chicken cooking in the crockpot right now to make chicken stock....so I am also getting 4+ cups of chicken stock for "free".

Thanks to the Happy Housewife for both these recipes and teaching me how to cook a whole chicken in my crockpot. It was yummy and I will defiantly be doing it again!