What Is Your Rice and Beans?

If you are a fan of Dave Ramsey, and know what it means to "live like no one else so later you can live like no one else," I am certain you know the significance of rice and beans!

Dave talks about being in gazelle mode, cutting all expenses to the minimum.  Cutting your grocery budget down to rice and beans, beans and rice, rice and beans.

I am trying to get there.  I quickly realized that a $50/month grocery budget was very unrealistic.  I created a meal plan which could feed me for around that much money (I believe it consisted of pasta, canned tomatoes and eggs). But I was hungry, cranky, and craving other foods.

But it is time to cut back and so I needed to find a few "rice and beans" meals.  What are things I can eat cheap, cheap, cheap so that some of my grocery money can become debt busting money instead!  What can I eat beyond just rice and beans without breaking the bank.

Rice-And-Beans Budget Meal Ideas:

(1) Rice and beans

Can't overlook the classic!

(2) Pasta with tomatoes

I just use canned tomatoes in place of sauce.

(3) Leftover Soup

Make a soup using all the leftover veggies, scraps etc. you have from past meals.

(4) Canned Soup

Sometimes even canned soup can get pricey, watch for sales!  I was able to get 12 cans of the Campbell's Homestyle soups for $11 this week at Stop and Shop.  Perfect for work lunches.

(4) Eggs

So many quick, easy and inexpensive ways to eat eggs.  Scrambled, French toast, omelet, frittata, fried egg, egg sandwich....  Scrambled eggs with veggies is a very satisfying meal.

This Post Is Part of My Frugal Food Series, Be Sure To Check Out:
Lasagna For One  - How one simple hack makes lasagna the perfect meal for the solo kitchen
Frugal, Hungry And Single - My intro to the challenges of cooking for one on a budget
More Meals For One - Four simple and versatile ideas for single cooking

Linked Up At:
The Modest Mom Blog, Mingle Monday @ Life of Meg,  WFMW @ Giving Up On Perfect



More Meals For One

Since we can't just eat lasagna all the time, I thought I would share few of my other favorite meals that I have found to be perfect for single living.

One-Pot/Skillet Pastas

When you think of a skillet and a mish-mash of ingredients do you immediately think stir-fry?  WeIll for me, it is all about what I like to call "skillet pastas."  Prepare your pasta as normal, then in a skillet or saute pan heat oil and whatever other ingredients you want mixed in with your pasta.  Combine, stir and eat!  To save on dishes, you can simply combine ingredients right in the same pan you boiled the noodles in (I simply pour the ingredients in to the pan while my noodles are in a colander then add the noodles back in and stir).  Some of my favorite ingredients to toss in include tomatoes (canned or fresh), olives, frozen spinach, and garlic.  If you are looking for a more unusual recipe check out this fun jewel pasta recipe from one my favorite food blogs, Budget Bytes.

Mini-Eggplant/Chicken Parmesans

I am in love with these yummy eggplant cutlets that I found at Trader Joe's. 

The whole box costs less than three dollars (more than a fresh eggplant, but way less per serving than a frozen eggplant parm entrée). I simply top the cutlet with sauce and some cheese, heat and voila eggplant parm.  If you're more of a meat eater the same approach can be taken with chicken patties or breaded chicken cutlets for a chicken parmesan version.

Omelets & Scrambles

Eggs are another great resource for single-living.  They keep awhile in the fridge, so you don't need to worry about a dozen going bad on you.  They also come to us already appropriately portioned straight from nature, simply take as many eggs as you like and cook.  Prepare them any way you like but my favorite is scrambling them up with salsa, veggies, or breakfast sausage.

Grilled Sandwiches & Panini

No one can argue that a simple sandwich is a perfect meal when you're crunched for time or money.  After a while though ham and cheese on whole wheat can get a little boring.  I have found that grilling my sandwiches or cooking them on my Panini press, makes them a lot more enjoyable!  Somehow the simple fact of heating the sandwich makes it feel less like a grade school sack lunch, and more like a meal.  I also try to elevate the sandwiches with some more unusual (but not necessarily expensive) ingredients, something which works very well when the sandwich gets heated and everything melts together!  Shredded cheese? Salsa?  Sliced avocado?  Chunky canned tomatoes?



This post is part of my "Frugal Food" series, be sure to check out:
Frugal, Hungry and Single - my intro to the challenges of cooking for one on a budget
Lasagna For One - how one simple hack, makes lasagna the perfect meal for a solo kitchen
What Is Your Rice and Beans? - Beyond rice and beans on a rice and beans budget

This post is linked up at:
Giving Up On Perfect, Sarah Titus' Frugal Friday


Lasagna For One

Did you check out my post about the challenges of being Frugal, Hungry, and Single?  Are you too struggling with the stresses of cooking for a small household while trying (or needing) to stick to a tight budget? 

May I present... lasagna for one.  After all, who doesn't love lasagna?

The great thing about this lasagna, is there is no wrong way to make it! Lasagna for one isn't about the recipe but the method of preparation, so if you have a family favorite lasagna recipe - do it up! I love my grandma's lasagna and she says her recipe came from the back of the Mueller's box.  If you need a lasagna recipe check out this one from "my grandma" (aka the folks at Mueller!)

What is the secret to lasagna for one?  Loaf pans.  Simple, aluminum (disposable) loaf pans!

Here are my lasagna supplies & ingredients ready to go! (Of course I used cheese too).

To make this lasagna I started like normal, by boiling my pasta noodles and browning some meat.  I went with ground turkey.

Once the noodles and meat are ready it is time to get your loaf pans out and get layering!

Sauce, noodle, meat, repeat!  Oops - that's sauce, noodle, meat CHEESE repeat!

1. 



 Once you have enough layers to fill the pan, your lasagna is done!  Now it is time to wrap those pans up nice and freezer tight, and you have some yummy lasagna ready for the freezer!  I used about a pound and a half of meat, 2 cups of cheese, and a box of noodles which yielded 3 loaf pan size lasagnas.  I had lots of extra noodles however, so next time I plan to either boil only half a box of noodles, or add some veggies into meat mixture to bulk it up! 

This post is part of my "Frugal Food" series, be sure to check out:
Frugal, Hungry and Single - my intro to the challenges of cooking for one on a budget

More Meals for One - Four simple & versatile ideas for single cooking



Frugal, Hungry and Single

Like I said the other day in my post about couponing at CVS, I am one of those people who likes couponing. I am usually pretty good with grocery and household purchases.  Yet, since moving on my own I have found keeping a food budget quite challenging!


I thought shopping for one would be easy.  After all, I am not feeding multiple people or caring for a big house, and I don't have a gaggle of teenagers or a house full of babies and picky toddlers. But single living brings its own challenges, here are a few I encountered (and some solutions).

Challenges of Cooking for One:

Recipes – While they can be adjusted relatively easily, most recipes are not designed for one person and need to be altered.

Time – Single people often find their time stretched in different ways than non-single people.  While I certainly don’t have as many responsibilities as I will when/if I have a spouse and family, my life as someone living alone is much less “home-based,” than it would be if I were living with family or even roommates.  I work multiple jobs, and all of my fellowship and family support is found outside of my home.  A lot of times that means my food budget is spent on drive- through meals and quick convenience foods.

Waste  - When you’re cooking for one food waste can be a big issue.  I have had fruit rot and yogurt mold before I could finish containers, and have tried my hand at batch cooking only to discover that I disliked the recipe or grew bored of the meal before I finished it.

Cost Saving Strategies Don’t Always Apply - When you’re cooking for one person, buying in bulk is out for perishable items.  Sure the cost per unit is less, but that doesn’t save you money when you simply can’t use the items before they will spoil.   The same can be true with Buy One Get One (or Two) sales.  

Overcoming the Challenges:

 Batch Cook Basics – If you are set on batch cooking, stick with basic items.  Cook a chicken, broccoli and rice casserole on Sunday night and you may easily be bored of it by Wednesday.  Bake some plain chicken breasts and you can have baked chicken and veggies one night, a chicken sandwich for lunch one afternoon and countless other meals throughout the week.

 Buy (Semi) Bulk of Things That Keep – It goes without saying, that non-perishables and paper products can be bought in bulk regardless of household size, but what about other items? While buying warehouse size packages of most perishable items is not the best idea for single-person households, there are some fresh produce items which keep well, and come in “semi” bulk packages.  While I would never buy a restaurant size package of apples or carrots, I can confidently buy things like 10 lb. bags of potatoes or large quantities of easily-freezable bananas. 

Buy Just What You Need for Things That Don’t – For the things which spoil quickly like fresh greens buy just what you intend to use in the next few days.  For fresh salad I often stop at my grocery’s salad bar.  While the cost per pound is significantly higher than regular produce, I am able to get a variety of salad veggies which I otherwise probably wouldn’t buy for just one person, and I don’t have to worry about anything going bad before it is eaten.   

Linked up At:

The Shine Blog Hop, Women With Intention, Works For Me Wednesday, Frugal Friday