Frugal Food

Every so often, Mom will let me have "a week of cooking;" I get to shop for and make all the meals for a week! I've been thinking lately about asking her to let me have a week this month.

There's just one little problem.

I always run the food bill way up over what Mom gets. She's perfected the art of shopping frugally, and I want to be a good steward too, but I can't seem to catch how to do it. It's depressing to put all the work into making a good menu and shopping list, and then go to the store and see the checkout screen register $25-$30 more than what it does when Mom goes shopping. Mom gives me tips and help, but I still seem to do something wrong.

Proverbs 31 talks about the virtuous woman providing food for her household and, from the context, I would assume she was pretty frugal about it, though the meals must have been delicious. So I don't feel like it's wrong to make a study of frugality.

And today I'd like some extra help. I'm making a list of foods from the store that I know don't cost much. Of course, I wish our garden was producing more than just lettuce and peas at the moment, but that will have to wait until later this year!

Here's what I have so far:

Potatoes
Cabbage
Dried Beans
Canned Tuna Fish
Rice
Lentils
Frozen Veggies? (can't remember how much they are)


As you can see, this is by no means an extensive list. Can y'all help me out? What foods do you buy that are cheap? AND ....what meals do you make from them? (Isn't that just as important?!!)