Poverty Meal Plan

Our goal is to spend about $7 a day on food--to feed six people. Can it be done? Can we eat well? What's the secret to eating well on $7 a day?

Breakfast: Our plan is to have a simple low cost breakfast each morning--homemade granola and home cultured yogurt with brown sugar on top. Josh usually eats an egg sandwich (on homemade bread--and I can't wait to tell you my secret to lucious, simple artisan bread).

Lunch: The kids take their lunch to school--usually a sandwich or cheese and crackers, a cut up piece of fruit, and some nuts or cookies. Josh takes leftovers to work for lunch (bless his Scottish heart!)

Dinner: Dinner is where a bulk of our food budget will go. The cost will be between $5-$7. We have a lot of pantry staples on hand, so whatever we need for the meal, we'll buy at the beginning of the week.

I love creating in the kitchen, and it pains me greatly to spend $3.75 for a loaf of whole grain bread that I know I can make in minutes for 59 cents. If I can make it instead of buy it, I will. And as I go on this journey of poverty with you this month, I'll post as many of my favorite make-it-not-buy-it** recipes.

**When I was about seven, my mom had a cooking segment on a local TV station in Summerville, S.C. On live TV I showed the world how to make mayo from scratch using a food processor. Maybe that explains my make-it-not-buy-it tendencies.