Over the past year I have heard so many people tell me that they can't eat fresh food because it costs way more than other types of food. I am here to tell you that you can, and you can do it within a tight budget. Each week I plan to list my shopping and what I paid for it in total, and what I cooked during the week. In this way you will see that you can eat well on a budget. In fact in our house, I think be eat better on a budget.

Since this is the first posting, and I can't remember exactly what I bought to eat, I will tell you that I spent about $200 on food and other grocery items. The cost of food has clearly gone up over the past few months, especially meat, which would be the single most expensive item on our table. During the week, I buy milk and bread as needed, and other sundry items if absolutely necessary. I hate shopping, so I tend to do it as little as possible.

To stick to this amount every week, I have to shop around. I am very lucky that I can shop at Aldi, NQR, Safeway and Coles for different things. It takes longer, but we can have more variety this way.

So far this week on the evening menu we have had:
Saturday- this was my night off, so everyone made their own dinner
Sunday night - pot roasted beef with brocolli, carrots, corn on the cob, quiche and a pasta bake,
Monday night - lasagna, mashed potatoes, salad, and boiled eggs
Tuesday night - roast lamb (a really little one), brocolli, carrots, quiche, and some other strange cabbage dish (not made by me).

During the day on the weekend everyone ate what they felt like - so this usually means rolls, sandwiches, (toasted or otherwise).

School lunches are made everyday, and include a sandwich, fruit, some sort of school snacks depending on what's on special, and hopefully some small cake I have made at home.

There is no secret to eating well, except that the vast majority of it has to be cooked from scratch. Heat and eat can't feature on our menu, except on very rare occasions, although I do buy one bag of frozen chips per week for those nights I am really tired.

The catch is time. To cook from scratch every night means that a lot of time is spent in the kitchen. But this is time to talk to everyone, and find out what has happened at school, work, or about things that might be bothering someone.

The benefit is sitting down at the table with everyone to a nice meal, and continuing to talk about the day. During dinner the T.V and all other distractions are turned off. We prefer it this way.

I will let you know tomorrow what we had for dinner. At the moment I am thinking stirfry.