If you have adopted a sibling group, you may need to find ways to stretch your food dollars. Buying prepared packaged foods becomes cost prohibitive when you are feeding a family with more than four members. Eating at restaurants becomes less frequent as well. To stretch your food dollars you will need to begin preparing more of your food from scratch. I am not talking about the time consuming jobs of preparing a loaf of bread or homemade cold cereal, they are still quite reasonable to purchase.

However, you can prepare delicious meals that your family will love using inexpensive staples such as dry pasta and whole grain rice as the main ingredients. You can also buy your seasonings, spices, and herbs in the relatively inexpensive large restaurant type containers at your local buyers club or restaurant supply store. We are lucky to have a Sam’s club just a few miles from our home. You will find your grocery bill much smaller in the end if you begin to purchase your items in bulk.

You may find that it is less expensive to buy some things that your family uses a lot of in a number 10 size can. For instance, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, and green beans are much less. For example, you can divide the green beans into two cooking dishes, add your cheese and cream of mushroom soup freeze one, and cook the other.

To feed our family of 10 a spaghetti meal, I usually cook about two pounds of pasta, three pounds of ground beef, two quarts of spaghetti sauce, and garlic bread. To make rice more appealing to everyone, I add several chicken bullion cubes to the boiling water and a small amount of butter to prevent it from sticking together. We usually have some kind of chicken with rice so I can make my plate Chinese because no one else likes it.

Another favorite at our house is nachos. I purchase a large bag of restaurant style tortilla chips and spread them out on two cookie sheets. Then we layer a pound of browned ground beef and two pounds of shredded cheese over the chips and bake until the cheese melts. The children add the toppings individually to their plates because they all like something different.