A bit about our $50 Weekly Menus

Each week we'll share our weekly menus as well as recipes for our family of 4, which includes two seemingly ravenous teenagers (& several of their buddies) and two adults. I mention that we include the kids' friends in our menu because it's become a habit for them to have friends over several times per week. For the past 15 years, we've spent, on average, less than $250 per month for groceries (& household items- cleaners, detergents).
Our menus include breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. They also include various beverages. I do not include pet foods, although over the years we've often made our own for our pets.

Regarding Coupons:
On occasion we DO use coupons; with that said, our weekly menus are NOT based on coupon use. There are really great deals out there- and oftentimes if one is diligent enough, one can get free groceries/cleaners, etc. However, this requires considerable effort, regardless of the sites that tell you it's simple. Here are several reasons that this is not so:

1. It requires you to go to
   several different stores several times per week in order to find and take advantage of the best deals. Each and every time that you enter a store the chances of impulse buying increases. (Read More about the Dirty Tricks Retailers Play)
2. It requires you to find,buy and clip coupons, or seek them out online from "coupon clipping services" and purchase them, which is time consuming.
3. Stores are becoming less and less helpful at receiving multiple coupons in a transaction.
4. Cashiers at said stores are often not educated about basic coupon lingo such as the difference between a purchase (single item) and a transaction (entire order) and make life a living hell when attempting to use coupons.

With that said, we do sometimes use coupons, but only on when it's absolutely convenient for us.