Lost your job and need to feed your family on less money? Cheap dinner meals have become a necessity for many families as unemployment soars and food costs continue to rise. Families barely making ends meet before now struggle to put meals on the table. Food banks are struggling for donations of food or cash. Food donations are down and numbers applying for help are up.

Knowing how to make a cheap dinner meal helps to cut the overall grocery cost. Knowing how to meal plan to make the most of food bought and to stretch food stamp dollars can make the difference in having enough food to last the month. http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/life/family/article/65941--donations-down-at-daily-bread-food-bank

Cheap dinner meals do not have to be tasteless or completely without nutrients. Serving cheap meals, which your family will like and will be satisfied to eat on a regular basis does require planning and the willingness to cook from scratch, save leftovers, and try new meals. It requires thinking about what to cook before going shopping and sticking to a meal plan.

Cheap dinner meals are more possible if you can match a coupon for an item, to a grocery sale, and have it supplement items already on hand. Learning the process of serving cheap meals over the long term means keeping track of what is in your pantry, your freezer and your fridge. It involves keeping up with which meals your family did not like, which did not have enough servings to fill the hungry mouths, and which ones can be reused several times in a month without a family riot.

Establishing a list of cheap dinner meals which can be prepared on a limited budget allows you to make a meal plan with limited effort. These meals can be tracked on index cards where you keep information about last time served, whether the meal needed to increase in size, or even annotate if the meal should be a last resort because no one enjoyed. Making notes on the card about what is in the pantry helps to identify what would be needed from the store to make the recipe. This part of the plan should be done in pencil. Update the card when items are used.

The remainder of this guide page provides links to blogs and websites offering frugal meals, budget recipes, and tips for cheap cooking. Be sure to check the related Mahalo pages section for more Mahalo pages to help you prepare budget meals for your family.

Visit these Mahalo pages for information on how to cut your grocery budget.

• How to Feed Your Family on a Budget

Find tips on creating a budget, shopping and bulk cooking to help reduce food cost.

• How to Save Money on Food

View tips on bulk shopping, food storage, and how to use coupons and shop around for the best deals.

• How to Stockpile Food

Want to stock pile but limited on space? Check on the tips on this page to help you figure a way to stockpile the best deals to be able to make cheap dinner meals.

• How to Cook Cheap Breakfasts

This Mahalo page offers ideas on breakfast away from the expensive cereal box

• How to Make Cheap Lunches

Lunch on the go can be expensive when it always means fast food. Follow these ideas on how to take your lunch to work with you.

• How to Cook Cheap Dinners

Dinner meals don't have to cost an extreme amount. Planning ahead can reduce the cost.

• How to Make DInner Meals Under $5

Dinner under $5 doesn't mean per person. Visit this page for ideas on dinner meals to help reduce the family grocery budget.

A casserole stretches main ingredients further and makes a less expensive filling meal than serving a single cut of meat to each person. Consider these casserole ideas for serving cheap dinner meals that will still be enjoyed.

Hamburger Casserole

Beefaroni

Shepherd's Pie

Beef and Potato Casserole

Tatertot Casserole