The 5 Dollar Dinner Mom Cookbook Review
I have been a follower of Erin’s blog 5DollarDinners.com for well over a year now and am so excited that she published a cookbook! While going online and printing her recipes was easy, having the cookbook is so much more convenient. Plus, she has compiled a bunch of her tips and tricks inside as well!
If you have never been to her blog – well you are missing out and probably spending too much money on your groceries. But don’t worry, cause this cookbook has a bunch of her most loved recipes. And yes – you really can feed your family a meal for $5. Plus, you can print coupons directly from her blog!
This is one of the meals I made from her book – the Beef Goulash. First – amazing taste! Second, Erin Chase is super helpful with her math written on each recipe. Inside her book, Erin wrote down how much it cost her at the time to purchase each ingredient and even did the math for how much it will cost you to put that amount of food into the recipe. For example, 3/4 lb of ground beef was $1.62. I bought all the ingredients and did my own math. Even after adding shredded cheese and Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce to it the entire meal was only about $7! And this fed us for 2.5 meals, not too shabby.
I haven’t calculated the other meals I have bought for this week yet, but I made a menu planned with the entire week’s meals coming from her book. I was able to buy almost 2 weeks worth of food for $100. And that is without coupons, since I am still learning that art.
There was one tip inside this book that I hadn’t ever thought of. Erin will plan her meals around what is on sale that week. That sounds so elementary but I haven’t done that yet. I usually plan out what I feel like cooking then go and hope it is on sale. She also suggested stocking up on meats that are on sale, eating more beans for protein, and always paying with cash. Those last three I had started doing before reading her book – and paying with cash really does keep your budget in check!
I did read a negative review of her book on Amazon.com and the gal was saying that putting a price on each ingredient is misleading as prices differ from place to place. I found this to be obvious and wasn’t appalled when my ground beef was more expensive than Erin’s in the book. I think you have to take her prices as guides for how to keep your eyes peeled for sales and how certain foods are simply cheaper to cook with than others. I think this book inspires me more than anything to pinch every penny and save on the grocery bill. I won’t be wandering the aisles in the store picking up things that fancy me. I will have more purpose, even going as far as to read the circular from the newspaper.
You can follow Erin on Twitter
Follow her Blog (which I highly suggest, it is so helpful!)
Become a Fan on Facebook
You can pre-order it from Amazon.com or go to 5DollarDinnerMom.com for a list of other great vendors!
I was given a copy of this cookbook to review. All opinions are 100% mine!
Comments (5)
Mitchel and I have been doing something like this for the past few months. We are just eating less meat because it’s more expensive and eating more beans. I too have been able to get 2 weeks worth of groceries for under $100. We’ve been following the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University program too which has you pay for everything with cash.
Another tip I learn is to buy the meat that’s on the front page of the add. That’s usually what’s on sale at the best price. I did that a stocked up on stew meat and pork chops. yum!
While it sounds simple to say I should have been doing this while my kids were growing up, now that it’s just my DH and I at home eating dinner, we go out quite a bit. However, with the economy being such as it is, I’m going to make more of an effort to try to prepare inexpensive, quick dinners for him and I. Thanks for a great review!
Mmm, this review made me hungry! I told DH about it right now and he said he will buy it for me if I start cooking LOL, what can I say he’s a better cook!
You know what’s funny! I am trying out a week of dinners for $5 dollars or less and wanted to see if google would be of any help in my search to find more options! I came across the $5 dollar dinner mom’s blog in my search then your review!! What a fun coincendence!!! I see you did this review back in January, are you still cooking from this book? Did you find the recipes helpful at all?
Hey, It is nice to stumble upon a good site like this one. Would you mind if I use some of your info, and I’ll put a link back to your website?