How to Feed a Family of Four Across Seven Days for $200 (+ Recipes)

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With grocery prices at record highs, weโ€™ve put together a guide for a weekโ€™s worth of healthy meals

Thereโ€™s no getting around this simple and unpalatable fact: Itโ€™s pretty stressful to go grocery shopping these days.

Thanks to the skyrocketing cost ofย inflationย โ€” which climbed to a 40-year record high of 9.1% in June compared to last year โ€” food has never been more expensive.

The price of pantry staples such as bread and cereal has jumped nearly 14%, according to the Consumer Price Index, and dairy products are not far behind, costing an average of 13.5% more than a year ago. The price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs will also leave a shopper reeling from sticker shock, and donโ€™t even get me started on what a bag of Layโ€™s potato chips will set you back these days. (A 13-ounce bag costs $5.49 at Target. Target!)

As the PGโ€™s food editor, my job is to cook โ€” a lot. And while I try (really) hard to choose recipes that are as easy for the average cook as they are inspirational and great tasting, itโ€™s gotten considerably tougher in recent months to also make them 100% affordable. Having raised five kids, including three always-hungry sons, I know firsthand how expensive three meals a day can be for a family in good economic times. I canโ€™t imagine doing it today, especially when the cost of everything else we need on a daily basis is rising, too.

The Challenge

Yet Iโ€™m also a problem-solver who has penny-pinched at meal time for decades. So I decided to make myself this challenge: Prepare a weekโ€™s worth of meals for a family of four, completely from scratch, for around $200.

Why that number? The USDAโ€™s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program currently allots $215.10 a week to a four-person household to cover the cost of groceries necessary to provide a โ€œhealthy, budget-conscious dietโ€ under its official Thrifty Food Plan. I wanted to know what that would buy you in Pittsburgh and whether you could make three squares a day taste good on a budget.

By Gretchen McKay

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