Fun times ahead – pizza party at home, let the kids help, too! 🙂
Pizza crusts, $1.00 each – $2.00 total
Cheese! $1.00 each = $2.00 total
2 cans corn, $1.00 each = $2.00 total
Chocolate Pudding! $1.00 = $1.00
Pretty good supper!
Pizza & a veggie & chocolate pudding for dessert – yummy!
🙂Enough for four people . . . plus a whole extra pizza leftover for seconds.
MATH TIME
2.00 – 2 crusts 1.00 – can of pizza sauce (sorry, forgot the picture) 2.00 – 2 cheese 2.00 – 2 corn 1.00 – 4 puddings _____________ $8.00 total / 4 people = $2.00 per person
First, please welcome . . . world famous Mickey D!
Known far and wide for a big smile, big shoes, and big calories (plus all sorts of other controversial topics), Mickey D has been a winner of big buck$ for many years. But no shame here – if you’ve decided to take Mickey D out for lunch, that’s okay by me (I have done the same now and then, for sure!). *
In this corner we have the classic combo #1, for $7.13.
(This is commonly considered as one meal for one person.)
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Next, direct your attention to . . . . The Groceries!
A former champion fallen on hard times and scorned by many, The Groceries have recently been making a comeback, one smart dollar at a time.
In this corner, we have groceries purchased for $7.13.
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Yes, that’s right, two receipts for the exact same amount.
(Extra thanks to the self-check-out employees at Kroger on North Street for their kind and patient customer service as they helped me get the onions to exactly the right weight so this post could work out perfectly. )
For the fast food meal, I could not figure out any other photos to take. I bought it, I ate it, (it was yummy!) and that was that. To calculate nutritional info for this meal, or others, please visit their main nutritional website here.
For the buy-groceries-and-cook-at-home meal, read on for more details.
Here’s what I bought!
About the kielbasa and onions, I forgot to take a picture of those price tags, but you can see their price in the receipt shown above.
So then I brought home the groceries and made this huge pile of food! I served 4 people today for brunch and had 4 servings leftover, either for second helpings now or for lunches this week = total 8 servings.
I sliced the peppers carefully so that each plate could have a decorative topping to add beauty to the plate. The rest of the peppers were chopped up small and added to the pan to cook with the other ingredients.
MATH TIME!
For the fast food meal – $7.13 / 1 serving = $7.13 per serving
For the cook-at-home meal, $7.13 / 8 servings = 89 cents per serving
More cheap meal ideas here:
If you enjoyed this one, you might also like these…
* DISCLAIMERS This post is purely for my entertainment and encouragement, but it’s okay with me if you want to enjoy it, too. No affiliate links to click and nothing to buy.
All food purchased in Nacogdoches in October 2019. Prices definitely will change. No guarantees.
I don’t hate McDonalds, sometimes it’s just what I want and I eat it right up. Nonetheless, it is both cheaper and healthier to avoid fast food as often as possible, so that’s what I try to do. I encourage you to invite The Groceries into your home, too. 🙂
Whether it’s a special holiday or just a pretty day at the park with family and friends, Dollar Tree has you covered for affordable picnicking fun. This meal was all purchased at the awesome Nacogdoches Dollar Tree.*
* This is not an ad or an affiliate link; I get nothing and there’s nothing for you to click, anyway. This “Dollar Tree Dinner” series is purely for my personal entertainment, but it’s okay with me if you enjoy it, too. 🙂
THE MENU
Hot dogs & chips Peanuts for snack Pudding for dessert Soda*
* Dollar Tree Dinners usually have water to drink – save money and eat healthy, two for one! This was a special occasion party meal, though, so I added soda this time.
Hmmmmm, that hotdog looks a little pink! But no worries, this was just for the picture. We cooked the hot dogs all the way through before we ate them (and you definitely should, too!)
The Dollar Tree Dinners are all based on four servings simply for consistency in comparison.
Some thoughts about the ketchup and mustard. I expect most people already have these in their fridge (we certainly did). But I went ahead and bought them new for the meal, just for the sake of the activity having accurate costs. They add not even a whole cent to the per-serving cost (based on the “per serving” notes on the container), but they did add $2.00 to “today’s shopping trip” cost. So, if you already have those in the fridge, you could have saved $2.00 today!
Why peanuts?
These added a little something extra to snack on while people were visiting before and after the main meal. They are also a valuable plant-based protein, for extra nutrition. (Don’t serve if someone in your group is allergic!)
SHOPPING COSTS – BASICS
Buns – $1.00 Hot dogs – $1.00 Chips – $1.00 Peanuts – $1.00 Pudding – $1.00 Soda – $1.00 ___________ $6.00 – basic cost today in the store could be as low as $6.00 total
Possible Extra Costs ? $1.00 Ketchup (if you don’t have some at home already) $1.00 Mustard (same) $1.00 Chips (I got two kinds, for variety, but one bag serves 5, so really only needed one to serve this meal) _____ $3.00 more possible items
Basics + possible extras – $9.00 – still under $10.00
MEAL COSTS – PER SERVING*
.125 – buns .125 – hot dogs .025 – ketchup .008 – mustard .20 – chips .166 – peanuts .083 – soda .25 – pudding ________ .982 = 98 Cents for this meal for one person
*I’m certainly not an accountant. This is just doing basic division of total price/servings = cost per serving. Remember wondering, “When will I ever use this?” Now you know when!
CALORIE COUNTS*
Bun – 110 Hot dog – 110 Ketchup – 20 Mustard – 0 Chips – 150 Peanuts – 170 Pudding – 100 Soda – 100 (it says 60 on the package, but we had a tall glass, so I added a few extra calories to account for that)
TOTAL FOR THE MEAL – 760 calories
I realize that’s a lot of calories for only one meal, but we decided to go for it anyway.
A party meal once in a while is good for morale! 🙂
*Definitely I am not a nutritionist or dietician or anything official. These counts are based directly from the consumer-friendly packaging that anyone else can see and use, too.
BONUS FOOD!
The photos show the table set for four people . . . that means there was a lot of food leftover! You can invite more people to the party , or some people can have more than one serving (teenagers, anyone!?)
(Not $6 “each” but $6 total for this full table of food, with some leftovers not shown in photo!)
First, let’s talk about that spaghetti.
You can see it says “50% More Free” and it was so much spaghetti! I was careful to use only as much as I estimated would be in a regular box, and even doing that, I still had more spaghetti than we needed and put some in the fridge. Plus, there was still a lot left in the box, plenty for another meal later. For the sake of this post, though, we’ll call it “$1.00 worth of” spaghetti, as if it were a regular box.
Next, the sauce! This was a basic plain sauce, just a “flavor”, not “chunky”. I didn’t add anything to it, but in your real world, I’d recommend chop up anything you might have extra in the fridge, leftover veggies, bits of onion, whatever, and add all that in. Spaghetti sauce is very forgiving that way.
The can said 40 calories per serving, and 5 servings in the can. But I used it all, on four plates, so that puts it at 50 sauce calories per plate.
These veggie balls were delicious! I was happily surprised at how tasty they were and would definitely get them again. That said, they did stay quite soft, even when baked in a hot oven, and they did not keep the ball shape even for a moment once the fork reached them. I broke them up into the sauce on individual plates tonight, but next time, I would just do that right in the pan, which would spread the flavors throughout and also add more texture to the sauce.
I was disappointed that there were not 12 in the box, which I would have assumed as a standard (3 per serving, 4 servings per box), but oh well, there were only 9, so that was that. You may notice one plate has none – that’s because of allergies. There were more left on the pan, not shown in the picture.
Because there were fewer than an even 4, I’ll call that only 100 veggie ball calories (instead of the 120 shown on the package).
A trip to Italy traditional includes gelato, so “ice cream” it is. It’s not fancy, I agree, but it seemed to fit the meal. This package said 1/2 cup per serving and 6 servings. I’m not sure how they measured that, because I used a measuring cup on purpose to try to be exact, and I only got 4. Which worked out fine, but still, though you should know. 90 cal on the box, plus a little more, I guess, so 100 cal -ish each ?
The biscotti package had enough cookies for each serving to have 4, but I was confused, and only put 3 in the dishes, and then ate up the rest myself, while wondering why there were these “extra” pieces in the package!
Calorie & Cost Summary
I am definitely not an official nutritionist, or dietary advisor of any sort, so I’m just doing some regular basic math based on the labels and per-serving info, the way those labels are intended to use by regular people.
Calories Per Plate
Spaghetti – 200 calories Sauce – 50 calories Veggie balls – 100 cal Steamed mixed veggies – 50 cal ? Ice cream – 100 cal Biscotti – 140 ___________
Total Calories – about 650 (ish) (it’s for supper, after all, not a snack) Total Protein – about 14 g (ish) ____________
(sorry I forgot to take a photo of the veggies, but I think I remember they were 50 calories a serving)
Cost Per Plate
.25 spaghetti (1 box / 4 plates) .25 sauce (1 can / 4 plates) .25 veggie balls (1 box / 4 plates) .25 veggies on the side (1 bag / 4 plates) .25 dessert (1 ice cream / 4 bowls) .25 cookies (1 box / 4 servings)
_________________________________________
Total Cost Per Plate – $1.50 (ish….maybe another few cents in tax?)
A good price for a full meal of real food, including dessert!
Learn Italian!
Now try a few words and phrases in Italian! Here are some places to try. (not affiliate links, I’m not selling, just fun places I like for languages.)
