Meijer has an occasional family meal promotion in which it shows in the sales flier how to plan out five family-size meals based on grocery items that are on sale that week.

The series is called “5 days of family meals for under $50.”

Now while the math will vary from week to week based on actual retail prices, you might want to save these menu suggestions for later reference. Here’s why: The Meijer family menus are excellent examples on how to mix up name brand and store brand items so that the cost of an overall meal is not high, even though a specific ingredient might be.

If you track your grocery spending by the month, which is the way I teach grocery budgets, you will realize that you can “get away with” occasional costly meals or ingredients as long as they are mixed in with less expensive options. That concept holds up no matter what your family food preferences are!

This week’s suggestions from Meijer’s metro Detroit ad (this includes Monroe) are:

Monday – Grill out with brats

  • Meijer fresh brats or Italian sausage links.
  • Meijer buns.
  • Meijer potato chips, tortilla chips or kettle chips.
  • Pepperidge Farm layer cake.

Tuesday – New take on pork chops

  • Pork loin chops.
  • Kraft Fresh Take cheese breadcrumb mix.
  • Meijer mashed potatoes in a box.
  • Meijer frozen mixed veggies.

Wednesday – Create your own kabobs

  • Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasst.
  • Meijer marinade.
  • Sweet bell peppers.
  • Meijer organic mushrooms.
  • Meijer brown rice.

Thursday – Easy BLTs

  • Meijer bread.
  • Premium greenhouse tomatoes.
  • Meijer sliced bacon or turkey bacon.
  • Head lettuce.
  • Markets of Meijer broccoli crunch slaw or summer tomato cucumber salad.

Friday – Fish feast

  • Meijer tilapia fillets
  • Red potatoes
  • Ace Demi baguette or French demi multigrain baguette.

As a followup to Tuesday’s menu: I’ve tried the Kraft Fresh Take mix four or five times on chicken pieces. It’s convenient and tasty. It is, however, costly and does not leftover well. Therefore, I serve it with inexpensive side dishes of salad and bread, and only when I have enough people seated for dinner to eat up as much coated meat as possible that night!

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