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If you hate to meal plan, Passionate Penny Pincher has you covered with their newest done-for-you menu plan. And I’m reviewing a week of it for you in detail to help you know if it really is as good as it seems.
I received the digital Budget Friendly Menu Plans from Passionate Penny Pincher for free. All opinions and experiences are honest and my own.
Detailed Review of the Passionate Penny Pincher Budget Menu Plan
When I first saw the recipes in the new Passionate Penny Pincher Budget Friendly Menu Plans, I knew this was one I wanted to try. And I really wanted to see if it actually was budget friendly. So I thought it might be fun to take notes along the way and give you a detailed review of how the week of meals turned out.
Meal planning can be a pain. It’s just one more thing to add to our never ending list of things to do. I mean, we’ve got to eat, right?
And as someone with ADHD, I love having a menu plan (I just don’t like making it). It removes the decisions of what I’m going to have for dinner in the moment when I’m hungry. Because I don’t like making decisions, especially when I’m already hungry. So having something planned makes it less likely that I’m going to end up eating a tube of Pringles for dinner that night.
So what if you had someone who would make the menu for you? And it was meals that were actually normal and don’t include weird ingredients that you’ve never even heard of, and include foods that you already have in your pantry… I’m all for that.
When I first heard about the Passionate Penny Pincher Meal Plans, I was sold right then and there. But I also had this suspicion that it was too good. And to be fair, there are some things to keep in mind when using the PPP Meal Plans. And I’ll talk about those too. But overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy these meals actually were to make. I found that it was easier to go and make dinner when I knew what I was going to make, and that I already had all the ingredients needed for them.
What do you get with the Passionate Penny Pincher Menu Plans?
The Passionate Penny Pincher Menu Plans are organized to be a no-planning needed way to menu plan.
Each one has 6-12 weeks with 5 main meals and one dessert each week (there’s a few that are organized differently, but the basic idea is the same for each). This Budget Friendly Menu Plan has 6 weeks of recipes. And just looking through them, there are so many that I can’t wait to try! They sound so good, and so normal… if you know what I mean. Too many recipe books have things that are just weird with ingredients that I’ve never even heard of.
There is a shopping list for each week with all the ingredients that you’ll need to make sure you have in order to make the 6 recipes for that week. The shopping list is divided by category, which I found really helpful as I went through the store.
Of course you can also pick and choose your favorite recipes too, and meal plan around those. But in case you need something already done for you, these menu plans are set up for just that.
Most of the menu plans are available in two forms: a box of recipe cards that is mailed to you, and printable PDF version that you can bind into a book, put in a 3-ring binder, reference digitally from your tablet, or just print as you need them.
For now though, the Budget Meal Plans are only available digitally. Which I’m good with because that’s how I’ve bought my other menu plans from Passionate Penny Pincher.
The newest meal plan
I was excited to hear about the new Budget Meal Plans. But also skeptical because “budget” is so subjective. What is inexpensive to one may not be to another.
Passionate Penny Pincher was so kind and sent me an advance copy of these meal plans. There was no obligation for me to review it in any way, but I wanted to, because I really wanted to see if these truly were budget friendly (you’ll have to judge for yourself, because like I said, it’s a subjective thing).
So I’m going to break down an entire week of recipes, and let you know how much the groceries were that I got for this week. So this isn’t just a review of whether it is worthy of being called budget meals, but also a review of the whole process and the recipes.
Overall thoughts and things to know
There are a number of things that occurred to me while I was preparing for this, looking over the meal plan and shopping list, and preparing the food. Just some thoughts I had and wanted you to be aware of.
Also, I wasn’t great about taking pictures. I’m definitely not a food blogger. I’ll include the pictures I did take (and they aren’t going to be pro level, but will hopefully give you a good idea of the meal), but there were some I completely forgot to take pictures of. Oops.
Definitely look at the different recipes and their ingredients and plan out when to make each one. I found that there were some ingredients that started to not look as fresh because I kept them to the end of the week. Nothing actually went bad, but if I had put more thought into it, I could have put them earlier in the week for optimum freshness (I’m looking at you, green beans).
Pros
You get to see which recipes are included before you even buy. You can check out all the details here and even sign up to be alerted when they are released (which will be Sunday, August 18, 2024).
I love that the grocery list is already made out for you. And while I was shopping, it was so convenient that it was divided into sections of items that are often grouped together. It made the shopping process easier.
I found the recipes to be really simple to make. There’s some prep involved, but it was not nearly as labor intensive as some other recipes that I’ve found. Plus they would be a really simple thing to prep ahead if that was something you felt inclined to do.
Cons
I did make adaptions to each week. For example, I don’t eat fish and my mom can’t have dairy. Some recipes work just fine, and others need to be adapted (like adding cheese to individual plates instead of to the whole dish). But I haven’t found a single week that would work just as it is for my family. Your family might be different. And we will get into the changes I made for each recipe later.
Going Shopping
One of my main goals was to see if these really were budget friendly meals. This is a bit subjective of a term, so I’ll give you the details and you can decide for yourself. Because what is budget friendly for one may not be for another and from my perspective, this one is right on border of if it is or isn’t, and I’ll explain why.
It it is probably good to know that I’m shopping in Southern California too. So in some instances, our grocery prices can be higher than in some other areas.
The first thing I did was take the full shopping list, minus the category of pantry staples, and put it into my Walmart shopping cart. I chose Walmart mostly because it was easy and they don’t upcharge the price of items (that I can tell) like other online shopping companies do (like Instacart). But also because Passionate Penny Pincher has a grocery membership that works with Walmart online grocery delivery (you don’t even need a Walmart+ membership to use it). I thought it would be good to get an idea of what it would cost from Walmart too.
The Walmart shopping cart came to about $103.
But what I found was that there were a lot of things on the list that were things I already had around (flour and sugar), and probably would even be considered pantry staples in my house. The only things I think should be considered universal pantry staples are salt and pepper. But that’s just me.
I actually decided to buy my groceries from Aldi. I know everyone doesn’t have an Aldi, and if you don’t, Walmart really is the closest thing (by price) I’ve found that has locations *almost* everywhere. My total at Aldi was around $85. I lost my receipt because I put it in a safe place. Opps. I’ll update it if I find it, but I know it was in the $80s, so definitely less than the $103 if I had just bought the list as it was written.
Things I Already Had:
- Garlic (swapped fresh for minced in a jar)
- Butter
- Cheddar Cheese (I had just bought a bunch from an outlet, so I still got it cheaper than it would have been in a grocery store)
- Squeezable ginger. Actually I did buy it. Two in fact. Because we like it. But I could have skipped it because I found ours in the fridge AFTER I went to the store.
- Bread crumbs
- Lemon juice. Our neighbor has a lemon tree and is very generous about sharing with us. We juice them and save it in the freezer for when we need it (we drink lemon honey water when we are sick too. We use a lot of lemon juice).
- Sugar and flour. We just always have these on hand. I like to bake.
Skipped Items:
- Bacon. I know I’m going to get flack for this, but it was just too expensive for something I don’t mind going without (it’s part of the Mac & Cheese recipe). If it had been more of a critical ingredient, I would have gotten it.
- I didn’t skip the sriracha, but I probably could have. I only used a tiny amount because we don’t do very spicy in our house.
- Sesame seeds. It said optional, and I didn’t think it would be necessary so I just didn’t.
Things I Swapped:
- Mushrooms for fresh green beans. I hate mushrooms and so I found an alternative that actually turned out to be less expensive.
- Coleslaw mix – not really a swap, actually I doubled it because I know how much my family can eat and I wanted to pad this meal with more vegetables. Cabbage shrinks down a lot. No regrets.
- Rotisserie Chicken swapped for boneless skinless chicken breast. Short of going to Costco for $5 Rotisserie chickens, they are expensive (about $8 at our local grocery store, Aldi doesn’t even carry them at all). I got a package of chicken breasts for about $12 and I will probably only need 2 of them (1/3 of the package) for the recipe. The rest can go in other meals later.
- Garlic Bread was swapped for a package of hogi rolls. We have butter and garlic and I like the idea of making my own better than buying it already made.
- Also not really a swap, but I bought a 3 lb package of ground turkey instead of just 1 lb. I’ll use the rest in other recipes later, but that did increase the total a bit. Same thing as the chicken I mentioned earlier.
Pantry Staples?
- I don’t understand why powdered sugar is a pantry staple and regular sugar isn’t? For me they both are (like I said, I like to cook), but that seems a little backwards.
- I wouldn’t consider sesame oil to be a pantry staple either. We also had this, but that’s because we made chow mein awhile ago and needed it for that. It’s not something we normally would keep on hand. Are we the weird ones??
Okay, so here is my main concern with the price. If that $80 something was all the groceries I needed for the week, that would be a great amount! But… we still need other food too. The meal plan is only for 5 dinners and 1 dessert per week. We need food for the other meals (including breakfast and lunch) and snacks too. I spent another $75 on other things we needed that weren’t even part of the meal plan.
Daily Recipes
Now, I’m not going to give you the actual recipes I tried, but I will talk about how each one worked, if my family liked it, and anything else that comes up while prepping these recipes. If these sound like meals that you would like to make, you can get the whole set of menu plans here.
Something you should know too is that all of these recipes are feeding 4 adults, no kids. And I did adapt some of them to better fit my family’s preferences. Recipes are really just a guide, right? Do you cook like that too or are you a “follow it step by step” person?
Day 1: Meatball Casserole
Okay first of all, some people in my house didn’t like the idea of this as a casserole. So instead we made it into meatball subs. It was delicious and so easy to make! This will be a repeat in our house. As common as meatball subs are, I don’t think any of us had ever had one before.
Something I would change is the amount of sauce. If you do it like a casserole then you might need to follow the recipe and see how it goes. But for meatball subs, there was a lot more sauce than needed, and I could have easily just done one jar with the meatballs. I even had more meatballs than the recipe calls for, and they were still swimming in sauce.
Bonus though, I took all the leftovers (both sauce and meatballs) and I froze all of it to use in spaghetti for another dinner.
(This was the first night and I totally forgot to take a picture of it. But you can trust me. It was really good!)
Day 2: Eggroll in a Bowl & Lemon Bars
Like I mentioned in the part about when I went shopping, I bought twice the amount of coleslaw mix than what the recipe called for because I knew my family could eat a lot.
It doubled easily, however I might have had a user error with getting the amounts of other things right (I was estimating for some of the seasonings) because I was struggling to get the flavor right. I partially think I should have used regular soy sauce instead of low sodium (we use both regularly, so I figured I’d try it as the recipe said). I just find that the flavor tends to be stronger. Also, I shouldn’t have salted the meat while I was cooking it, and then added salt later too (neither of which it said to do in the recipe, I was just adding my own flair, but it turned out a bit too salty).
My family was split on if they liked it. My mom and I didn’t care for it and said we would have preferred it wrapped and fried as regular eggrolls (which isn’t out of the question). But my dad said he would be fine eating it weekly.
This was also the night I made the Lemon bars. They were amazing! No complaints there at all! I didn’t have a 9×13 pan to use so I put the entire recipe in an 8×8 square cake pan, and it still turned out just fine. It needed to cook just a little longer because of the thickness, but if you are watching for the top to brown, then it’ll be just right. We devoured the entire pan of them that night.
Day 3: Egg Frittata
This was a good recipe! Our family has made these before (we always called it an egg bake), but never followed a recipe. We just threw in whatever we felt like.
And honestly, this one turned out better than usual and I’d rather make it this way from now on.
One change I did make was adding and mixing in about 1/3-1/2 cup of water to the egg mixture before putting it in the pan to bake. I love adding a little water to eggs before cooking to make them extra fluffy and not rubbery. It works with scrambled too, really… you need to try it! Don’t add milk to eggs, add a splash of water. Total game changer!
And I only used about half of the package of ham. It was plenty, and then I had extra for lunches later.
We also topped it with salsa, and I didn’t bake it with the cheese on/in it (we sprinkled it on individually after).
Day 4: Mushroom Green Bean Pork Chops
I don’t like mushrooms. I just don’t eat them. So I replaced the mushrooms with fresh green beans (less expensive than the mushrooms at Aldi too). I tell you this because I know it would be impossible to please everyone with a set meal plan. Every person, every family, has different preferences and dietary needs/restrictions.
It’s okay to alter any recipe to fit your needs.
I did it with multiple recipes this week. And it turned out just fine. In fact, the green beans in the recipe actually were amazing with the other flavors! And bonus points to my mom for figuring out which vegetable to substitute in for the mushrooms. I could only think of carrots which wouldn’t have been the same.
First of all, the pork chops at Aldi were significantly cheaper than the ones from Walmart. About a $3-4 price difference for the package.
I don’t know if my pork chops were bigger than normal or if that’s just how they were, but I used my largest skillet and could only fit 3 of them in there at a time. These pork chops were 5-7 inches each. So I ended up cooking them during the first part in stages, and pulling the first three off so I could cook the remaining two. Then started the green beans and sauce, then added all the pork chops back in, layering them on top of each other. And because they cook for the most part with the lid on, it worked more like an oven and turned out just fine. They all cooked through, the bottom ones didn’t burn at all, and everything tasted amazing!
Making this recipe I realized that I’m also not a fan of pork chops. I don’t like bone in meat, and I don’t like cooking raw pork (other than bacon. That’s easy enough and cooks fast). But I don’t like the pressure of it. I also think that pork chops are pretty expensive (my package was $10 something at Aldi, $14-15 at Walmart).
My dad suggested this would also be a good recipe with chicken, which I completely agree with, and I would probably do it that way next time (and he LOVES pork chops). But I also realize that when making a set of recipes, it’s good to not have all the recipes be chicken. Which is most of what I eat for meat, along with ground beef/turkey. So it’s good to shake it up occasionally.
And even if this is a budget set of recipes, sometimes it’s okay to splurge a little on a slightly more expensive meat. There’s very little fish in these meal plans (I only saw it once), and I don’t remember seeing any steak. So overall, these recipes do use less expensive meats.
This was a very good dinner. Everyone enjoyed it, and the flavors were excellent!
Day 5: Ranch Mac & Cheese
One major change I made to this recipe was not getting a rotisserie chicken. I got raw chicken breasts instead, and cooked them in the slow cooker with a little water, chicken bouillon, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and a little chili powder. I was pretty much just throwing in whatever sounded good. I don’t know what they season rotisserie chickens with.
This also turned out really good. I was wondering if the ranch flavor would be too overpowering in it, but it really wasn’t.
(I forgot to take the picture before I ate. Opps.)
The tip I would give anyone trying this recipe is to have all the cheeses prepared and measured before starting the sauce. The process went pretty fast, and I was trying to grate cheese while I was also supposed to be stirring the sauce (and the noodles). It all turned out just fine, but it was a little bit of chaos for a while there.
And if I made this again, I probably wouldn’t bake it and just mix the sauce into the noodles on the stovetop (eliminating the breadcrumbs). I’d even be willing to add in the bacon this way. But the reason for this is simply for the leftovers. This made a lot of food (and we only had two of us eating this night), so there was a lot leftover. I had some that didn’t fit into my pan when I baked it, so I just put it in the fridge straight from the stove. And when we reheated the leftover mac and cheese, the food that wasn’t baked was more moist, while the baked one dried out more.
I don’t regret for a minute changing out the chicken; it turned out perfect. But make sure your chicken is cooked and chopped/shredded before you start the rest of the recipe. I cooked mine the day before.
Like the others though, this recipe was simple, easy, and delicious.
Final Thoughts
While having premade meal plans and shopping lists is definitely a time saver, I had some other unexpected benefits this week while trying out these recipes.
I’ve had the belief for awhile now that I’m too busy to try new recipes or even to make dinner on most nights. But these were basically quick and easy, and I felt like it was such an efficient use of time to have everything all planned instead of trying to make up something on the spot.
And having the meals planned out, and knowing I had all the ingredients that I needed to make them, made dinner really easy. The decision was done. I didn’t need to try and decide what we would have (although I did pick each night from the planned recipes). And even though most of these were new to me, they used ingredients that I was familiar with which made it seem like I was making recipes I had already made. I don’t know how to describe it other than they just felt familiar.
I expected to like the recipes in the Passionate Penny Pincher Budget Menu Plan. I mean, they just sounded amazing to start. But the mental shifts I had around feeling like I could make dinner (and not just the same 5 things we always eat) almost every night, was more of a surprise. I expected the whole thing to feel like a chore, something I had to complete. But I found myself looking forward to dinner each night because I knew everything was prepped and ready.
You can find the Budget Menu Plans here, or check out this link to see all the menu plans that Passionate Penny Pincher has available.
