Budget Friendly Dinner Ideas | Make 5 Weeknight Meals for Under $50 (+ Printable Grocery List)

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Need budget-friendly dinner ideas? Try these budget-friendly meals plus our free printable meal plan and grocery list!

budget friendly dinner ideas - bowl of sausage potatoes and green beans

Need some easy, budget-friendly dinner and meal ideas?

Well, you’re in luck! I have created a FREE printable meal plan with five easy weeknight family recipe ideas that should cost you just under $50 (possibly less if you already have some of these pantry staples!).

Note that prices may vary slightly by location. The prices of the meals below are adjusted to reflect the amount of the ingredients used. For example, the cost reflects the price of a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper versus the entire container of pepper.

woman holding a meal plan grocery list

I have even created a printable shopping list for you! Or, if you’re like me and love shopping for groceries in your pajamas, you can click through the links on our grocery list and add all of the ingredients to your Walmart Grocery cart for a quick and easy pickup order. Not familiar with Walmart Grocery Pickup? Check out why we love using this grocery pickup service (plus snag a coupon for $10 off).

The five featured meals are a few of my family’s fall favorites and I think your family will enjoy them as well.

budget friendly meals - 4 ingredient chicken pot pie

1. Weeknight Chicken Pot Pie

This yummy 5-ingredient meal onlinees together easily and is the definition of onlinefort food. I have used a rotisserie chicken for convenience in this meal and in the white bean chili featured below. Costing only about $6, this is one of my top budget-friendly dinner ideas.

Cost of entire meal: $6.08 via Walmart.online 

INGREDIENTS:

Recipe Directions


budget friendly dinner ideas - mixing pot of sausage green beans and potatoes

2. Sausage, Green Beans & Potatoes One-Pot Dinner

Get a warm and onlineforting meal on the table in a snap with this yummy sausage and potato dish. It has a buttery broth, and the sausage seasons the potatoes and green beans nicely, for a delicious stew-like meal.

Cost of entire meal: $10.93 via Walmart.online

INGREDIENTS:

Recipe Directions


bowl of White Bean Chicken Chili - free printable meal plan

3. White Bean Chicken Chili

This delicious chili is perfect for cold weather, is full of deep flavor, and can be onlinepiled for an easy one-pot meal or a convenient slow cooker meal.

Cost of entire meal: $13.05 via Walmart.online

INGREDIENTS:

Recipe Directions


budget friendly dinner ideas - homemade sloppy joe sandwich on a plate - free printable meal plan

4. 10-Minute Sloppy Joes

You won’t need a seasoning packet with this yummy and crowd-pleasing homemade Sloppy Joe recipe. It’s a quick and budget-friendly meals that my kids love so much and request often.

Cost of entire meal: $9.81 via Walmart.online

INGREDIENTS:

Recipe Directions


holding mac and cheese with taco meat - budget-friendly meals

5. Taco Mac & Cheese

Take taco night to the next level by incorporating mac and cheese for a cheesy twist on this family fav! The clever onlinebination of taco meat with cheesy noodles is so delicious, and such an easy dish to prepare. It’s one of our favorite budget-friendly dinner ideas. There are never leftovers as everyone cleans their plate!

Cost of meal: $9.39 via Walmart.online 

INGREDIENTS:

Recipe Directions


Subtotal in Groceries from Walmart.online: $49.26 🎉

Want to save even more? Check out the latest Walmart Grocery promo codes!


Need more meal recipes? Check out these 12 genius school lunch ideas!


About the writer:

Lina has a Bachelor's Degree from Northern Arizona University with 11 years of blogging and photography experience having work featured in Today.online, Martha Stewart, Country Living, Fox News, Buzzfeed, and HGTV.


Join The Discussion

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  1. smithjohnson16

    Thank you! Wish you guys did this every week! It would make meal planning so much easier for me haha

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Aw thanks for the feedback!

    • Monique

      Same πŸ™‚

  2. KetaKoya87

    Love this!! Gives us some fresh & simple ideas πŸ’œπŸ’œ

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh good! Glad you like this idea!

  3. KR

    I wish my family would eat stuff like this. They are a super picky bunch.

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Ha darn! I do have one of those picky ones also.

  4. Amy

    I would rather spend a little more for my family to eat healthy. But one of these meals a week would be a treat!

    • Lhampton

      I was wondering the something similar. How low calorie are these? Not! But I would love to see one of these with lower calorie!!!

  5. PrincessMom

    I do an almost identical chicken pot pie recipe all the time in the cooler weather, I just use different seasonings (we like it a little on the garlicky side) and what I do is get a rotisserie chicken for dinner one night, then after dinner I strip off the remaining meat and set it aside to use in the pot pie the next night. πŸ™‚

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Great idea! Love the use of rotisserie chicken πŸ˜€

  6. tracy

    thank you! LOVE this!! more PLEASE!!

    • mela21

      Yes! Agreed. I feel like we eat the same 10 meals on repeat a lot. This is very helpful and budget friendly. Please do more. It would be awesome if there could be a weekly post like this!!β™₯️

      • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

        Thanks for the feedback!

      • Jen S

        Hope this helps – create and print a list of 4 weekly meal plans. Then you’re not making the same thing all the time and you eat takeout less! It is SO helpful when I’m making my shopping list because I can see at a glance what I’m making that week. And it’s helpful to list some easy alternates on the side of the plan, and revise the plan often as tastes change!

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh thanks Tracy! Glad it’s helpful πŸ₯°

  7. Tonya S

    This is great for my college kids. Thank you πŸ’•

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh yes! Great idea 😍

  8. Allison

    We do the kielbasa (smoked sausage) recipe like the one-pan Italian chicken recipeβ€”sausage, potatoes cut up, green beans, all tossed together in the crockpot with Italian seasoning (maybe 2 packets worth? IDK, I make my own) and some butter, and let it cook maybe 6hrs on low.

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Yum! I love meals like that.

  9. Rebecca

    Thank you!! I love this! Now I’m also hungry πŸ˜‚

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Haha same!!

  10. Cheryl

    Great ideas! You make it so easy but I noticed you forgot the buns for the sloppy joe’s on the grocery list.

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      oh thanks for catching that! We’ll get it added

  11. Diane

    My husband I help supply a local food pantry and I am always looking for dinner meals that are $4.00 or less for 4 servings. Your sausage and potato recipe inspired me to try new way to fix a potato and cabbage recipe I have used for years.

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh yay, that is so awesome… Yes I just made that with cabbage last week – so yummy!

  12. Shannon

    What great ideas! I make a similar chicken or turkey pot pie recipe in the cooler weather. When I make one for dinner, I usually double the recipe and put the other in the freezer unbaked for another night. I bet most of these would make great freezer meals too.

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      OhI love this idea! Thanks for sharing!

  13. Nkiser

    Thank you! I needed this!! Please do this more, I love this idea!!!

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh yay and thanks for the feedback!

  14. Cecilia

    Sorry. Most of these are made with crappy ingredients. Need healthier alternatives

    • Kristina

      Can’t you figure out healthier alternatives yourself? 🀯Instead of ground beef use ground turkey, get turkey kielbasa, use swerve brown sugar in place of reg brown sugar, organic Annie’s Mac & cheese, Dave’s Killer Bread hamburger buns.
      It’s not that hard or necessary to leave an ignorant onlinement. 🀨

  15. jens

    I can only get the grocery list to open, seems that both links open grocery list and no meal plan?

    • Stacy F (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Hey, jens! It looks like all the printable links DO take you to a grocery list, and you can go into each recipe link to print the recipe. I’ll make the suggestion about an all-in-one printable.

  16. Brittney

    Love these ideas! Please keep the easy meal ideas onlineing!

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh thanks so much Brittney!

  17. Juliee

    Great post!!! I love this!! I agree, more posts like this would be fantastic. And I loooove Walmart grocery pickup. I’m NEVER doing it the hard way again!

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Thanks Juliee! I do too!

    • Jennifer (Hip Sidekick)

      Awww, you are so welonlinee! We love helping others and it’s so nice to hear this!

  18. Michelle

    I made the Sausage, Green Beans & Potatoes One-Pot Dinner tonight. My husband loved it and thanked me for making a such a great meal. I have the ingredients for the other nights but just had to share my success. I passed the recipe on to my mom for this one and think I will make it anytime I can get fresh green beans. Thank you very much!

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Yay!! I love to hear that as it’s one of my favs too! Thanks Michelle! πŸ’•πŸ‘

  19. Jeni Havill

    The sausage meal and taco mac are AWESOME! I’m definitely going to try the others as well. Thank you!!!!

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Thanks for sharing!

  20. jayray

    We do the potatoes, green beans and sausage onlinebo with everything bagel seasoning, and it is way tasty!

    • Jessica (Hip Sidekick)

      That sounds delicious, jayray! Thanks for sharing your seasoning idea! πŸ€—

    • KatiePig

      That’s such a good idea. I make a dinner where I roast potatoes and sausage in the oven and I never thought of using everything bagel seasoning on it. Thanks for the tip.

      • jayray

        My wife came up with that idea…so credit goes to her!

  21. Stephanie

    When I make chicken pot pie, I bake puff pastry, cut into squares, separately than the filling. When we are ready to eat, just put a piece of puff pastry on the bottom of the bowl, ladle in the filling and then top. This is great for people like myself that does not like a soggy crust. Store baked pastry in a zip lock bag on the counter, until you are ready for leftovers.

    • Lina D (Hip2Save Sidekick)

      Oh yum! Great idea on the pastry, Stephanie!! I have made something similar with chicken pot pie soup.

  22. Chuck Stratton

    I love all of these meals!! and I love the shopping list with links to walmart made my online shopping easy!! Do you have any more???

    • Claudette (Hip Sidekick)

      Thank you, Chuck Stratton! Glad you are loving these meals. You can find all of our recipes here. Hope that’s helpful.

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