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Cheap and easy ideas you can make at home:

1. Ramen Noodles: If you can boil water, you can make this. It costs on average $0.25 to $0.50 a pack or even less if you buy in bulk. Pretty much everyone in your family is guarenteed to have a flavor they like and it only takes about 5-10 minutes to make. You can add chicken and veggies for a complete dinner or just the noodles for a side or for lunch. I personally reccomend the Oriental flavor with a little soy sauce.

2. Mac and Cheese: A great side to any meal or a meal in itself. If you bargain hunt this costs about the same as ramen noodles. This is easy to make on the stove or with some brands you can even use the microwave. It takes about 10 minutes (this includes serving and setting the table) and pretty much every child on the face of the Earth loves it.

3. Chicken and mash potatoes: This is harder and more expensive than Mac and Cheese or Ramen noodles, but it provides more nutrition. All you need is some frozen chicken (very cheap if you buy in bulk) and instant mash potatoes. The instructions depend on the brand, but normally it takes about twenty minutes total. All you have to do if carefully follow instructions and you'll have a great meal.

Take out options:

1. Pizza: 99% of kids will love it. At a local chain a pizza large enough to feed three people should cost about $7. Don't go for the big chains, they cost a lot more and you have to wait longer. Even if your kids prefer Pizza Hut, as long as it's pizza they won't be picky. Get vegtable topings instead of peperoni or extra cheese to make it healthier. You can save money by picking it up on your way home from work or splurge and have it delivered.

2. Fried Chicken: Great for everyone. I was a weirdo who didn't like fried chicken as a kid, but most kids do. This costs about the same as pizza, but it's healthier and usually comes with veggies and mashed potatoes. At a place like KFC you can get it through the drive through so it's very quick.

3. Chinese: Easy and conveniant. Chinese food is cheap and easy (you can pick it up on your way home from work, or most places deliver). Just remember to get something your kids like because anything too unusual they might not want to eat.

To drink: Serve bottled water with dinner. It's healthier than tap water or soda and is pretty cheap if you buy in bulk.

Don't:

1. Get fast food: It's very unhealthy and though it seems cheap it can actually add up to a lot of money.

2. Spend too much: To a ten-year-old, that fifty-cent Mac and Cheese is just as good as that sixteen dollar pasta. Only get something expensive when you or your spouse want it, don't waste it if the kids don't want it.

Now I will describe some dishes that require a bit of cooking, but it's SO SIMPLE that there is truly no brain science involved. As long as you watch your food as it is being cooked, you can learn from seeing and occassionally taste-testing the food as to knowing when it is done. As long as you have a stove, your food options are greater, and so is your potential for saving more grocery money.

- you can buy dry bags of rice, to serve as a side dish. or you could buy a fancy rice meal box like "rice a roni". Typically, you boil the crap out of rice. if it is a meal box, you just follow the instructions on the back.

- beans and rice is a very simple meal, but it's also good for you. I would recommend beans in a can because they are already softened well (sometimes it is very stubborn and tricky to properly soften dry beans in a bag). you can just heat the beans up and pile them on top of the rice. many people all over the world eat like this too.

*if you still want to buy a bag of dry beans, you can still work with them. take the beans you will use on a dish, and soak them in plain water several inches over the beans for several hours. Do NOT salt them up because it will prevent the beans from softening. The water does two things- it cleans the excess dirt from the beans, and it also helps them to swell and soften.

* many of the dry box packages have very simple instructions on the back of the food product. They may ask you to provide butter, vegetable oil, milk, mayonaise, water, or other few wet ingredients in to the mix.

- hamburger helpers and their other meat helpers are safe bets for the beginning chef. Tuna helper is by far the easiest of them. You just take one can of tuna and throw it in the mix, since it is pre-cooked. With hamburger helper, you have to have 1 lb of ground beef, which we will talk about now. However, whatever meat you have for the helper box meals, you just throw it in the mix.

- hamburger beef is usually a cheap, indispensible meat product to use in dishes. If you do not like shaping the meat into patties or meatballs, all you have to do is take the thawed meat and put it on the heated pan, and then use your utensil to crumble, twirl, and fiddle with the ground beef until you see it has browned to a nice caramel color. Once it is brown, it is well done meat so you can drain the fat/liquid now. Some people like stretching their meat supplies out by using bread crumbs, or other things to make it "feel" like there is more meat there.

- Pasta is another very simple thing to do. All you have to do is fill a pot with enough water to cover your pasta contents. Let the water come to a boil, then add the pasta in. Then you lower the heat to say, medium level, and then you take approximately 10-13 minutes to cook the pasta. You will see when the pasta is cooked because the white color will disapear, it will begin to look translucent, and you can also take a small bite of the pasta to feel when its consistancy is just right- not hard at all, but not soggy either. After it is done, you drain the pasta from the water. You may add a tiny drip of olive oil or butter to mix in the finished noodles, or just run cold water over the noodles to prevent them from sticking to each other.

- spaghetti is SUCH an easy dish to make, it is almost insane. All it is is cooked pasta, a jar of tomato-based pasta sauce, and usually a meat-product. You can used ground hamburger, ground turkey, or even a cup of ground veggie crumbles. The veggie crumbles can be found in the frozen foods section and it is already pre-cooked, and it is a vegetarian-friendly alternative to beef. You just need to mix the jar of sauce with the cooked meat, have that heated, then add to the finished noodles.

* some people are also creative with spaghetti dishes. They add shredded carrots, mushrooms, green peppers, and other crunchy veggies to add bulk, volume, and pleasent crunch to their dish.

- other pasta products, like tortilini and ravioli, are basically the same process that you'd exercise with spaghetti. You can choose whether to add meat or not too.

* homemade soups are a real treat. You can have real fun making a big pot of soup.

- for veggie soup: one regular sized can of diced tomatoes, and one regular or even a big jar of tomato paste add together. Then you can add ANY vegetable that you want. The more vegetables you throw in, the more fun the soup is. frozen bags of mixed vegetables provide a nice simple variety for a decent price. add at least a cup of water because as the soup heats up, the liquids tend to evaporate. You can look around on the internet for recipes on veggie soup that recommend certain spices to throw in, and maybe a little tablespoon of vegetable oil. Set the pot on low heat, cover it, and let it cook for a few hours for the flavors to merge.

* my caution on potatoes in soups: they tend not to do well if you freeze them. so if you want potatoes in your soup, plan to eat the soup fresh and within 3 days-1 week of it being cooked.

- chili soup is also fun. Infact, there are some cans or dry packets that contain the seasonings for a spicy chili soup. You add the seasonings in, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of pinto or kidney beans, and a cup of a meat (ground beef or the veggie crumbles do fine). you heat the contents until it's hot.

- vegetable options. instead of raw veggies, there are many ways to cooking them. a bowl of water filled with the veggies in the microwave for 3-5 minutes high is one way. you can also boil the veggies on the stove. the best way to cook veggies however is to steam them. purchase a steaming gadget, or get one of those pots designed for steaming veggies so you can cook that on the stove. Steaming preserves their firmness, their taste, and most importantly, their nutrients. Veggies are commonly great ways to use as a side dish to complement the main one. Some people like putting seasonings, or cheese, or sauces on their veggies, but they are also PERFECTLY fine eating just plain.

- wanna eat a hot sandwich? a grilled cheese sandwich is an easy option. just put the pan heated on medium, slab butter on the outsides of the bread, and then wedge your cheese in the middle of the sandwich. check on the sandwich as it is being cooked, and flip to the other side when you see a nice, golden brown crust.

- eggs are so cheap, easy, and fun. now that you can use a stove, you have many options for eggs. the easiest way is to scramble them. you can take 1-2 eggs from the fridge, crack them into a bowl, and whisk them crazily with a fork so that those two eggs turn into whipped up yellow goo. some people like adding a little bit of milk, and even a little bit of melted cheese to whisk some more with. put it on a pan that is on medium heat. it will begin to cook immediately after it is thrown in, so actively watch and stir your egg mixture until it is firm enough to enjoy.

- the whisked eggs sans the cheese also makes a good dipping batter for those who love french toast. dip the bread in the egg batter, plop it on the same pan hooked up medium heat. look until you see there is a nice golden brown texture to the cooked part, then flip the bread. after both sides are toasted to a golden brown texture, you plop it on the plate and you can add maple syrup, or powdered sugar and/or a little bit of cinnamin spice.

*eggs are an excellent food to help stretch out a meal, and they are full of protein. They can be used as ingredients in several dishes, and are a commonly enjoyed breakfast item.

* I've mentioned tuna before here. Any dish that wants tuna as an ingredient should be simpler because the tuna in a can is pre-cooked. it is cheap, and it provides a nice variety to your meals.

If any of you are confused and lost after reading this, please respond here and I will try to help you as much as I can.

Wow, I didn't even think of those ideas. And here's a great one for breakfast:

Cereal with fruit already in it. It takes just as much time as regular cereal, but you get more out of it.

- Salad's are already up there on the list. xd For the low-fat salad options, a fat free dressing, a vinegerette dressing, or something as plain as lemon juice or other citrus juice may be used.

- frozen, pre-cooked meat is as well listed up there, but it is a costly option as opposed to cooking it yourself.

For the rest of you out there, yes, chicken actually comes in a can too. You can dump it in a chicken helper meal, or you can take a food processor and puree the chicken, along with mayonaise or even some dill relish for a chicken salad sandwich.

At your local grocery store, check out the same area that the canned tuna is in so you also know there are canned seafood options- canned salmon, smoked oysters, etc.

The "flavored tunas" in the pouches are a delicious option for new flavors, but it's a little more costly than your plain ones in water.

*Ahem* a few tips given by a good friend of mine.

- Stock up on stocks, chicken, vegetable, whichever. These can be easily used to add flavour to salads, pastas or other dishes. If you have any dry noodles, you could attempt to flavour them yourself with the stocks and make a subsitute ramen, probably containing less sodium and such.

- Never doubt the power of presentation: if something looks nice, it will taste better. Try making patterns with your food.

- Lots of tasty and comparably cheap puddings are simple to make. Cookies can be made in about half an hour, and always make people feel better. Try melting chocolate in the microwave (about twenty seconds at 750w), and then pouring it over chopped fruit.

- Stock up on fruit, nuts and cheese. These can be easily made into a snack, and go together oh so well.

A little addin for the instant mashed potatoes - THEY DON'T TASTE GOOD. I really, REALLY hate most kinds of instant mashed potatoes as they are very rough and some types have a sandy texture. Blech.

If someone hasn't said this already, those frozen juice mixes are good. Most supermarkets, at least where I live, put them on sale LOTS, meaning you can buy four or five for maybe $6 or 7, or possibly $4-5 if you take the 'no-name' brand. It's much cheaper than normal juice and keeps for about a year in the fridge, but me and mom usually go through five of the things in about a month. Very good alternative to normal juice, but it doesn't have the same nutrients.

Good catch. I didn't even see that the first time I read it. Bottled water is not only an unnecessary expense, but it wastes packaging, and the unnecessary shipment of it across the country or even world pollutes the environment. I don't have very much good to say about bottled water.

If you don't trust your tap water, get a filter.

For the water cooler, don't buy two bottles then just go get them refilled every time. You can recycle them for one, and that helps a lot on the hefty deposit because when you go to get new ones, you just return the old ones(most places that sell them should accept them for return as most bottle depots do not, I know for a fact that Costco accepts them) and get the deposit back. The deposit for those here is a hefty $10, so yeah ><