Thank you so much for the advice. I am very overwhelmed. I am going to try and take it slow. I know has a lot to do with time. I am a full time student and I have a full time job and sometimes getting hot pockets, lunchable and pizza is easy cause I have a busy day. I will try my very best cause I really need to save money. Thank you again
Don't try to drop from $300 to $150 at once...you'll be setting yourself up to fail. Try to take 10% off for a month and see how you do.
Rethink "easy." I TOTALLY understand needing to have easy dinners when you have about 5 minutes to pull it together. The good news is that it's summer and summer cuisine can be served cold or can be very produce-focused. Precooking bacon slices and pre-poaching chicken open up a world of possibilities for not much money (BLTs, Club Sandwiches, Caesar Salads, Sesame Noodles with Chicken, Chicken Salad Sandwiches, Chicken Quesadillas, Stuffed Baked Potatoes, etc), especially if you buy those products on sale and freeze them til you need them. Plan fresh sides with the on sale produce your kids eat (ie - don't buy veg they hate just b/c they are cheap) - nothing faster than rinsing strawberries/blueberries/grapes/peaches/pears and serving as is. And for produce that needs prep, like cutting a watermelon or pineapple, chop it all at once and plan for 2-3 meals with it. But keep 1-2 of your "easy must haves" b/c if you cut it all out, you'll be eating out and then you'll have saved $5 and spent $40...
Rethink your "must haves". If you need lunchables, see if you can buy a block of cheese, a block of precooked ham or pepperoni, and a packet of crackers and make them up yourself. It takes about 15 minutes of chopping and ziplocking once to make enough for 8 lunches...
Kids eat all day - have something they like that is healthy-ish and let them snack on it at will...right now, I keep 9lbs of apples in the house each week for anytime snacking and they disappear. On top of the weekly apples, I also do a daily snack like a bag of popcorn, a lb of baby carrots and ranch, a box of popsicles (and I've made homemade popsicles with leftover watermelon and sugar), 2 dozen homemade oatmeal raisin cookies, a tray of homemade rice krispie treats with peanut butter mixed in, a tray of Jello Jigglers, a batch of fruit muffins, etc...I'm sure the kids being around always hungry and looking for snacks doesn't help the budget, so let them know what the snack of the day/week is that they can have at will. And that way they aren't eating all the food in the house.