Meal plans that show their math
What does a week of dinners actually cost?
Less than the guessing suggests. These four plans price every dinner for a family of four from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' average retail prices (September 2026), ingredient by ingredient, with the shopping list added up in the open. The weeks land between $37.93 and $66.54 for seven dinners.
Pick the week that matches your life right now: the tight one, the classic one, the chicken one, or the tired one. Each plan is dinners only, because dinner is where the money leaks.
The Tight Week Meal Plan
$37.93 for seven dinners for four (target $45). Beans, rice, potatoes, eggs and one good chicken. The week to run when money is genuinely tight.
See the plan →Family Classics Meal Plan
$66.54 for seven dinners for four (target $70). Meatloaf, pork chops, mac and cheese, spaghetti with meat sauce. The dinners nobody argues about.
See the plan →Chicken All Week Meal Plan
$50.57 for seven dinners for four (target $55). Two whole chickens and a pack of breasts, stretched across seven different dinners.
See the plan →Slow and Simple Meal Plan
$57.70 for seven dinners for four (target $60). One pot, one pan, low effort: chilis, chowders, bakes and skillets for tired evenings.
See the plan →One Basket, Three Stores
The same seven staples priced at Walmart, Kroger and Target from dated checks: $18.51 to $22.03, and why the answer depends on the week.
See the haul →How these plans are priced
I am Jennifer, and I got tired of meal plans whose budgets only work at one magical store. So these are priced at the federal average: the same Bureau of Labor Statistics series behind our price trackers. Your store will beat some of these prices and miss others; the plan still holds, because the structure (one roast becoming three dinners, beans doing quiet heavy lifting) is what saves the money. Ingredients with no honest national price, like cooking oil and spices, are treated as pantry staples and kept out of the totals, and each plan says so. The full method is on how we check our prices. For breakfasts, lunches and snacks on top of dinner, run your real numbers in the grocery budget calculator.