Your Frugal Friend--Your Frugal Tips

We like to eat out occasionally, but with some family economics creeping in (kid needs braces), we're cutting back on some things. One of them is the eating out. Instead of once a week, I am trying to cut it to once a month. I just find that sometimes it feels so much easier to go grab something from some local restaurant and not have cooking dishes to clean up. We also suffer from the "What's for dinner" syndrome, where I come home and Mr. Wild says, "What do you want tonight?" One of the ways I try to alleviate this is to come up with 4-5 meals that we can buy groceries for and then Mr. Wild can pick one for that night and work on it. It is much better for my overtaxed brain after work, than trying to think about what food to make right when I arrive back from work. We only do 4-5, because we want to leave a night or two to allow for a leftover meal. No reason for all that food to go to waste if there's extra.

Any of you have suggestions for quick and tasty, kid and adult friendly meals that can make little mess (that may be a more difficult challenge) and be done quickly? If you have recipes for one dish meals, or the like, please leave them in the comments section. We will all appreciate it! I'll do a follow up post and get you all to vote for your top three-five, maybe post a five day planner of our favorites.

Have at it folks!