You did pretty great! I lived off Family Dollar for about a year in college. Trying to eat healthy was really hard! Especially since I have allergies, and their freezer section was always spoiled (YUCK!) My tips would be... 1. Cans are your friends! Canned fruits and veggies are cheaper than almost any other kind! And canned fruit tastes really good tbh. Canned fruit is better bang for your buck than fruit cups in most cases as well. Canned veggies cook quickly and can even be cooked in the microwave. Fav canned fruits: pears, pineapple. Fav canned veg: corn!! Green beans and peas are good too, but corn is almost indistinguishable from fresh/frozen to canned. 2. Be smart about protein! Protein can be really difficult in a dollar store. Best bang for your buck is jars of peanuts! Unsalted is even cheaper, and you can roast it later. Close second is beans/lentils/chickpeas! Some sell dry beans, but I didn't know how to cook those and got canned ones. Peanut butter comes up next. Then comes nut mixes and trail mixes. Then any meats in the fridges if you have them. And finally, cured meats like beef jerky. Mine never had eggs, but those looked like a great deal :) I started with a protein and worked out from there. 3. Carbs are your filler! Put a serving of peanut butter down, and fill the rest of your plate with crackers! Grab a can of beans, and make as much rice as you can to go with it. The more carbs in your dish, the longer you can stretch it. Carbs are cheap. I'm allergic to wheat, so bread wasn't an option for me. I had rice, tortilla chips, oats, or potato chips with almost every meal. I did order gluten free carbs when I could and made my own hard tack and pizza crusts (easiest to make gf recipes) 4. Multi-use seasonings! Salt, pepper, adobo, onion, and garlic are all you need. For sweet stuff, sugar and cinnamon. Now, some cheap recipes that I used a lot for anyone struggling :) Stretch-It Chili - 1 can of chili (with beans for more protein) - 1 can of veggies for xtra stretching and health (I preferred green beans) Put the chili and veggies in a pot and warm them up. Then add your carb... You could either - pour chili over pasta or - dip tortilla chips in chili mixture Enchilada Pot - 1 can enchilada sauce (2 cans if you want it saucy) - 1 box instant rice (regular rice is cheaper, but I didn't know how to cook it) - 1 can beans - cans of veggies (corn works best) - Optional: chicken Boil the rice, then just dump everything else in! You can eat it alone, or you can dip tortilla chips in it to stretch it even farther Poor Man's Thai Rice - rice (preferably jasmine rice, but any white rice works) - 1 can of sweetened condensed milk - canned fruit (mangos if you can find it, but I usually had to use peaches) Make the rice as normal. Then, use the condensed milk as a sauce and top with the fruit. It's based on a thai dessert. Not great health-wise, but tasty, cheap, and easy. Breakfast Bowl When I COULD get eggs, this is a common way I used them. - eggs - 1 can corned beef hash - canned fruit I'd cook the corned beef until it was browned and stopped lookin like dog food, then I'd scramble the eggs directly into the hash. I'd have fruit on the side. Rice Bowls - rice - canned veggies - canned beans - meat if available - eggs if available Make rice as normal and fill most of the bowl with it. Then, fry up the veggies in a pan. (Drain everything except the beans. The bean starch will be like a sauce and make it filling). Top the rice with the stir fry. Top with a fried egg or meat if available. Strangely goes well with apple juice? Not sure why lol

Everytime I see ur budget lunches I was like ooh time for some fun Savings on lunches.. I am sure my mum gonna love this...

Hi Jennifer! Can you create a week of lunches from a different country (each day somewhere new?). I know this would be a tremendous task but if anyone can do it, you can! 😊

Can we just appreciate how she never wastes food?

When you said PB&R, my brain immediately thought peanut butter and ranch for some reason 😂 I can't tell you how relieved I was when you said raisins lol

Jennifer could you please do more protein packed lunches? Especially ones that would be good if you have sports after school or something.

Wow! No fridge/freezer sections in dollar stores where I'm from. Tip for frozen broccoli: rinse it, lightly coat with oil and seasoning, then roast. Delicious!

Overall, a win. Fruit smoothie looked great! And the corn dog muffins, yum. Everybody has condiments at home, and salt & pepper so I don't think that counts as cheating. Dollar store broccoli is never good. If they had fajita veggies you could make a veggie omelet and it'd be pretty tasty. If they had ground beef you could use that, peas & carrots and some instant mashed potatoes and make individual cottage pies. Thawed frozen veg needs a lot of help. It's meant to be an ingredient or hot side. Just serving them cold is bound to be a let down. Make soup or throw them in with the mac n cheese to boost nutrition and flavor. Loved the peanut butter raisin roll ups. Very clever when you're working with pantry ingredients and no fresh fruit or veg.

Thank you for making this! I’m a senior in high school and I’ve been watching your videos for quite a while. I’ve been interested in working on my food intake/portion sizes and I frequently shop at Dollar Tree so this was very helpful! This will be a great start for me!

Hi! I'm a 13 year old going into the 8th grade and I don't want my parents to spend a ton of money on school lunches along with school supplies. Thank you so much for these videos! I really appreciate it and I will share these with my parents! Have a fantastic day!

I think I would have used the pizza sauce instead of the pesto on the ravioli. For what it was you did really good!

I think it's ok to go over budget as long as you have an idea in mind like, "let's spend $20 but no more than $30" I just went to the grocery store today and tried to only spend $20 and I was under. I do love your ideas for lunches too and it gives me ideas for my lunches at home. I like to mix things up.

I have to be in the mood for raisins.

Please do an all vegetarian lunch week. It would be cool if the ingredients are easily available too! Love your channel ❤❤

The kids are very lucky to have a mom like you. When I am sad your videos make me happy.

Hi Jeniffer, let me say that I love your parenting style, I have a similar style...And I'm afraid of people say about me as a mom, but after I started watching your videos, I became more comfortable being myself❤

I love the dollar tree. It's good for some things and others not so much. I've never once seen fresh fruit & veggies there, its just not something your see. I think it gets used more with college students & the homeless because of how cheap stuff is.

Second no what can I say your kids are so cute and adorable and you are the best mom I love you The Family Fudge

as a girl who used to be so poor and lived of of dollar store food you won this challenge!

I think a fried rice with the carrots and peas and egg would have been great! I make a sort of thick jelly out craisins. I think raisins would be really good too! I love how cute you make the lunches look!

I feel like that pizza sauce could have gone on the ravioli too since there was extra and the pesto was a flop. Also, maybe salami instead of pepperoni on the pizzas? Yum!

My oldest is about to start kindergarten and I'm so excited to pack his lunch and come up with super cute ideas!! 🤗

I agree please do a protein packed lunch for people who do workouts

I love your lunch videos! I'm an adult and I always pack my lunch for work and a snack. You give me ideas when I feel like I'm stuck in the same lunch loop. I love the family fudge!!!❤️❤️❤️

I'm really curious... I don't have any Dollar Tree here, but budget lunches are always interesting!

I don’t mind having raisins in things every once in a while but I wouldn’t say they’re a fave. Awesome ideas!

Hey Jennifer! I just recently got my braces and there’s certain foods I can’t normally eat (Tortilla chips, whole carrots, etc...) I think it would be really cool if you could do a soft food lunch! As always, I hope you have a great day!

Here in Canada we have Dollaramas instead of Dollar trees but on any that I have seen there isn’t any type of food that is not processed or natural. The things you can actually eat are mostly snacks and sweets and carbonated beverages among water and other types of drinks.

With the Pizza Quesadilla idk if you had any leftover but instead of the pepperoni you could have sliced up some of the Cotto Salami and put that in unless the kids didn't go like it

Those picks are so cute! They remind me of something Moriah Elizabeth would create

Thank you for sharing this budget friendly recipe. Budgeting better with my groceries has been on my mind with the rising prices. This kind of video is very helpful for me and I am sure many other people right now. I try to budget best I can but I know I can always learn. I make cooking videos too so you know I’m making lots of food so every penny I can save on groceries counts. I hope that we can continue to learn from each other. Never stop learning and growing!

I really enjoyed this lunch challenge. Even as a Mom of two teens, and myself who sometimes babysits....its neat to get fun lunch ideas...even us grown ups need something easy and fun for a change. I like the budget friendly ideas. From most challenge food videos I have seen, salt, pepper and condiments are usually stuff we already have, and don't count against the challenge. You did great, thank you for sharing.

Wouldn’t it be so cool if Jenifer made a video where she made her regular weeks worth of lunches but with plant based meat instead or real meat. Then she could see how her kids reacted!

Here in England we have Poundland. We can’t get lots of options. We have crisps (chips), sweets (candy) and chocolate. There are also lots of other things. We can’t get the amount of food you guys get. Love the channel and vid.

Miss seeing the kids reaction and what they are. You haven’t been doing those lately

Omg! I can’t believe you found a Mr & Mrs Caruso’s cream soda! The Caruso’s operated a soda bottling company in my hometown. We drank their soda out of glass bottles after little league baseball games growing up. We’d go to the bottling company and pick out flavors and put them in a wooden crate and return for the deposit money when they were gone. 🥰 The company was called Black Bear Soda. They went out of business a few years back. I’m going to have to check out Dollar Tree now!

Vegetarian lunches! ❤️

I don't know if you have a 99c Only store near you or not; but that might be another option for this kind of challenge. They have fresh fruits and veg at least. I think some lunches were more balanced than others, but you had some really good ideas!

Definitely a WIN WIN Situation! They all looked delicious and easy

I love this so much because usally lunches are expensive but you made this cute but affordable

I loved this video. Staying within the general parameters of your budget goal was just fine and it was definitely realistic for the slight additions. You did great! Keep making these awesome videos. Ya know...I don't always comment, but I love to watch this channel! 😁⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐💝

That is quite impressive! I could never have come up with so many ideas from DT. Most of them looked quite tasty too! Great job!

This was awesome!!! I like that you were willing to go a little over the $20 budget... I’ve gone into Walmart or HEB or Target expecting to spend about $20 and next thing you know I’ve spent well over $100. I really enjoyed seeing what you could do with so little money at the Dollar Tree. Thanks for the video.

Love it!! I will do these! May God Bless you and your family!!!

The peanut butter and raisins roll ups looks so good😍😁❤️

Could you pls make a video of making your kids dream lunches? Btw it is my dream yo be pinned by you or get a shout out! Keep up the great work!

Here's a little tip when you're making the sauce for the mac and cheese put the peas in the carrots and while you're making the sauce and then when you put the noodles in the vegetables are in the mac and cheese instead of soggy and on the side and cold

These videos can be really helpful. I visit my mom every other weekend and this has helped me with meal ideas to cut costs.

my mom is a social worker so i like to make her lunches and im so happy that i so many ideas

I bet the frozen broccoli would have been good in the Mac and cheese. Would have jazzed them both up ☺️

7:49 only the green and purple are different and I can't get over it!

These were great budget meal items. You did a good job! Gives ideas incase times are tough or using up what you have. Thanks for sharing!

Yay I love you and your family jenifer

Do you have Grocery Outlet in your area? They're very budget friendly and have some fresh stuff. What they always have are out of season treats. So you can have Halloween in spring time and Christmas in July!

I can see shopping at Dollar Tree for food is not a bargain. Fun video !

Yay I love you Jenifer and your family

i’m so inspired to make lunch for my sister 💗

This I inspired me to shop at dollar tree morne often for my desired weekly bargains

phew! i am glad the budget was towards food only! when i heard you say everything had to come from the dollar store i was worried that meant all the containers and cute embellishments were included too!

The Raisen PB Roll Up would be great with Apple Slices. 🍎 I understand it wasn't in your budget - dried Fruit would be also be yummy

It would be neat to see you do EVERYTHING from the dollar tree.Use dollar tree food,decorating and lunch boxes!😁

Love the ideas. Hopefully I can remember to try them on my two year old.

Love these quick and easy ideas!!

*possible video idea* I think it’d be cool to see how you store and organize all your supplies for the lunches! 🥰 I’m a new subscriber and I’ve been binge watching all your videos, they’re awesome! ♥️

My mom loves your videos and so do I

This was so good!! Could you do lunches for picky eaters? Ones that aren’t huge fans of raw veggies or meat, because that’s where I am currently with my toddler. 😆 Thank you for sharing so many lunch ideas. Your channel is one of my daughter’s favorites. She has ASD and she really takes an interest in cooking and packing her lunch for kindi. You get her so excited to try new foods, and make her plate look extra fancy. This Easter she received a novelty waffle maker from the Bunny, and now we are working our way through your waffle ideas. ☺️🖤

You always come out with the cutest and most fun looking lunches. I wish you were my mom when I was a little girl.

You did AWESome for what you had to work with, very creative. Thank you for sharing the Challenge. I'm inspired

TFS! Surely need this right now! They all look good! Ill try them ALL🤗

Not gonna lie... My budget is starting to take a drastic turn and I've been trying to find Dollar Tree budgets to help out for groceries, etc. So, this is SUPER EXCITING for me to watch; even though, I don't have kids!

Hi Jennifer thank you for your bunches of lunches series...it really help me to prepare for the next school year, now I have to make my kids a hot lunche everyday.

Ooohhh this is very helpful.. more of these please 🙂

You’d have to spend extra, and it’s not the healthiest per se, but you could get some cheese sauce to add to the frozen broccoli to add some flavor. For the applesauce, you could add cinnamon for flavor.

Nice!! I start my new job this month & I'm really excited to pack lunch & be creative with it 💕 Thank you for sharing

Yumm please make more and more budget lunch videos and congratulations

Super super cool! Really these recipes could work for ANY budget store!

Hi I am the granddaughter that my 👵 told you about I ❤️ your channel so much you should make a bluey lunch with the food picks. Thanks Natti from Iowa.

Lots of cute ideas!

I love ur videos!! So relaxing!! ❤🧡💛💚💙💜

I am early!!! I love your channel so much Jennifer!!!❤️

Love this video 🎥

Great job.. you know you could have taken the raisins out of the trail mix to make your pinwheels and you would’ve had an extra dollar left for something else. You could have made a syrup out of the fruit or used peanut butter for the waffles

def going to try the hot dog muffin one w hebrew national franks and diff cornbread mix

So cute! Very creative!

Thanks for the video. I haven't ever tried to figure out how much we're investing in our lunches, but I'll have to do that.

Oh! Frozen broccoli tastes and looks much better when its been steamed! I've had issues with textures my whole life, and I could never stand the squeaky crunch of fresh broccoli, so we always steam it!

Great job! So cute too!😃

You definitely won because the Dollar Tree does not have the higher end quality of food items!! A few are good, but overall I don’t buy that many food items there.

Always use caution packing peanut butter, even nuts. There may be students who have extremem allergies where just the smell can cause serious reactions. I leanred the hard way with an classmate's onion allergy. I forgot she was that sensitive.

In our family we really love raisins. In german we actually say raisin-picker instead of cherry-picker and my cousins son is the perfect example. We once had a cake with raisins and chocolate chips and he only ate the raisins. Not even the chocolate and gave the rest to his dad.😁

This is great! Aldi challenge should be next!

The peanut butter raisin roll ups are unusual but I think it sounds great! I would definitely eat those. I might have to experiment with sone PB roll up fillings.

Hi love your guys vids

What a great idea! I really enjoy all of your videos, especially the Disney ones, because my kids (mostly grown, with their own kids) are major Disney fanatics. I’d like to know where you found those super cute knives that you use. Thank you!

I think you won that challenge. I love watching all your videos

I love raisins Great video and lunches also Thank you for sharing ☺

Honestly you’re brave I would not be caught buying groceries at any type of dollar store if we’re talking about food food other than that dollar stores are fine the bigger ones have some interesting stuff the dollar tree feeds my cake pan addiction

Jennifer, I absolutely LOVE your videos!

This looks gooddddddd🥲🥲

My grocery store has a store brand of a lot of items that make tasty lunches too! The breakfast for lunch and the corndog muffins are my favorite. ☺️