Customer Reviews

5 Meals for $5 - How to Feed 5 People 5 Meals for $5.00 - $8.00 or Less! You Don't Need to Be Wealthy To Eat Healthy

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am the oldest of nine children and my single mom works two jobs and she relies on me to provide the meals for my younger siblings. Bought the book to help her budget and help me menu plan. Searched the internet to find something and came across this.

Followed the recipes and the money saving tips and they work and my brothers and sisters and my mom love the food. It's been a big help in our budgetary concerns and a big drop in the food budget all together.

The recipes are easy to follow.

This is a great book! The recipes are easy to prepare and I love the fact that Jaci Rae put with many of the main dishes the price of salad and the dressing (all made by yourself, which is really cool) with the meals.

The meals that my family and I have tried thus far are fresh and delicious. There are nearly 300 recipes (I am very detail) and there are many chapters in addition to the recipes that are teaching my family and I how to save money and get out of debt.

My husband I really love the chapter on free date nights and fun things to do. It is the best cookbook I have ever owned. The truth be told, there are approximately 40 recipes that include rice, potatoes and pasta, but I love rice and pasta. But Jaci recommends brown rice, not white as the reviewer Kerry suggested. Actually, Jaci gives you a choice.

But there are no recipes that require salt, although most recipes have it in the recipe ingredients that you add to the meal just like the one listed on this page. But if you cannot take salt, do not like it or just cannot have it, omit the salt. Easy as that.

Even for the Chicken Divan, which is a favorite of my family I have always had to use canned cream of mushroom soup and canned cream of celery soup. It never occurred to me to make fresh. But Jaci Rae includes those recipes on making all the cream soups yourself from scratch.

The meals really do feed my entire family regular portions, a few of the meals like the Chicken Divan are very large and actually, we have many leftovers with that meal. But I love the balance Jaci put into the meals as well.

I also love the weights and measures chart and the conversion chart. My mom does as well. She found a chart in there she has never been able to find.

The truth be told. This is an incredibly well rounded and great book!

This is a great book! I am single, but it works for me. Just cook, freeze and microwave when I want. It also gave me the information on when my supermarket has it's sale dates, coupon rules and even when my supermarket delivers it's fresh fruits and vegetables.

I like the plan this author gives in 5 Meals for $5 also. It's how to get out of debt and reduce your spending and increase your savings and she even has a section for date nights making them free. Great book. Great information and certainly the most thorough cookbook I have ever owned. Chinese, Mexican, Italian, American, goodies, it has it all! Wonderful!

Addition - I just finished reading the entire book and I have used several of the recipes, which are delicious, but Jaci has put information in there that has already become a useful fun thing for me, getting perfect apples every time and I have gotten a perfect apple, juicy and crunch every time. She taught me how to get the perfect apple. I wonder why they don't teach us these things, but I am sure glad she has.

She also taught me how to get perfect fruit and how to take back items I don't like to the store and always get my money back or an exchange. I didn't know how to do that before her. Also, I did what she said to save money and I just checked the receipts and I have saved $53.82 so far. That means I have already saved money past the price of the book. If you subtract the price I paid for the book and shipping, I have saved $34.57 just so far. So thank you Jaci.

Great advice in this book. Helps me keep on track with my money and I really have saved a lot of money using the advice in this book on how to shop, when to shop. I even went to Jaci Rae's personal stuff and found out how to get free gas, so the book was great and the advice on Jaci Rae's was great too. Since I'm a single guy this helps me a lot with budgeting, especially now that food prices are so high. Even with high prices, I spent less money than Jaci Rae listed with her advice. Jaci Rae even listed stores that were in my city in the book and I liked that.

Practical guide to keeping some of my hard earned money. This book is loaded with easy to use tips and tricks to save money while shopping at the grocery store. Recipes are both tasty and healthy. Thanks 5 for 5.

My hats off to Jaci Rae. I was very impressed with the book. At first I was skeptical because I have purchased books that say they save you money, however, this one really does.

I went with my spouse, using the information in the book and coupons in hands with the sales and walked out with an entire meal of taco's and salad to feed both of us. The cost was $2.56 and she had three tacos, I had two and we had a lot of left over salad.

I do agree with Buddy that you could not purchase a single clove of garlic (although you can purchase a single carrot).

This book clearly gives the entire price of the product (meaning the entire bunch of garlic as well as a pound of carrots) in the shopping list, along with the unit price so that you can see where the cost for the recipes comes from.

The book is not meant that you go to the store every single day, for every single meal to buy the food for your one meal and then go back to buy another meal as Buddy suggests. That's certainly a waste of time and gas.

The book gives a shopping list that matches the recipes and it also states that when you use the coupon method with the sales that happen you can feed five people (although I would have to say more in the recipe we just tried with our boys), and Jaci has nicely provided a detailed list of stores around the country, when their sale times are, when their fresh goods come in and how to use their double triple coupon days, you can absolutely use this book and make meals.

Jaci didn't say that an entire clove of garlic would cost pennies nor did she say anywhere that you should try to purchase that way, but in bulk.

On those points I utterly disagree with Buddy. Jaci clearly states in the shopping list exactly how much the entire item costs and then breaks down the price into unit prices so that you can understand how much each recipe costs when you use that certain item.

I would give this book 10 stars, because it packs a powerful punch and provides exactly what I needed for my family of four.

This book has excellent food. Fresh and tasty is what we describe it. Loved the fact that the food is easy and mostly quick to make even thought it's all fresh except the handful of helping hands meals, which you make but with help. The shopping is made easy with a shopping guide and stores around the US. Her site has a much more extensive listing though I just checked it out. This is a must have book and the title tells it all. You don't have to be wealthy as the author has proven in order to eat healthy and eating healthy is what my family is about.

Rocks Platinum!!

This book rocks a high note of platinum with my friends and me! Great tasting meals, with lots of leftovers. Great advice on debt and how to rid myself of it. My Mom loves the weights and measures chart and I love the conversion chart (never was good at the math, but now I don't have too be anymore!)

This book really does deliver. It has great recipes, fun girls night out or dates with my dude for free advice (it's like an entire chapter of that information) and 5 Meals gave me all the advice I need on how to make these recipes not only work for me, but save a lot of money because of the information this author gives on how to get the best deals at the grocery stores.

Rocks a high note man. You cannot miss with this one!

I think this book is great. It has wonderful recipes that are healthy and in the correct portion sizes. The Asian cuisines are absolutely wonderful and are some of the few recipes that have the rice listed as part of the recipe.

I have a family of five, and the recipes are all well received and feed my family nicely. The Asian society has the lowest rate of heart disease. The AMA suggests that rice is a big part of the reason they have a low rate of heart disease.

The book is an excellent book, with many of resources in addition to the recipes, which I was rather surprised by. It appears this author really does know how to save money, which is refreshing.

Usually when I purchase a money saving book on how to live frugally and save money, the authors of those books do not give real life examples. However, this author, Jaci Rae, does give real life examples and great advice.

The recipes, as I stated, are not only delicious, but they are healthy and feed more than the allotted amount and the advice in the book about debt and how to get rid of the debt load as well as the money saving advice is a great piece of education.

This is on my list for great Christmas Books to give for Christmas and for birthdays. My son is going away to college and I just purchased another book for him to take with him. He has been using the recipes and loves them.

I do believe that my favorite recipe listed in this book is the homemade turkey Thanksgiving Dinner recipe or perhaps the Vegetable Chow Mien (for those people who are Vegan or Vegetarians, this author has included many recipes that are for this category of family or single person or the author has suggested substitutions. Really, quite unique for a cookbook.)

The Lentil Soup is incredible too and my husband loves the Oyster Chowder recipe (I did not know I could make this from scratch, but it can be done and it is healthy as well as delicious.)

My children's' favorite recipes (they range in age from 10 - 18) so far are the Citrus Chicken recipe and the Mexican Chicken Enchilada Lasagna or for desert the Chocolate Chip Popcorn or the homemade Chocolate Angel Food Cake.

This book is definitely a cookbook that will be in my kitchen for some time to come.

Incredible!

Why hasn't someone done this before? Delicious menu for the pallet challenged such as me. Great ideas in this book and I was able to take the information Jaci gave to the grocery store and actually use it, even without coupons (because I left mine at home and with gas at the price it is.)

I did not want to waste the money as Jaci also recommends in the book. I am single, but I am freezing the leftovers and they make wonderful lunch meals.

Thank you Jaci! It's about time!