For us August brings the beginning of the school year (eep!). Kid #3 is starting kindergarten this month. This plan is a quickie, lots of our dinners are whatever I bought from a stand on the side of the road. This month brings a bunch of holidays, including National Ice Cream Sandwich Day (I’m an addict, Aug 2), Chinese Valentine’s Day/Daughter’s Day (7th day of 7th Lunar Month Aug 2), National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (Aug 4), Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day (Aug 8), Book Lover’s Day (Aug 9th), National Thriftshop Day (Aug 17), and National Trail Mix Day (Aug 31st). I may have gotten excited about the holidays.

Ideas and resources for menu planning in August, many seasonal spring and summer and real food recipes. Very simple ingredients, from scratch. As always, these are all frugal recipes intended for a tight budget. Real food/from scratch/traditional diet/nutrient dense/whole food/blah blah blah. My monthly meal plans use an alternative meal planning method, recipes organized into tiers based on how perishable the ingredients are, not sorted into particular days.

*Attention real food purists/whole foodies – the recipes I link/pin are all from scratch, but some of them you may have to make substitutions or modifications. For example, I link recipes that have sugar, but you can substitute whatever your favorite sweetener is.

*Don’t forget to read about how I meal plan at Frugal, Flexible Monthly Menu Planning!*