5 Meals for $5 by Jaci Rae is a very catchy title for a book on how to save money and still eat plentiful meals. Written by the “Queen of More Green”-the premise is to show all of us how to feed our family and/or friends for a very little amount of cash-the subtitle of the book is “You Don’t Need to be Wealthy to Eat Healthy”.

Now I have to say, I’m a VERY good shopper. I’m a budget stretcher from way back, so quite a bit of this edition are steps I’ve been doing for as long as I’ve had a driver’s license and was handed the job of shopping by my mother-who hates to go into a grocery store.

I am a coupon collector; I never go into a market without them and having combed the ads to see what’s on sale to take the most advantage of what I’ve got in my box of clippings. I also frequent Costco and use the entertainment book to save money on lots of necessary items of all kinds. I use them for movies, dinners out, gifts, haircuts, dry-cleaning (on the rare occasions that I need one) and a host of other things. But I wanted to see if Jaci Rae could teach me anything new.

Most of the book consists of recipes. I love that Rae has included pricing for each ingredient to show how she came up with the total and portions.It’s great that she has classified all the recipes into cuisines. They seem to be plentiful, somewhat balanced and varied for all kinds of diets, allergic restrictions and tastes. None of the recipes are difficult to prepare and are very time conscious-in other words, great for today’s busy, over-worked family- dubbed cooks.

All in all though, Rae’s book is a terrific book for families who need to keep to a very lean budget. She gives great tips to stretch a dollar-and again, not just on food. Her recipes are kid and picky- eater friendly-which is another way to stretch a budget. After all, if no one wants to eat the food-it doesn’t matter how much you save.