I was a stay at home mom for 9 years and loved being able to be home so I could make my family "real" food. But I remember that when you have little ones, things don't aways go as planned. So I always had a rescue meal, something easy and mindless that I could throw together so if one of the kids was sick or a trip to the museum ran long, I could still get dinner on the table. The kids loved the rescue meals since they were kid friendly fare...hot dogs and canned corn, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, and tacos. Maximum time for the rescue meal should be 20 minutes start to table.
The biggest thing I learned is to plan what you want to eat. Other people on the forum have mentioned Flylady and she definately taught me to plan out my meals so I was never tempted to say, "Oops, forgot to take something out of the freezer...guess we have to go out tonight." Each week I would look at my schedule and plan longer meals for days I would be home, and shorter ones for when we had afternoon playdates. The rescue meal for the week was also put on the dining schedule. I only worried about dinners, breakfast and lunches weren't a problem for me. But you may need to plan those out as well.
You can freeze almost anything for a couple months. Past that point it starts getting freezer burned. I freeze batches of homemade cookies, speghetti sauce without meat, and soups. I few of my favorite casseroles freeze well, but I didn't like buying the disposable pans and didn't have enough 13x9s to be freezing them. Canning jars are great for the sauces and soups, and Ziploc freezer bags work okay too, as long as it's only a month or so.
As far as saving money goes...the more you do yourself, the less you spend on food. I still manage to get three meals out of a roasted chicken. First night we eat the breasts with a couple of side dishes, second night I pick most of the meat off the bone for chicken tacos, white chicken chili with cornbread, pad thai, or some other recipe. The third night we have soup and fresh baked bread. I would love to be able to just buy chicken breasts, but it just doesn't fit in our budget. I used to get four meals out of one chicken, but now my 9 year old has decided to get in touch with his carnivorous side so he eats more meat.
If you have good side dishes, you can cut back on how much meat you need on the table.
If you want recipes for homemade and semi-homemade dinners...let me know. I have a ton of them.
M.