Our discussion about how to eat for cheap generated a lot of great tips. Daiko shared a detailed explanation of how he once got by spending just $15/week on food. This is a great real-life example of how it's possible to eat well without breaking the bank. I'm posting it here so that more people will see it.
Although I don't do this now, I once lived on $15 a week for food in the early 1990s. This was helped by the fact that my workplace fed me five meals a week, but I was still carrying the weight of sixteen additional meals (for slightly less than a dollar per meal). This was not easy or comfortable to do — I did it by necessity — but I believe it could still be done for $20/week in most parts of the U.S. Also, while I was satisfied at the time, the fare was probably a bit more spartan than most would willingly eat.
Here is some of what I did:
- Never allow leftovers to go bad. I would cook one or two major meals per week. Sometimes this was a full-sized lasagna, sometimes fish that was on sale, sometimes a big pot of homemade spaghetti sauce or soup with lots of fresh vegetables added. It always included a big salad. This big meal would feed me dinners (and some lunches) for five or six days, and I could not afford to throw any of it away. I would eat leftovers almost every day. Every ounce of it was eaten over the course of the week. (J.D.'s note: Here's an article on how to store your food so that it lasts longer.)
- Supplement with inexpensive foods.
Many will say this is unhealthy. It would have been if it had been all that I ate, but I definitely ate a lot of Ramen and macaroni and cheese. These were bought when on sale: Ramen 7-for-$1 (a deal I've seen as recently as last week) and Mac & Cheese 3-for-$1. I also could get canned tuna 3-for-$1 easily, and once or twice a year as a loss leader for 5-for-$1. Poor man's tuna casserole was a staple and would feed me for two or three meals: one package of mac & cheese with one can tuna mixed in. - Shop in the produce aisle. This sounds counter-intuitive, because everyone “knows” that produce is expensive. But I would shop for the inexpensive produce (which tended to be seasonal). Potatoes, carrots, celery, lettuce, tomatoes (sometimes), oranges (sometimes), cabbage, etc.
.jpg "Apples are sweet and filling")
These all make great food and provide snacks that generally don't spike your blood sugar like factory-made snacks do. Also, this may be obvious, but I would eat fruit in season. For example, apples were plentiful in the fall: I could get a bag for about $1 and would get one or two bags for the week. I would have apples with everything (and for snacks). Again, I could not afford to throw out a single apple, so I ate them all. And at that time of year, making an apple pie was in the budget too! (J.D.'s note: there's an actual fitness regiment based around apples: The 3-Apple-a-Day Plan.) - Never eat out. I couldn't have bought more than four or five meals for my $15 weekly food budget, and that's assuming the cheap breakfast place that had meals for $2.95 a plate. I needed to get at least 16 meals out of that $15, so there was no room for the luxury of eating out.
- Have substantial cereals for breakfast. Oatmeal and Grapenuts were keys to my success. They both filled me up and kept me filled up for much of the day. A single container of oatmeal — not the flavored packages, which are expensive and insubstantial, but the big boxes of loose Old Fashioned Oatmeal — would last slightly longer than a week, even if I ate it every day. At the time this cost about $1.99 per container. You can get it today easily for $2.99 per container.
- Avoid junk food. Not one candy bar, bag of chips, pre-made peanut butter cracker, store-bought cookie, “breakfast bar”, or pack of gum could be afforded. This didn't mean I didn't have snacks: a bag of popcorn cost about $1, and if I had the money available I would get one. Also, I had flour, sugar, water, eggs (usually), oil, and oatmeal, so sometimes I would make oatmeal cookies (with raisins if I was splurging). Sometimes saltines were on sale and I would usually have peanut butter on the shelf, so I could make peanut butter crackers if I wanted.
- Avoid pre-cooked foods. Frozen dinners, deli-made quiche, store-roasted chicken — all of these cost too much per serving. If I wanted quiche, I had to make it from scratch. The ingredients were in my budget and on my shelves. If I wanted chicken, I waited until it was on sale for $0.39/lb and roasted it myself. I then ate it for 6-8 meals before chucking the bones into a pot to make chicken soup and having that for another 6-8 meals.
Buy a basic paperback cookbook. Because I had to make most things from scratch, I bought a paperback copy of what is often called “The Plaid Cookbook”: the Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook. I think it cost $6 at that time, and was not part of my food budget, but it paid itself back many times over. (J.D.'s note: it only costs $8 now.) If I wanted to make lasagna, it told me how. Did I manage to buy a roast beef on sale? The cookbook told me how to avoid ruining it in the oven. Pumpkin pie? apple pie? quiche? roast chicken? all was explained, and often within my budget because I could make it from standard, inexpensive ingredients.- Don't buy beverages. There's a reason Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. have been good investments and consistent earners across the years: they are selling you water. During this tough time I did not buy soda, or water, or coffee, or tea, or any beverage other than milk (which was reserved for my breakfasts, and only on weeks when I was having boxed cereal). I think I bought hot cocoa mix during the winter, and that lasted several weeks. If I needed a sugar drink I used a tablespoon or two of lemon juice — which I had on hand as a cooking supply — and a tablespoon or two of sugar in a tall glass of iced water: instant soft drink for possibly $0.10.
- Special Bonus Tip. I didn't do this at the time, but I now know that using dried milk saves at least $1 per gallon. There are two tricks to using dried milk. First, invest in a glass container. I don't know why, but dried milk tastes terrible when stored in plastic. Second, chill it. If you follow these two suggestions, you'll be able to serve the milk to guests and they will never know. In fact, they will likely think you buy it from a dairy. (And yes, this is something that my family does now. We have been drinking almost exclusively dried milk for the last 7 years.) Dried milk also saves time and gas money: out of milk? No need to run to the convenience store, just mix it up. In this case we save almost $2.00 a gallon because milk is so much more expensive at the convenience store, and since the family drinks about a gallon a day, we save as much as $7-10 per week just by drinking dried milk.
There may have been other tricks that I've forgotten, but with only $15 to spend per week I had to think long and hard about buying anything that cost more than $1. Was it going to sustain me?
It was much harder when I started this radical budget, because I started from nothing. But over time, it got easier, in part because some items lasted longer than a week. For example, pantry items like a bag of sugar, a bag of flour, a bottle of oil, and a bag of brown sugar would generally last longer than a week. 
In the first weeks I had to buy a lot of these things and they used up a lot of my $15, but immediately they became the “money in the bank” that allowed me to buy other staples that might not last that long.
So, yes it is possible to eat without spending a fortune. Again, my food budget was radical by necessity, but the principles would still work today. I think $15/wk might not be enough now, but I think $20/wk would work, and I know that $30/wk would be fairly easy for a single person. For reference: $15/wk per person = $65/month for one and $260/month for a family of four. $30/wk per person = $130/month for one and $520/month for a family of four (which is about what my family spends on food now, and we don't eat anywhere near the way I did back in the '90s).
J.D.'s note: Even if you're unwilling to take all of the steps Daiko did to save money, implementing just a few of them can help you cut your food budget. Also, another cheap beginner's cookbook with simple recipes is Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.
Author: J.D. Roth
In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals.
Excellent article, I cook at home most of the time. You can learn to make really good food for very little money, and then even when you splurge on a fancy dish it’s only as much as cheap fast food.
> Never eat out.
Oh man, once you start making your own food you’ll begrudge any time you have to eat out. A single trip to Subway costs as much as a week’s worth of homemade lunches.
> a bag of popcorn cost about $1, and if I had the money available I would get one
Damn, dude! I’ve got a 30oz container of Orville Reddenbacher in my cabinet. Don’t remember exactly how much it cost, maybe $3 or $4, but I can get 20 or 30 servings out of that thing, works out to around 15 cents a pop.
> Don’t buy beverages.
I work out pretty hard, so I buy Gatorade on sale and then dilute it with water 50/50 which makes it less syrupy and gets the price of an 8oz glass down to about 16 cents. Or get the powdered stuff.
We do some of those. We ate out twice in August, for and average of $14 per meal ($7 each). Chipotle–good Mexican food but not expensive. We didn’t buy beverages one time.
Carry water bottles which we refill from taps, fountains, and water coolers. Our bottles are just plain Dasani, Aquifina, whatever. Makes us less self-conscious and if we accidentally lose one, no biggie.
And the whole big meals. This week it was vegetable lentil soup and chicken caccatori with rice. So far they’ve lasted quite well.
Excellent post.
Beans, brown rice, bananas…also very cheap and nutritious. The biggest commitment is the willingness to cook, which can be a hard hurdle. But if you start small, the rewards are very fulfilling and encouraging. Cheap food that actually tastes good!
I once tried diluting my juice with water, and I realized that I preferred it. It mellows the flavor a bit, reduces your sugar and calorie intake, and reduces your costs dramatically.
Great post!
I agree about diluting!! I make our iced tea every weekend; I make a strong gallon with 3 teabags (down from 4) and I like it really, really weak. I pour about a third of a glass of tea and fill the rest with water. I had a McDonald’s sweet tea the other day (the boss bought it for me; I never would have!!) and it was so strong and sweet it was gross.
I think that you must have gotten a glass from a time that it was no longer to be used. Mcdonalds Ice tea is delicious on a Hot Summer day.
No, man. That stuff is nasty. It’s as thick a syrup and more than once I’ve gotten a cup of it that smelled like fat, people.
Again, we’ve heard a lot of these tips before, but they serve as a great reminder. Especially the tip on not buying water and pop. Goodness! I do buy tea and OJ (it’s like .50 a can) but that’s usually it (ok well I do like liquor). I’m going to try and make my own yogurt and applesauce, hoping that in the long run it will pay off.
I think the biggest thing for me is not buying pre-made meals. Personally I find frozen dinners and canned soup taste awful, but it’s so much healthier and cheaper (usually) to make it yourself.
These are some great tips! For health reasons, we can’t really follow tip #2. I wish we could, because Ramen is some cheap food!
My husband and I have finally abandoned pre-cooked foods, but we still struggle with eating out.
What do you do when you can’t stand the thought of cooking yet another meal? Our solution is to eat out, but that solution costs $$.
what I do when I can is freeze leftovers like chili for those days when I can’t even look at the stove again. usually I will make a side with it but if the main is mostly done and just needs to be warmed cooking seems so much easier
great post! I love the “plaid cookbook” – it was my first all purpose cookbook and I give it as a gift to folks newly living on their own – it’s basic but I’ve never had a recipe fail – and it’s a lot easier to get into for a new cook than my more advanced favorites (cooks illustrated for example).
Holli Jo, one thing we do is make double batches of meatballs to keep in the freezer (easy subs or spaghetti & meatballs), and a package or two of ravioli (usually the veggie or veggie & cheese type). It doesn’t always stop us from eating out, but realistically with a toddler and two working parents eating out on weeknights is actually a bigger hassle than taking something from the freezer.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to eat ramen or boxed mac & cheese. I’d be very concerned for my health if I ate that stuff. I make mac & cheese from scratch, using skim milk, real cheese, flour, butter and whole wheat pasta. I also make my own soup from whole wheat pasta and veggies. Perhaps it doesn’t work out to 12c a serving, but it isn’t exactly so much more that I’d go bust doing it.
I sometimes get produce that’s just about to go bad, like bananas or strawberries which I freeze for smoothies. Most supermarkets will have bags of these on sale from time to time.
Glad you hi-lighted this one. It was a great comment. People think it isn’t possible, however it is possible to eat a varied, healthy diet on a little bit of money. Most people just aren’t willing to make all the sacrifices in order to do that. But if you only have that much money to spend, what choice do you have?
I cook ramen in chicken broth (not the flavor packet), add sauted cabbage, peas, or whatever veggies we have on hand, and a bit of leftover chicken. It’s fabulous and *healthy*
$15/week for food in 1990 would correspond to about $25/week for food today. Still much lower than the USDA thrifty food plan. (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/USDAFoodPlansCostofFood.htm)
I’d revise #2 to read “Supplement with inexpensive foods of high nutritional value”. For example, beans and rice instead of animal protein. Beans in particular are very versatile, nutritious, and filling. Tuna is cheap, but the “Mock Tuna Salad” at allrecipes.com, made with garbanzo beans, is just as tasty and almost free if you start with dried beans. (BTW, if you have internet access you might not need a cookbook.)
Oatmeal for breakfast, mock tuna salad for lunch, and beans and rice for dinner–that can be done for $15 per week even today, with money to spare for produce.
Two additional tips: Plan ahead so you’re never hungry when you’re away from home. And, find an inexpensive way to treat yourself occasionally.
The one tip that really struck a chord with me was one that we don’t always hear too often – don’t let food go to waste. For me, I struggle with that – I’ll buy carrots and potatoes and then let them go bad without eating them all, when I could chop and freeze them.
Thanks for that reminder!
I never comment on blogs but just felt I had to make an exception. :-)
The challenge that most of the western world has is that it is over fed and under nourished and so reading a blog like this is just like a breath of fresh air for me.
As an opening salvo, I would like to suggest that everyone should eat like this, rather than stuffing their faces with empty calories (high fructose corn syrup, for example), loads of fat and far too much salt, never mind the pesticides and antibiotics.
One of the real truths that I have discovered is that I prefer my own cooking and that of my wife over eating out. We only ever eat out to prove that we prefer what we cook at home.;-) Don’t get me wrong, we are not professional cooks nor are we close to being fancy cooks – we just like good food and that is very difficult to find when you eat out or even if you go the relatively inexpensive route and get “take away” food from either restaurants or supermarkets. The other ENORMOUS advantage of eating at home is that you can actually control what you eat and can make sure that there is little or no garbage in your diet.
One of the folks who left comments also mentioned second quality fruit and veggies – what a great idea that is. It always surprises me that people go and buy perfect fruit and veggies just so that they can cut them into pieces because that’s what the recipe needs!! Personally, if I am going to choose to buy perfect, I’d rather do it for eating whole and buy second quality stuff for cutting up, at 1/10 of the price. Even allowing for wastage, the 1/10 becomes 1/4 of the price of the perfect stuff.
I could write a ton more stuff but I will mention just one more thing – chicken. 39c/lb chicken or indeed any mass produced chicken/meat is best avoided. Just think about what corners have to be cut to be able to sell anything that was once breathing for 39c/lb. Consider, if you will, the profit chain of command. The store needs to make a profit, the truckers need to make a profit, the abattoir needs to make a profit, the farmer needs to make a profit and, finally, every person employed in that chain needs to be paid. If you really feel you must eat meat, for your health’s sake buy good meat not junk.
OK guys and gals, going to go rest my brain and fingers. Thanks for getting me to contribute, it’s been a fascinating thing to do. :-)
What the hell is wrong with you people?
“Breaking news! You can eat for only $15 per week! yaddayadda” Yeah? OF COURSE YOU CAN!
“Don’t eat junk food”, “don’t by soda”, etc… isn’t that just common sense? Do you americans really have to read an article to get that?
And what about “don’t throw food away?” Seriously. Most people in the world would never even think of throwing away something that could be eaten.
You’re so spoilt its disgusting.
gwinne, your ramen certainly sounds like an improvement on the original, but the ramen noodles are usually deep-fried and high in fat and calories. If you set this page to show the data for one ramen package (most people eat one package on their own, instead of the 1/2 package that the manufacturers consider a serving), you can see that it’s 371 calories and 13 g of fat, of which 7 g are saturated fat. The good news is you;re probably taking in less sodium in your dish because you don’t use their powdered broth.
You can get egg noodles for about the same price as ramen, I think, so you should still be able to make a cheap, tasty and healthy meal that way.
Stay in school kids.
damnn! i drink 15 dollars worth of coffee in a day
I know this is 5 years late, but…Duh. They DID stay in school. That’s why they are on a budget, because they are now in debt from going to school!
Not every one wants to waste money on fancy coffee! I don’t even drink coffee and I certainly don’t go to Starbucks for ridiculously expensive coffee! Unless you are not very smart…
I’ve heard the “fresh milk” is not even really all whole milk anymore. It’s cut with dried milk anyways. I was shocked to see the price of milk recently. But, foods that are frozen that include milk have not gone up. What’s up with that? Shhh…Don’t tell anyone I said that.
Sorry, but for some of us even supplementing noodles and other grain foods with tuna and similar is not good for us. I can get away with small amounts of rice and it doesn’t seem to hurt me but wheat kicks my ass. I’m not celiac, but researchers are finding that wheat is not half so good for people as we’ve been led to believe. It is not properly prepared most of the time to get rid of the natural chemicals in it that work as antinutrients, depleting B vitamins and the like.
If you’re going to exist on fifteen dollars a week, stick with rice. You can even eat brown rice and get that much more fiber; in fact, I’d recommend it. Stay far, far away from wheat products because you don’t know when your financial situation will be better and you could do permanent damage. Beans aren’t a great idea either, but if you must, cook them properly. There are websites to teach you how.
If you don’t like wheat (or if you can’t eat it), check out your local health food store for other kinds of pasta. Brown rice pasta is healthy and works much like regular pasta, for example.
Yes, Alex, it is sad. And it’s not just Americans, either – here in Australia there are plenty of people that just don’t know how to cook. It’s not a skill that gets passed down any more. Menu planning, bulk staples shopping, basic baking … none of these are considered essential life skills any more.
I don’t see it as sad that cooking is no longer a skill that is passed down anymore than I see it as sad that I don’t need to be able to run a farm, make my own clothes, or wash my own clothes by hand. Now we have farmers, clothiers, and laundromats that satisfy these needs. Its called the division of labor. I hope to be so effective and profitable in my main occupation that I can afford to served the best products by the best providers while not going too far out of my way to do so.
If I make even $10/hour and I spend 7 hours a week cooking, that’s $70. I’d rather do my job and count on the professionals to prepare my meals. Not that a great home cooked meal isn’t an amazing thing, but seeing it as a way to save money means that you need to increase the value of your time substantially. With that being said, I am jealous of those who can cook well because I am TERRIBLE!!!
I’m staying in the college , and dun really have any chance to cook , do you have any tips to share how to save while in college?
It seems reasonable. Of course health is most important things.
Have to agree that one should NEVER eat out. I have a lot of friends in the service industry and it really hurts them to say this but, if you’re trying to save money in the culinary area, don’t even bother following the rules in this guide if you’re going to eat out. You can save HUNDREDS of dollars cooking for yourself. Eat out just once and you’ve totally blown months of scrounging.
Shop at Asian markets for produce and avoid products with corn starch or corn syrup. These two tips alone have saved me hundreds of dollars. I went to an Asian market last week and got two grapefruits, a basket of grapes, a cauliflower, a cucumber and a pint of strawberries for under $4. Even if half of it goes bad before I can eat it, it is still substantial savings. And after I was diagnosed with a corn allergy and had to cut out all corn stuff, my grocery bill literally halved. I had no idea I was spending that much on frozen foods and snack foods until I couldn’t buy them anymore.
I make great soups for my lunches. Half a package of ramen is plenty filling when it’s in a soup. I add vegetables and canned beans. Yum!
this sure brings back memories–potatos were a favorite. many meals could be made. with no car or money for even public transpotation the walk home with my 20lb. bag (cheaper}and my few other bags was a long one.I was pregnant and had a 2yr old at that time and weight of my purchases was always an important factor
Soups are grotesquely overpricewd. You can make your own much better tasting soup for so much less than you’d pay for Campbell’s or Progresso canned soul that it’s ridiculous. Also, cheap tuna + noodles + choose + a little cream of mushroom consomme will yield fantastic tuna noodle casserole that costs only a few pennies per serving but will last for 4 or 5 meals.
In my experinece it’s no longer possile to eat decently for $1 per meal, but $15 to $1.75 per meal (accounting for inflation) is doable. Never ever shop while hungry! Don’t buy desserts or candy. Don’t buy milk or sodas. A lot of delicious meals are very inexpensive — quiche, vegetarian lasagna, chicken a la king, tuna noodle casserole.
Ironically, many of these delicious foods are not only very cheap, you can’t even get them in the frozen foods section anymore. Once upon a time, chicken a la king was an American staple, but now you can’t find it anywhere. Great cheap meal, though.
If you absolutely positively must eat dessert, make your own rice pudding. Delicious and ridiuclously inexpensive.
You don’t need to spend money on a cookbook. Just look up recipies on the Web.
Wow! Great to read so many (mostly) positive comments.
Dale: if you are going to use Gatorade (I do it too), try getting the powdered stuff and mixing it up. It’s less expensive that way because you don’t pay for all the packaging and water, and you can still dilute it (which is better for us anyway).
Metamommy and others: good points about the brown rice and beans. I wish I’d known that back then: I was eating way too much processed white flour.
Holli Jo: At our house there are several options to eating out on those “I can’t cope” nights. One is “Leftover Buffet”, where the already cooked items get pulled from the refrigerator, then chosen, plated, and microwaved custom for each person. Our kids love this because its the only time they get to choose what they have for dinner. We also use homemade frozen dinners (this requires some pre-planning): we especially do this with soup portions, freezing it in serving sizes for four, which can be thawed quickly for good meals with the addition of a frozen vegetable, and bread and butter and (maybe) jam. During the summer when we have tomatoes and basil in the garden (like now) we like to cut up some tomatoes, snip in some basil, toss it with some olive oil and put it on whole wheat angel hair pasta with shredded mozzarella. This takes less time than eating out, and less energy. But sometimes we just order pizza (gasp!) and on a typical month we spend between $12 and $24 this way.
To all that have commented on wheat or on the Ramen and boxed Mac & Cheese: I think most things (even these things) in moderation are OK. I know that some cannot eat wheat (I have friends who cannot) and for you it is not just frugality but health that demands cooking at home. This article details how I met a financial challenge, and is not necessarily an endorsement of all the methods.
Finally: thanks Alex for reminding us what wealth even most American poor have. I think it is true to say that most Americans seriously over buy at the grocery. Throwing out food and overeating are really two parts of the same problem. We may be spoiled to have so much food available here in the United States, but while abundance is a problem that others would like to have, it is still a problem.
I’m reminded of a movie I once saw starring Robin Williams as a Russian immigrant. He was astounded and confused by the volume and variety at the super market. I think all Americans struggle with that: we’re just not aware we’re struggling because it has always been part of our lives. It’s easy to buy too much just by getting a little bit of too many things, just like its easy to over eat at a Thanksgiving dinner when there are 10 to 15 different dishes that you want to try.
Once we have more than we can eat sitting in the refrigerator, it inevitably goes bad and has to be thrown out for safety.
So we should listen to the implications of what Alex is saying and try to limit what we bring into our houses to what we can actually eat. Like Thanksgiving dinner, it’s hard to resist having some of everything, but its better if we just have a little of the things we like best.
__________________
Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
P.S. Jon: Thanks for the comments. As for $0.39/lb chicken, I think it is a symptom of the American food factory complex. Unless you are going to the farm, any chicken bought in the grocery (I suspect even the Bell & Evans) are processed in a similar way. Possibly even in the same factories. How to avoid that type of production is another problem faced by Americans, because it is all hidden from view.
________
Daiko
This is what I do: Pick a day or two (or three)in a week for cooking day. I’ll cook a big pot of something. Have a half for lunch or dinner today and the next day, then freeze another half in two containers, lebel the date and item. On otherdays of the week I’d eat whatever I cooked the day before, and bring out one of the frozen homemade food. I would just open my freezer and do some shopping for main dish for whatever I feel like. As for basic stuff such as bread or rice, salad or friuts, are things I normally have in fridge and on shelves or cubboards. They are for grabbed to make a complete meal. If I feel like cooking some day, I’d cook two or three main dishes in a day and freeze half of everything, refrigerate the leftover of another half for the next three days. I found this safe me a lot of time. I was some time teased by my family member that I always cook enough to feed the whole army.
I was fortunate enough to get to observe and remember how my grandma cooked. So I can carry on some of her healthy inexpensive Chinese food. I also know how to cook Thai food from scratch. It’s inexpensive but may takes time to do so. But there are plenty of ready mixed curry paste in can available at any oriental market for less that a dollar a can for you to cook for 5-6 servings. At oriental market you can find lots of fresh vegetable and even meet at lower cost. If you want to shop for Asian food, go to Asian market. You will find the price a lot lower.
instead of buying a paperback cookbook, you and your readers should at least check out My-Online-Cookbook (http://www.my-online-cookbook.com).
It is another website/blog that I own. I do need to move it, from it’s current servers. So watch for new changes, in addition, I will be looking for additional writers/cooks for this, once it is on it’s new server.
Very nice! Great way to live frugal but I hope you didn’t get too hungry! I guess this also helps with a diet?
Remember that you get what you pay for…
I prefer to eat little but good quality food, rather than a large quantity of sh*t.
I agree with you on quality it taste so much better.
Another good idea for cheap and healthy snacks is to buy (in bulk) mixed seeds (linseeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds etc.), you can home roast them and freeze them. I make big batches of them and use on everything from salads, to veggies to cereal. Homemade flapjacks (granola bars but softer) can also be made at home very cheaply.
One way I’ve found to battle the food budget is to eat with family pot-luck stylee. My family, my wifes parents, sisters, brothers and respective familys will try to meet up once a week to eat together. We may make a easy stew or soup, one family will make a simple salad and another may provide home-made pie or cake. This way you get an awesome meal with plenty of leftovers to use for lunches and relatively cheaply.
Also since we invested a little cash in a large crock-pot, we have saved a fortune. We go the crock-pot itself on sale at Walmart for $10, but we can throw in nearly anything and just leave it sit for 8 hours or so. Dry beans, lentils, split peas with potatoes and a little stock makes an awesome but incredibly cheap meal. Plus any meat you put in it, no matter how tough, dried out or other wise unpalatable is tender, juicy and delicious!
Fortunately I do not have to eat at $15 or $25 a week. Our goal is to reduce food consumption down to $200/month not counting the few times we eat out.
Kraft Mac & Cheese is not unhealthy if eaten sparingly, the author is not advocating eating this every day. The same goes for ramen, you do not want to eat ramen all of the time, however back in college I saw plenty of people eat it on a daily basis with no short-term ill effects.
These are great tips and I have been getting better at saving money on groceries and actually using what I get. My problem is that I have some friends who only want to meet in restaurants, and I am not sure how to deal with that. When I tell them I am saving money they will offer to pay for the dinner, which is nice, but I think it would affect the friendship negatively if they always paid (yes, they have more money but still). They don’t want to come over and eat at my place when I’ve offered to cook (not because of my cooking!). Any suggestions?
I just had to chime in…I almost always cook from scratch. I don’t HAVE to be frugal, I can technically afford to pay more for my food, but I find that I can eat almost entirely organic on about 25-30$/week on average. I spend a bit more in the summer and fall then preserve that for the winter (drying, canning, freezing) so that I can eat well all year. If you have ANY space for a small garden, even a container of salad and a jar of sprouts, your produce bill will go down. You can save seeds from your grocery store produce, compost your food garbage, and voila…almost free produce.
For the student(s) who believe they don’t have time: you can cook for the week in about an hour and while you’re studying and reading or watching a movie. Then freeze meal size portions. It takes less time than eating out and no more than fixing that prepared crap.
I am so excited and pleased to read this thread! Thank you to Daiko and J.D. for starting the ball rolling. It’s really interesting for me to see how people live, and as far as I’m concerned, no one way is better than any other. We all do what fits best for our lifestyles, and we can all learn from each other. I am learning so much from reading this thread.
Having said that, I have to agree with Alex – I am always shocked to the core when I hear of the amount of wastage that goes on in North America and other lands. Yes! You guys are spoiled, and you don’t even know it. But I don’t blame you for that, I would be exactly the same in your shoes.
Now, here is my own tip, based on my experience a few years ago when I didn’t have much money: EAT THE SAME THING EVERY DAY, FOR ALL THREE MEALS.
I mean, where is it engraved in stone that we are supposed to eat, say, one kind of food for breakfast, another for lunch, and yet another for dinner? When you think about it, it’s a strange idea, right? Sure it’s monotonous, but when you don’t have much money to spend on food, it’s not like you can afford to be picky anyway.
In those days, I survived quite nicely eating nothing but rice and miso soup for three meals a day (this is a typical “poor person’s diet” here in Japan). And looking back, I realise that I was actually very healthy then, too. Since those days, it is only social pressure and my increased income that has forced me to expand my culinary range. Oh, and my own lack of self-discipline …
In those dark days, I can say with all confidence that I was living on less than $15 a week. More like $10 a week. I also learned a whole host of other coping mechanisms as well, and now I have confidence that if the worst comes the worst and I lose everything, I’ll surely be able to survive … as long as I have at least $40 a month. This is always good to know.
Remember in the “old” days when restaurants would claim that their cooking “tastes like homemade!”? Now, the food industry says that you can buy frozen food that is restaurant quality!
No, thank you for the offer for restaurant quality, but I’d rather eat the food that used to be the gold standard. We used to eat out one night a week for “date night.” Then we realized that we were spending a lot of money for mediocre food.
I collect vintage cookbooks from a time when food rationing was going on and when homemakers needed to be frugal out of necessity. Since I’ve started using those cookbooks instead of the fancy ones with exotic recipes, I’ve been able to cut our weekly grocery bill (for two adults) down to about $30-$50 per week. Our meals are delicious, healthier (with some adaptations such as using ff evaporated milk instead of cream), amazingly easy and provide lots of that “comfort food” feeling.
Contrary to what the food-industry media would have us believe, our mothers/grandmothers/great-grandmothers didn’t slave over the stove all day for most of the meals. Most of our meals are done in 30 minutes or less. Going to the restaurant, waiting for service and then waiting for the meal takes a whole lot longer than that!
One thing to consider is Community Support Agriculture as source for your produce. Once we started tasting the real, locally grown produce, we couldn’t go back to the tasteless stuff in the grocery store that is bred for shelf-life and transportation rather than flavor. We ultimately had to stop getting our produce this way because there was so much food in the box that we couldn’t eat it all in the two weeks before the next box arrived. But doing this also changed the way I went about meal preparation. I’d get the box with some vegetables I’d NEVER would have bought at the grocery store and had to scour the cookbooks to figure out what to do with them. So, instead of finding a recipe and then buying the ingredients, I had the ingredients and then had to find a recipe for them. Now, we go to the farmer’s market, find fruits and vegetables that look enticing to us and then decide what the meal will be. The meat is the “side dish” so to speak.
More information about Community supported agriculture: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
Julie
What are the names of these cookbooks. I’d like to have them too.
PS to McLaren: I made Chicken a la King over homemade toasted whole-what bread just last night!
I made chicken broth yesterday (from a whole chicken that I boiled for 5 hours while I did my thing around the house) and had all of that cooked chicken. Half went to the Chicken a la King and the the other half went to chicken salad for sandwiches. Lots of leftovers. I’d say the whole meal (with leftovers) cost about $4.
Mary, thanks for the info on the ramen. We do split the ramen into 2 (or sometimes 3) servings, and fat intake in my house is not a problem (well, actually, it is in that I need to get MORE fat into my kid!). Still, good to know…
As a single male in his mid-twenties, I feed myself on less than $30 per week, but it’s (mostly) not out of a sense of extreme frugality. It actually doesn’t feel that extreme.
I’m just lazy. The last thing I want to do when I come home from work at 7:00 p.m. during the week is to go to the effort of cooking something. So, much like Daiko, I tend to cook one big meal on Sunday and make it last through the week. As a single person, I honestly don’t even know HOW I would spend more than $30 per week and manage to actually eat everything I bought before it went bad. That’s why I tend to rely on stockpiling frozen fruits and vegetables over fresh.
My husband and I eat all but maybe 4 meals (those are eating out) a month for $160 per month. We eat pretty well and don’t feel deprived. We occasionally splurge on coke or ice cream, and I always have sweet tea (from bags) in the fridge… I’m drinking some now. We rarely have steak or shrimp, but that’s ok. $160 a month works out to about $20 per week per person. It’s not rocket science. It just takes discipline.
On the subject of cookbooks, check out Dining on a Dime by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper. It’s got some excellent and unique (as well as some radical) ideas for making your food budget stretch. Some tips are a bit odd, but it depends on how much you want to save. The point is, you CAN eat well and healthy on a tight budget, it just takes a little effort and creativity. And I’ve NEVER paid full price for a cookbook. You can usually find them at garage sales and thrift stores. Yes, you can find recipes on the internet, but there’s no substitution for having a basic go-to cookbook where you can learn how to bake chicken or make sugar cookies all in the same place. I’ve managed to amass a small library of gems, including shose specializing in meatless meals (hey, it’s not just for vegetarians!), vegetables, cookies, Italian meals and grilling. My favoriets are New Basics Cookbook and Fresh Ideas for Vegetable Cooking, which lists veggies in alphabetical order and offers growing and cooking tips for all. Hello, farmers market!
I can eat and feed other people for $20/week and eat (I think) exceptionally well. I shop at ethnic stores for special ingredients, shop sales and don’t eat a bunch of pre-made foods. I can afford to spend much more than this, and sometimes we will have a week where we eat out excessively, but I’ve done $20/week for a couple of months at a time and been perfectly OK, it’s more of a personal challenge than a necessity for me (thankfully).
Tonight I’m having shittake rice soup and bin chow (vietnamese rice flour creps) and it will be well with in my budget and a really gourmet meal. Last time I had bin chow in a resturant it cost $16, and mine has more stuff in it.
Probably the biggest thing I do, is I don’t eat meat. Dried beans, and dried grains (brown rice, millet, quinoa, etc.) are very inexpensive when compared to animal based proteins. This frees up money to spend on one “expensive” item/week (usually I use it on soy ice cream)and the rest goes to seasonal or frozen produce. Dr. says my diet is incredibly healthy, and that if everyone ate like I do he would be out of a job so it’s working for other parts of my budget as well.
You really don’t have to resort to ramen, etc. if you shop wisely, I live in an expensive area, there isn’t really a farmers market I can shop at regularly.
I just wanted to reiterate the fact that canned tuna is cheap, healthy and great.
I’m grateful for this article just for the dry milk tip! I bought some today and put it in my tea, and it’s great. I can’t drink tea without milk, and I always thought that my only other option was Cremora, which tastes how Ajax smells. The 5 quarts’ worth of dry milk should last me a LONG time, for the cost of less than 2 gallons of milk.
You CAN eat take-out cheaply–there’s an Indian place near me that sells a “Bread Basket,” 4 loaves of naan. Each loaf is a meal in itself, and it’s only $6.95. Naan can be frozen and reheated, and they have a “$5 off of $20” take-out coupon, so I buy 3 orders and get 12 delicious, filling meals for $16.
This tip may be very region-specific, but here in Connecticut we have a law that says that if a grocery item doesn’t ring up on sale, you get it FREE. I use the self-scan registers so that I can make sure that everything rings up correctly. Two weeks ago $5 worth of turkey didn’t ring up at $4, so I got it for nothing.
Tuna really isn’t that healthy if you eat it constantly. There’s a lot of mercury in it, and it’s not recommended that you have more than a can a month.
If you want to eat cheap:
1. Make your food yourself
2. Eat unrefined complex carbs like dried legumes,
whole grains, whole grain pastas.
3. Eat seasonal vegetables and seasonal fruits
4. Write down what you buy and where you bought it.
Sooner or later you will learn enough to buy
cheaper.
5. When making recipes substitute what you have for
similar ingredients instead of going out and
buying more stuff.
My husband and I eat for around $30 a week. We buy cheap cuts of beef in bulk freeze most of it, the same thing with pork and chicken. I can think of 4 meals off the top of my head that use beef, chicken, and onion. We keep staples on hand. Anymore going out to eat kind of makes us sick due to the sodium content I think. Hardly anything we cook takes more than 30 minutes which it would take us to travel to a restaurant. We shop at the Asian store for things like hoisin and cooking wines – much cheaper. If I have an idea I want to try I have cookbooks from family or I check out Cooks.com. I also will modify anything to fit our tastes.
Came here from FMF and glad of it. I like ramen and its price, but because of the MSG can’t eat it as it is a migraine trigger for me. Does anyone know of a cheap MSG free ramen?
Thanks
I recommend the More-with-Less Cookbook for ideas on eating cheap but healthy.
I would also add the you can also eat healthful food as part of your budget. Trader Joe’s is a great place for this. Two very common ingredients to avoid are HIGH FRUCTOS CORN SYRUP and HYDROGENATED OILS. Avoid at all costs any food products that have either of these two products! Check the ingredients lists. If you’re gonna get peanut butter, there should be only TWO ingredients: peanuts and salt. Also cashews are a great snack. Just pop a few in when you’re feeling hungry and the “good” fats in the nuts will satiate you for a while.
Also, if you are fortunate to live in a city with a Chipotle, they have great meals for under $7. I usually get at vegetarian burrito bowl for $5.77 (incl. tax). A great option for a cheap healthy meal.
I love the idea of making everything from scratch and rarely, if ever, eating out… but my husband and I eat roughly half our meals away from home (6 lunches, 2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, on average), due to work and other constraints. Leftovers from one home-cooked meal just don’t last that long for two people… and PBJ gets boring pretty quickly.
A note about oatmeal: You can buy it in bulk at health-food stores or even the health-food section of your local supermarket. I pay 79 cents a pound; occasionally it goes on sale two pounds for a dollar, at which point I’ll buy 10 pounds or more. The boxed Quaker kind costs at least $2.79 for 18 ounces.
Check the food ads, and read them all the way through for specials. A local supermarket put ramen on sale for 5 cents a package, but you needed the coupon from the ad. The same store had canned tomato soup for 10 cents; tomato soup and a grilled-cheese sandwich makes a simple, extremely cheap supper. Store circulars also let you know when apples are 38 cents a pound, or tuna is three for a dollar.
Go for the “red-band” bananas, the ones marked down because they are very ripe or at least ripening too quickly for the store’s liking. Here, they cost 29 cents a pound.
Potatoes are extremely cheap and they bake well in the slow-cooker. Cook more than you need for one meal and use leftovers for potato soup, or slice and fry them and serve with scrambled eggs for a fast, inexpensive supper.
When eggs go on sale, buy a couple of dozen and have scrambled-egg sandwiches for dinner, and boil them to make egg-salad sandwiches for lunch.
I found a copy of “the plaid cookbook” at a rummage sale for 75 cents, and a copy of the Sunset magazine “Breads” cookbook for 50 cents at a half-price sale at a thrift shop. Sure, there are plenty of recipes online, but the thing about cookbooks is you can page through them and discover recipes you might otherwise not have thought about trying.
This is an encouraging post for people whose food budgets are out of control, or who simply want to reach a short-term financial goal by battening down the hatches. Thank you for publishing it.
I live in the Mission district of San Francisco which is very diverse ethnically, with a very strong Mexican/South American population. There’s a Mexican produce store around the corner that sells food for about a THIRD of what it might otherwise cost at, say, Safeway. Apples that might sell for about $2.00 a pound (!) at our nearby boutique grocery cost $0.79 a pound at the produce store, and all produce is similarly lower-priced.
My wife is convinced there’s something ‘wrong’ with their food because it’s so cheap, but I disagree since I often see the same on-fruit stickers at Safeway. And while I doubt it’s ‘organic’ but I also doubt they dose their food with *extra* fertilizer or insecticide (that stuff is hugely expensive for farmers). I think they keep costs low because their customers generally have less money and want lower prices, and they buy mostly from local or south-of-the-border farmers. Plus it’s clear they’re keeping other costs low – no big parking lot, no fancy lighting, workers speak little English and probably not paid much and so on.
I wouldn’t touch most of the packaged food with the huge amount of sugar and preservatives, but the produce is something else entirely.
I like to eat out because I live alone and sometimes I crave human interaction instead of eating cheaply (Plus, Thai food is yummy).
I like to eat out with other people because we talk, the whole “eating out” experience is great. You talk with the people you’re with, relax, and have fun. When I’m at my parent’s house, they don’t like to eat out and we all end up around the kitchen counter, my Dad is reading the newspaper, my Mom is watching TV, and I’m wishing we where at a restaurant, then we would talk. When I’m with friends and we eat in, we sit around the room and eat the food, so we can go back to doing what we where doing before.
Eating with people should be a pleasant experience and sometimes you can only get that by leaving the home and that’s sad.
I also like to eat out.
For one thing I also live alone. If I eat out I can get a better variety of food than what I’ll generally take the time to fix myself. Also, sorry but I just couldn’t stand eating the same thing 3 meals a day, all week long.
For another thing, I work long hours, and THEN I come home and work on getting my own business off the ground. If I eat out that saves me a lot of time in the kitchen fixing food and cleaning it up. I can either work on my business for a few hours in the evening or I can clean house; I can’t do both.
Great ideas. Regarding milk: We compared prices on “fresh” milk and powdered milk and discovered the powdered milk was actually more expensive than the “fresh” milk. We did the calculations before milk prices went up recently, so it may be different now, but don’t just assume that powdered milk is cheaper – check!
I actually don’t cook at all, as I don’t really desire to spend anytime doing so, much less dealing with the clean-up that follows. However, it isn’t hard to eat well without cooking, buying prepackaged or processed foods, or eating out, if you buy whole foods that you know that you like and would enjoy eating regularly. My dietary staples are yogurt (the good kind, without HFCS), cheese (also, the good kind), lots of fruits and veggies (I am partial to mixed greens and frozen berries as staples, while varying my other produce), whole wheat crackers with peanut butter (again, the good kind without hydrogenated vegetable oil). Sometimes I’ll put marinara sauce or avocado on the crackers. I buy all of these things from Trader Joes, which is generally inexpensive. This is about a $20 a week diet for me. I do eat out once a week with friends, however, as I enjoy Thai food, Mexican food and sushi now and then.
Anybody interested in eating cheaply should take a look at Hillbilly Housewife’s $40 Emergency Menu. It feeds 2 adults and 2 children for a week. The really cool thing about it is that it does not assume you have *any* ingredients — the $40 includes flour, salt, yeast, baking powder, etc.
It has lots of cheap recipes that can be used independently of the $40 plan, which is a good way to reduce your average meal cost.
I’ve been living cheaply for a few years now so didn’t learn anything new. I also do the unthinkable – dumpster diving at local grocery that throws away a lot of food, and I also get food from families that are wasteful, like one where the man will not eat leftovers…what a boon to our pocket book. Then there are leftovers from church potluck which i try to find poorer people to share with too, but i did have to give up taking cake as i was gaining weight! Larger quantities of rice and beans (don’t forget the cheap stand by, bean soup) and basic foods go a long way. With rising utility costs it becomes a must to cut costs in every area of one’s life. Thinking before buying saves a lot of money.
If you keep an eye on the weekly ads, sometimes the local grocery stores have a 10 items for $10 deal.
My wife and I recently purchased $50 worth of groceries and brought home more food options than we typically have for $200.
Copps is my new favorite store. If you are in the Madison area, be sure to check it out.
Ok, this article makes me feel better. I feed a family of 3 (Ok, 3.5, I’m pregnant) on $200 a month. It gets tight, especially right before payday, but we’ve never gone hungry. I do a lot of cooking at home and am taking time to learn to cook things that I used to buy prepackaged (like jelly and spaghetti sauce).
Much of how far your food can stretch also has to do with the quality of the food. Whole wheat pasta, for example, is a little more expensive, sure, but it is much more filling because it is denser so you can eat a little less and still feel just as full. And since it is much higher in fiber and lower in carbohydrates, it doesn’t spike your blood sugar nearly so much as cheap white flour pasta. Worth the extra .50 or so!
Same goes for other starchy foods like rice (use brown rice instead) or potatoes (wash and leave the peels on for more fiber & nutrients and less waste!). Likewise, spend a few extra cents on better quality lettuce since the el-cheap iceberg heads have almost no nutritional value whatsoever.
Sometimes produce can be more expensive, but you can shave costs there too if you’re smart about it. For example buy whole carrots instead of those pre-whittled “baby” carrot sticks. They taste better and are less expensive. Buy whole veggies and prep them yourself rather than the much more pricey packages of pre-sliced or pre-shredded veggies.
Cooking from scratch and eating simpler foods has helped us save heaps on our grocery bill. I save all the leftovers for soups which I cook up and freeze in bulk. I just changed over to powdered milk to save over $300 a year. I have found that buying fresh fruit and vegies is a lot less than what we used to waste on take away and convenience shopping.
http://www.angelfoodministries.com
For 25 bucks you can get good somewhat healthy food enough for four people for a week. We get three boxes and then shop just for bread, milk, cheese, and other staple items. For my family of three we spend about a hundred and fifty dollars a month on groceries without cutting out the occasional soda or chips. I also make everything else that we eat completely from scratch.
About the chicken debate and their price –
I used to work at a deli where we dealt with chicken, red meat and deli meats, and this is pretty basic for any store –
On the last day that it’s advertised to be sold (normally when it’s marked down), this is just the last day that it should be SOLD. generally, it’s good for 3 days after it’s been sold. Also, if you cook it on the last day, that’ll give it 7 more days.
Unless you’re shopping in a sleazy store, chances are that there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just that it needs to be sold or thrown out.
Food is one of the great pleasures in life..don’t deny yourself if you don’t have to
Everything in life should be savored, appreciated for what it is ….even if it is just a grain of salt
What a horribly boring existence. When you get rich, I presume your excessively frugal habits will have become nothing short of an obsession and you will die rich… after having lived so purely.
Go get a Filet Mignon! You deserve it!
It was mentioned that living on a restricted budget would make food boring. It doesn’t need to be. If anything, you can be more creative.A recipe may call for something you don’t have, so you use something similar that you have.It may taste better. The internet has opened up the possibility to find all kinds of things to do with food.
Yesterday I had a cup of mashed potatoes left over. Not quite enough for our supper, so I sauted an onion and piece of red pepper and mixed it into the potato, along with a raw egg. Add in some spices and form into patties and fried in oil. Delicious.
To gina who likes to eat Thai food at restaurants. Thai food is one of the easiest and cheapest foods to cook yourself. It’s a diet based on very flavourful food and rice. So just a little bit of meat, and some fresh herbs goes a long way! For starters, buy yourself a little jar of red curry paste, thai fish sauce, and jasmine rice or rice noodles. That will cost you about 6$ even if buy a popular grocery. Add a small amount of meat on sale, fresh basil and lemon grass, veggies, and coconut milk and you can eat a lot of food for 2 people on 5$ a day easily.
I’m thinking back to college and of some of strategies on how to eat cheap I and others had. One friend worked at a place that provided free lunch to all employees, anyone in the building, and yes, to a couple of homeless folks. If you showed up at their cafeteria around lunch time, they fed you. My friend worked very close to where I lived and always encouraged me to visit him right before his lunch hour so I could lunch for free whenever I wanted–but alas, I never took up that offer. I wish I had now. I knew another student who went to Costco and just ate free samples for lunch. Literally, he called it lunch at Costco. And while not free I once saw on a travel show promoting San Francisco, produced in Britian I think And their recommended exotic eatery–a Mexican taco truck parked on the street. The host ate lunch for only a dollar and she raved about the authentic Mexican food. My biggest tip now is studying the weekly sale ads. I never used to look at them but now I do and t has saved me a lot of money and time because I go into a store knowing what I want and what I will pay for it.
Kinda off subject, have you done an article on eating for free? I know it sounds silly and some of it might be questionably ethical, but I just write this cause it seems like I get free meals a lot by offering to do something and being paid with a meal (I have also paid people who did “work” for me with a free meal). I know someone who gets free meals by scheduling her work hours near dinnertime (she’s self-employed) and works at other people’s houses sometimes. If it’s near dinner time, they often offer her a free homecooked meal. Once the cable guy (and his cable apprentice guy?) was installing cable at our apt (me and my roommates) and he commented on the great smelling food (we were cooking dinner). We offered them dinner and they accepted happily. It was kind of surreal feeding the cable guy while we sat around watching cable tv but we had plenty of food and it seemed rude not to ask.
When I lived in New York for my unpaid internship I had to make due with not a lot of money. I was at the internship from 7 am till 7 pm and was living in a room i sub-leased so any food prep was out the window.
I made due quite nicely. They had a place that sold food per pound. You know the place, they have all kinds of foods and you put it in a container and they charge you for the weight. The key here is to take the meat. Do not take a lot of potatoes or goodness forbid pasta. Meat has a lot of potential energy and will fill you up really well, it might not be all that healthy but I was living on a budget and not for a long period of time so I could chance it. When coming back from the place I would stop at a store located in the Chrysler building. They had this great packaging of pealed and fried pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and the like for literally dollar per package. And it was not a small package at that. Plus add a little can of honey roasted peanuts on sale and you have a perfect dinner. It fills up really nicely and is cheap. On the off days I did not have a lunch brake (crazy I know) there were several options available in the area, I lived in Brooklyn near Conney (spelling) Island(three hour commute). Then I ate at Burger King (cheap for this places really good burgers) or in the local places that were unfortunately rather hard on the stomach.
So the key point being if you want to eat on the budget you might not be able to eat healthy, and like everything else use common sense.
I live in Fort Worth, Texas and we have an excellent vegan restaurant here (The Spiral Diner), while I am not vegan nor vegetarian I still enjoy a meal there occasionally and am amazed at how filling a meal with substitute protiens (beans usually) can be. I serve 2 vegan or vegetarian meals a night now and it’s shaved 20 off of our bi-weekly food budget.
Of course we eat like royalty because I love to cook so this money saving was totally necessary.
I also eat on a very tight budget. I can get three meals out of one tin of tuna, (make them into patties, micro them, eat them with ramen noodles and tomato sauce).
I make vege burgers, which come out to pennies
each, and my vege lasagne (small container using half of the ricotta)gives me four to five meals.
Freezing is vital.
Hi there JD,
Just wanted to stop by and say hi. I currently work for the AmeriCorps VISTA program and am a VISTA Leader who connects helpful resources to other VISTAs around the country. Part of being a VISTA involves committing to live (for a year) at ‘poverty level’ on a small, government-sponsored living stipend while doing our national service. The idea is that we become better able to relate to the communities we are helping. Still some debate over this, but then again, the long-term benefits of a being a VISTA are great. A skill many VISTAs need to develop then, is living on very meager means – which this post answers to. Thank you so much. I am happily forwarding to the VISTAs I know.
Might i be able to link to it in our VISTA Resource wiki?
cheers!
morgan
You can treat yourself to better noodles if you have an Asian market nearby. You can get a pack of fresh egg noodles for around 20 cents per bundle of noodles, and a container of Knorr chicken broth powder. Boil up the broth, wash some bok choy and drop it in, and turn off the heat. Boil another pot of water, and drop the noodles in for 15 seconds, stirring, and then pull the noodles out and put it into the soup. It costs around the same as Top Ramen, but it tastes better and has some protein and less fat.
I’m not sure if anyone mentioned this, but how about where you shop for food? I have recently saved a lot of money by shopping at Aldi (in in the Northeast so I don’t know if these are located everywhere). There are other discount stores as well. These stores sell an off-brand of food and generally only have one option of each item. For example, if you want coffee, there is only one brand to choose from and it averages about $2 less than leading brands at other grocery stores. I have not found one item that I didn’t think tasted as good as a name brand from another retailer. The other day I spent $65 and could barely push the cart because it was so full. That will feed my husband and I for about 2.5 weeks. Sometimes I need to supplement by buying a couple extra things before making another big shopping trip. I know I have room for improvement because I often buy prepared meals like frozen pizza (and I know this isn’t the healthiest) so I have vowed to start cooking more and i will cook large meals that will last a few days. So thanks for all the great pointers, I plan to work harder to incorporate these tips into my already frugal lifestyle.
Great point, Amber. Where I live we don’t have an Aldi market, but I had a chance to visit one out in Minnesota. The concept is brilliant: For the most part they have no shelves (just the pallets that the food was shipped on) and the staff at the one I visited consisted of two cashiers and one person to stock and clean. They do not provide bags (you can buy one or bring your own)and the shopping carriages work just like the airport carts used to: put a quarter in to get a carriage, put a carriage in to get a quarter. As a result, they don’t need to hire anyone to police the parking lot.
As Amber says, there is only one choice for most items, and as I recall they don’t carry much in the way of baking supplies or raw ingredients, but they do carry produce, and everything there is inexpensive.
Well, but killing myself and thinking about saving up all the time is not the way to be rich and happy. I would go mad.
Good tips.
Here a few from my additions:
– Make pop corn home. 1 bag of seeds costs maybe $1-2 and will make you at least 10 big servings
– Good rice (I can’t deal with wheat and glute so for me a necessity); a 10 lb bag of Thai or Japanese rice from your local Asian grocery will last for a while, and it is half of the cost per lb when compared to decent rice of the same kind sold in smaller baggages
– Lentils and beans. These are good for you, just cook yourself. They are cheap. Smaller lentils are ok with a few hours of soaking, hten making 20 minutes boiling, mash and done. Lentils soup with some other veggies (select by color, so carrots, potatoes, turnips etc) and some herbs (grow your cilantro, mints, basil in kitchen) and you’ve got a tasty soup in 30 minutes. I usually use a blender so can’t see the ingredients when it comes to soups :)
– make your pasta sauce home. The ready made ones are way overpriced and they are simple to make
I am a huge Aldi fan as well. They actually have a stunningly good produce and meat selection now. If I am cooking very particular recipes I sometimes have to stop at another grocery store on the way home but Aldi is always the first stop.
Another tip. We never buy soda or juices but still like to have a beverage with some flavor. I make big pitchers of iced tea regularly and we also keep sugar free drink mix in the house. Store brands are 1/2 to 1/3 the price of crystal light and I don’t even use the whole tub as I think this makes the drink too sweet.
I agree with you that the main thing is avoiding waste. This weekend we ate 3-4 meals of spare leftovers tossed together in the fridge. I refused to go shopping for more food until it was gone.
another good paperback cookbook is “The New Basics Cookbook,” by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso. A bit more extravagant and somewhat thicker than the BHG cookbook, originally published in 1989, my copy cost $20 in the mid 90s. 800 pages (not including bibliography and index).
“Buy a basic paperback cookbook”? How often does one make even the majority of recipes in a substantially-sized cookbook? Why not just visit your local library? That way you can have a new cookbook every few weeks.
I don’t see how this could possibly make your rich, but I’ve survived and even gained weight on $50/ month. It is easy with our obesity subsidies (maybe even healthier). Milk, eggs, potatoes, wheat, beans, sale meat, canned stuff, ramen … are not expensive.
Never eat out?! There is another alternative:
Many Salvation Army outlets offer meals for free.
Anyone can eat there and it’s free!
..
i lived on $20 dollars a MONTH for many years in the 90’s….. !
Those who commented on how spoiled we are as Americans are correct. At one point in our lives, my family was food stamp eligible. I was shocked at the amount of food I could buy for my benefits. I could take a month’s benefits and feed us for 2-3 months at times. I gained weight during that time. Now, I don’t even think we spend that most weeks and that includes the occasional meal out and we buy loads of soda (my vice is good ol Coca Cola). We had roasts, steaks, shrimp etc. then. Now, I mainly buy those when they’re on serious sale.
One other tip for those who do love their meat (hey I do). It’s dependent on having a large freezer. But, use a local meat processor and buy half a cow or half a hog..or if your family is large enough, a full one. It’s been too long since I’ve done it but I do know meat was so much less a pound than you can get it in stores. And you always have something on hand.
Stupid Fat Cheese-Eating Invasion Monkeys.
If you think this is suprising then you are more stupid than you think. Everyone else in the world already knows this either through poverty or environmental and health reasons.
Don’t drive around everywhere in your car and don’t put cheese on everything you eat. Carry your shopping all the way home just once and then you realise that you are living on a different planet to the rest of us.
Oh and Richard M.
The Rammen MSG is in the little foil packet that is in side. If you want MSG free Rammen, just chuck out the sachet. Just eat the noodles with some of your own veg and if you must put something in stick some soy sauce or just salt and pepper.
Crying out loud can’t you people think for your selves?
Jan: I think what you said has value, but the way you said it was rude. I have exercised the restraint you should have exercised and removed the insults from my reply.
_______________________________
Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
I am very fortunate to live near a food pantry that offers all the free bread that you want.
This week I was blessed to get a huge bag of English muffins,8 bagels,poppyseed rolls, oatmeal bread, 2 loaves of raisin bread, 1 loaf with garlic cloves in, 9 grain and a few others.
Also available in most areas are comodity foods.
Also….I shop on occasion at a local Winn Dixie. The often have great deals on packaged sandwich meats , hot dogs ect.on which the dates are almost expired. Most people don’t realize you can freeze sandwich meats!
This week has been interesting to me, because for some reason I have been stumbling upon a lot of websites regarding food consumption and the different ways people behave towards it depending on which part of the world they are at. I have not even been looking for them but I just happen to run into them. This one is one of the most interesting so it opened me to the idea of sharing what I’ve seen.
To me the interesting thing has been to see how people around the world react to food. I come from a third world country but am lucky enough to have a steady income, so much so that I eat out a lot, and have to deal with the corresponding health issues that has raised. I still live at home because the price of living by yourself here is nuts so this website has given me a lot of ideas on how to save, although not all applicable to my case. I can understand the concept of wanting to save every penny you can and still eat well, never the less Americans have a great responsibility they might have not yet notticed. Every trend you have there is then exported to other countries changing them profoundly. I am glad to see this site because it brings hope. I wish more people thought about going back to the basics, to eating at home, not only because it is healthier but because it has other implications.
As a psychologist, is not only the eating at home that concerns me but what happens while you do. I have the happiest childhood memories from being at home during the holidays and cooking up meals with the whole family. Sadly this has been replaced with the fast life and always being on the run, the fast food meals, the hectic schedule, the stress and being so sick of dealing with every day life that you forget to have a family life, or run away from it. Eating at home is not only saving on your money but on home values, on teaching kids how to eat properly, on relationships. I know this site is not dealing with that so I guess I am rambling here, but wouldn’t that also save on budget too? The implications of food always go beyond it because there is an emotional factor closely related to it. If you learn to save at home, you are giving your kids that, but you are also helping them not be overweight, have other health issues (diabetes, cancer, etc) and it also shows you care. Well that is my very personal opinion :)
I am adding this link to one of the other websites I found interesting, it is an average of how much people spend depending on which part of the world they are at. Notice how dramatically prices change in relation to age, gender, and the quantity of pre-produced meals intake.
http://www.everybodygoto.com/2007/10/12/what-people-eat-around-the-world/
Ok, back to work, :) thank you for opening a place that allows to share with others around the world.
I have read all the comments up to this point. After talking to some of the guys that I work with about how neat I thought the blog was I got an ear full about how it was so dumb. I will explain and this kind of goes to what some of your negative Nellie’s out there are saying about Americans:
Americans do not all eat the same way nor do they follow the same type of logic and choose to live the same life style, some thing we may have the “luxury” of choosing. Chances are you don’t want us saying, “those stupid …” so please extend the same curtsy (especially since you obviously see yourself above us ethically.) I would say that the majority of us have not been taught how to prepare and eat healthy food on a tight budget. If you have grown up with out ever eating a leftover or having to make sure that you police the refrigerator regularly will never learn that what they are doing is wrong or wasteful. If you are raised with out ever knowing that you shouldn’t waste food or buy stuff then let it go to waste. I can’t imagine that people are buying stuff so that it can spoil on there shelves at home, lets be serious.
I grew up in a family of six with both parents working so little home cooked meals were made usually what ever was quick and cheap. So the meals were pretty much the same from week to week with a little variety here and there. Every dinner had potatoes and lunches were primarily lunch meat sandwiches or PBJ’s. Mom did a little canning so there wasn’t a bunch of home cooked meals to learn from and she was spending about a hundred bucks a week on groceries. Food was rarely left over. So there weren’t a whole lot of opportunities out there to learn to eat cheap and healthy on a tight budget.
Now to my point money hasn’t been a factor in my food budget but time was (do to the fact that I work 12 hours a day rotating shifts with an hour drive each way.) I don’t want to spend forever in the kitchen. So I do the frozen food thing for majority of meals but now that health reasons have taken more priority I tried to go healthy while still sticking with the frozen foods for convenience I went with stuff like Amy’s foods and other organic stuff. I have recently decided to go back to school were money will be the biggest factor for that reason I have found this page invaluable and I think every one should consider trying this for a few months to get some perspective (for you guys saying what is the point have a flay minion).
Now for a useful contribution: Look into a local coop, growers association, or farmers market. The coop’s deliver food once a month to an area at one stop you go there with all the other families associate with it and pick up the food that you put in the order for. Usually this is the same or cheaper than the bulk wholesale food stores like BJ’s or Sams and straight from the producers. Try to buy fruit and vegetables in extreme bulk and can the stuff if storage is not a problem you could have enough for a full year if you plan accordingly. My mom was able to get cases of tomatoes that were just about to turn really cheap and with those and the ones we grew spent a day making sauce was able to make enough to last till next canning season. They may not be fresh but still better than store bought loaded with preservatives. Next consider getting splurging into spices you can find fresh ones all over the place and they make that bland meal gourmet. Save on making soap you can’t eat it but it is cheaper than store bought and could free up money for food.
This is a good article – I’m struggling with the eating out thing, and seeing these ideas in one place is really helpful. Here are a couple of my own:
– when you get home from grocery shopping, portion out what you’ve bought into serving sizes before you put them away (especially frozen stuff). The food lasts longer, and each little packet is a reminder of what a portion actually is. It requires a little bit of outlay in terms of tinfoil and off-brand ziplock-type freezer bags, but I really found it helpful in terms of keeping the food better (than if I had frozen things in a big lump) and helping me keep track of how much I had left. I’m also a huge fan of the off-brand gladware type containers, especially when on sale.
– homemade gatorade: 2 cups sugar, 2 packets unsweetened drink mix powder, and a teaspoon of salt makes a gallon (at least according to my ex’s tastebuds). My ex worked construction for a long time, and we’d make 2 gallons of this stuff a day for him to take to work.
– bring enough food to work or when you’re out of the house so that you won’t go hungry. It sounds simplistic, but you set yourself up to fail when you don’t plan that way. I try to eat the majority of my food at work so that I eat small amounts at intervals during the day and am not ravenous (and therefore likely to call out for pizza or overbuy at the grocery store) on my way home.
I ate pretty cheap during my college days. Most of the time I just took food I found laying around, hey a banana! finders keepers. The only cooking I did was boiling ramen or heating up a can of soup. Thats still about the most I can do after 3 years.. but nowadays I spend about 30-40 bucks a DAY on food cuz im not poor anymore and there’s too many good restaurants around. Plus my girlfriend is a helluva worse cook than I am, she can’t even cook mac n cheese lol. My philosophy is if you eat poor, you stay poor. Stop eating so damn poor folks!!
Daniel:
Interesting theory about eating poor. I think you have it wrong though, the real fact is if you spend all your money, you stay poor. Having a large income does not mean you are rich. If you have nothing left over at the end of the day (or worse yet, a pile of debt) you are poor, whether you are making $10,000 a year or $10,000 a month.
Also: frugality does not mean eating poorly. In my house the food is good enough that most restaurants are a disappointment. But it doesn’t cost us $30/day (more like $90/week for four people).
Congratulations on making good money!
_______________________________
Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
Everyone should try this.
This week I spent £20 ($40) for two of us (42 meals) = $20 a person a week, or 47 cents per meal. OK we already have staples like herbs and spices, oils and some frozen and tinned food.
This week meals include shrimp and pea risotto, moussaka, egg and fries, pasta in sauce, and others for dinner, cereal for breakfast and for lunch is salads, soups, sandwiches and dinner leftovers.
Our staples are bread, milk, cereal, eggs, rice and vegetables. We hardly ever have meat, and have fish once a week.
Our meals are never small or bland – always very large portions using fresh vegetables – we make double size dinners and take the leftovers for lunch. We always buy economy brands instead of leading brands and its almost always the same quality.
Where possible we buy in bulk – our tin foil, bin liners, cans of chopped tomatoes, olive oil and washing powder last 6 months – 2 years each.
Theres no need to spend any more than that if you make your meals from scratch – vegetables are so cheap tasty and healthy.
If you want to eat like this but think you dont have the time, try spending one day making 3-4 meals in 3-4 quanity and freeze it all and you have 9-16 meals ready to go!
disclaimer: I appreciate this isnt for those who work 12 hour shifts and dont want to spend a day int eh kitched!
disclaimer 2: Of course soemtiems I pig out too!
This is a sad little article. One of the biggest pleasures in life is eating well. If you cannot enrich your quality of life with a good diet you are the poorest of the poor. Some people just cannot afford quality food, others are too dumb to understand what good food is and the benefits of eating well.
Best,
Paul
Something I like to do is buy big bags of frozen vegetables, especially peas. Store brands go on sale pretty frequently, and they’ll keep forever. I like putting them in pasta things — something I really like is to cook up a packet of ramen, then drain the water and mix it with a little butter, half the seasoning packet, and about a cup of peas. Awesome!
I’m also planning on making a lot of soup and freezing it, and then I can add a handful of pasta to it for a lunch.
If it makes you happy to save money eating this way – fantastic. If it makes you happy to spend more eating out/more expensive food – fantastic. It is nobody’s business but your own how you live your life. To the nasty “you Americans” posts…how pathetic are you! Spending time being angry over how other people choose to live their own lives? I am a proud American – we live how we decide and I will never feel badly or apologize for that.
What I’ll do instead of eating out is get the frozen tv dinners when they are on sale for $1. That way, I can feel like I’m “eating out” for the price of dollar menu stuff, pre-tax.
Another thing I’ve done is created a spread sheet which shows me the price per serving of the food I’ve purchased. “I’d love to have ___ from _____!” Then I look and see I can make it cheaper than I could buy it.
So how can we put this into practice when we have no pantry? It is impossible to buy and store any dry goods in bulk. We have a small townhouse with no storage space to speak of. Not enough closet space, no garage, no basement, no attic, and few cabinets.
Hi Craig. In my opinion, it is more important to be selective about your purchases and make sure you eat all of them than to purchase and store items in bulk.
Still, keeping food on hand is part of what makes it possible to eat well for cheap: if you don’t have enough cabinet space in the kitchen, even adding a small set of shelves somewhere can help. (Our shelves are in our bedroom, of all places)
Dried milk works especially well for baking. Since the variation in taste isn’t as noticeable. Why poor expensive milk into a bread maker when dry works just the same?
Wow. Love the ideas and variety of comments. At one point I was quite poor and had to use all of these tricks. But I NEVER would eat ramen! About cheap wheat products like white bread and noodles: don’t overload as these are empty calories, and almost as bad as soda. Three cheers for beans, lentils and brown rice.
Lately, I am reducing my food budget to about $35 a week per person (stats are a bit skewed. My 6’4″son spends weekends here!) My boyfriend and I are developing a binder of recipes we love and we are focusing on health and now more on thrift. We shop together Sunday morning. I’m starting to even enjoy the focus on food planning. Before this change, we had both been into our own separate food directions. Without communication and planning we were over-buying and wasting. Thanks for this educational and inspiring post.
__
Despite what mclaren says about Campbell’s soup, I recently found that my local grocer has started offering Campbell’s Chunky and Campbell’s Select soups in microwavable bowls. Here in San Diego, they cost about $3.30 each, and in California sales tax doesn’t apply to food unless it falls under the category of “hot prepared food products”. I’m hard pressed to find a place around me that serves lunch for under $6.00, so $3.30 feels like a steal.
If I wanted to do all the cooking for the week on Sunday and store little packets of food for each day. Could any one help me develop this idea further?
Thank you for taking the time to post this article and maintain the comments. I was inspired by this article to cook a soup with the ham bone left over from yesterday’s Easter dinner. Good stuff!
Adriana-
I’m glad you were inspired. The quest to eat cheaply often means you know what goes into your food. New updates to our diet include a number of GREAT lentil dishes, which taste like heaven and cost like it too.
If you’re interested, head down to the library and check out ‘How to Cook Everything’ and ‘How to Cook Everything Vegetarian’, both by Mark Bittman. The last thing we had was curried lentils and potatoes with home-made flat bread. Mmmmm.
_______________________________
Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
Interesting article. Here are a few tips from 1999, when I was unemployed for a YEAR in Southern California. With a mortgage to pay, and single, this was no joke. For several months, I ate well on $25 a week. None of the following will be much of a surprise-however it will emphasize certain universally applicable ways to save $$ on food.
1. I shopped mostly at ethnic stores-Persian, Asian, Indian. Occasionally a farmers market. Not only were the prices for produce, meat, and fish much less, the quality was as good and often better. Lamb is always better at the Persian market, for example. 5-10lb bags of basmati rice are a good deal and last for a long time.
2. Being able to shop properly, cook from scratch, plan a menu, and use up leftovers are indispensable skills. I was taught by my mother-we should all teach our kids. These skills are being lost in the US. I am an extremely busy professional and I still cook from scratch-it saves a lot of $$.
3. Once a week, on Friday nights, I cooked Indian food at the house of a good friend with a wonderful warm and welcoming family-I took the spices, my cookbooks, and a few kitchen gadgets. She provided raw materials. Out of this I got an evening of excellent company, got out of the house and away from the depression of unemployment, had a great dinner, and usually the leftovers. It was an effective way to stay sane during a very tough time. I still cook Indian food at friends’ houses, though often fancier now.
4. It sounds counter-intuitive, but invest in a well-stocked pantry-it saves $$ in the long run because you can prepare a variety of dishes without having to shop for every little ingredient. Learn to adapt recipes to what is on hand or seasonal (therefore cheap). If you like to cook Indian food, get the spices at an Indian store-save a huge amount of $$! I once calculated that turmeric alone was THIRTY FIVE times as expensive at a grocery store such as Ralphs or Alpha Beta as at the Indian store.
how about you all get a damn life and stop starving yourselfs by eat damn ramen noodles. I mean how childish is that. Come on people. I mean damn if you can’t afford good food either get a job, or if you have a job maybe ask for a raise or do your job better and you would get a raise so you would have money.
—-thanks
I love it when people read blogs especially long ones then flame at the end like my friend above (countryelboy07). If you would have read a bit closer you would see that it is not about eating oodles and oodles of noodles. It is about eating good food that is healthy and tasty without spending an arm and a leg. For instance I went to the grocery store and use a little 2 tier cart and only filled up the top portion of it and it cost me $184.00. That was for soup, yogurt, 6 kabobs, and a few misc. other things. So with things like that talking about eating cheaper and still getting the quality is well worth talking about.
William, Thanks for condemning the flamer!
Just so (countryelboy07) knows, I NOW make over $130,000 a year and still shop carefully and cook from scratch (mostly Indian tho also Mediterranean food). In 1999 I was between careers. I still managed to eat rather well and was never late with my mortgage. I didnt eat ramen then and I dont eat ramen now. In fact I dont ever recall eating ramen and certainly not buying it as I almost never buy processed food. I rarely eat pasta of any sort as I feel better keeping my carb intake low. I DO eat lunch at work now as we have a fabulous place to eat, with excellent healthy food, but as my job is high-stress, that’s a treat and a way to carve out a bit of downtime. I rarely eat out except as a treat. Cooking is very therapeutic too. The flamer is out of line. Since 1999 Ive developed a second career, made three cross country moves, each with a significant promotion and a salary increase, overall nearly tripling my 1996 salary. I am not and never have been particularly frugal but I have to say it seems to me a lot of folk buy expensive junk purely because they cannot or have no time to cook. Just learning to cook properly and actually doing it would save a huge amount of $$!
This is to Julie back in September ’07. You talked about “vintage cookbooks.” I remember one that I had — this woman was giving advice to Depression-era cooks. The advice was awesome! She started her book by saying that she thought about how to eat more cheaply, and then realized that EVERY culture in the WORLD has faced — and solved — the same problem. Her cookbook, based on her own cooking for 6 people, borrowed recipes/cooking styles from many countries. I wish I still had this book!!! Can you recommend any websites that address this style of “vintage” cooking? Thks!
Hello, fresh perspective here.
Sorry but the basic concept of this article is just wrong.
The idea that there is something virtuous about eating for as little money as possible, even if you can afford more … what is the benefit of this kind of obsession?
Is it that you save money? That doesn’t make sense, because if you have enough money to afford more expensive food then the small amount you save doesn’t make any real difference.
Is it that it’s healthier? That can’t be the real reason, because you can have healthy food that also costs more some times. Go to a health food website if that’s what it is.
But no, the real driving force behind this is YOU PEOPLE ARE MISERLY!
Seriously folks, it’s a mental illness, get help.
I like this article. I already do most of the things on this list. Even though I do like to be cheap, I don’t do it with the intention to be miserly but to be healthy. By not eating out often and not purchasing pre-made meals, it cuts down on salt, fats etc. Also, this way when I do eat out I can splurge, both in terms of money and caloric content.
It’s the best of both worlds for me.
Things you are missing out on, #274 …
at the end of a hard days work, a nice cool brewski is one of the pleasures of life
why would you need to spend the money on a cookbook when you obviously have the internet or access to it. which sites like allrecipes.com and such why waste more money. And yes the convenience of eating fastfood is nice. And i can feed myself at mcdonalds for 3.18 3 sandwiches off the dollar menu, but that would be almost a third of a weeks allowes on one meal. oh well. I really dont care about this subject i make money so i eat what i want i was just looking for somthing to eat besides fast food. PEACE EASY
JRIS asks why would you need a cookbook with internet access? An excellent question, and one I did not consider when writing the article. Here’s my reply:
First, it would be a mistake to assume everyone reading this blog has Internet access in their home. If I were again in a position of needing to minimize my food expenses to the degree described, I would NOT be paying $19/month for Internet – that’s one week’s food budget. In fact, I might seriously consider selling the computer (if I had one) and conducting all of my Internet use at the library. This would not be convenient if I wanted to plan a meal on a Sunday afternoon in the summer when local libraries are closed.
Second, as great a resource as the Internet can be, it also takes some time to navigate. If I have a reliable cookbook that contains all the information I need, there is no need for the Internet.
Your quick math on McDonalds is exactly what this article is about: it seems inexpensive to eat there until you add up the costs and realize what scratch cooking could acheive for the same amount.
_______________________________
Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
This was linked in the latest blog(june30) so I am reading it. Why are there people on here who are writing rude things about other people? If you don’t like the topic, get off the blog instead of insulting others. I have been in the poor situation- thank goodness for the co-op, beans, rice and a yogurt maker. Now I can(and do) shop for some things at Whole Foods or Trader Joes but 1)things can always turn around 2) why spend money you don’t need to- you could give it to charity or travel or send your kids to college. You want to eat at Wendy’s every day, you want to eat rice and beans – your business, not the people who flame.
My basics are beans, barley, lentils, and rice. They are cheap, filling, and can be used for anything and everything. I like leftover rice with milk and a sprinkling of sugar for a nice breakfast.
Another good grab is a head of green cabbage. It can last you for quite a long time, and costs about $0.70 for a head here in Idaho. That gives my girlfriend and I enough cabbage for a weak worth of meals. On top of that, grab some potatoes and onions, if you can. Also pretty cheap, and can last quite a while. Cabbage, when cooked properly, is very tasty.
For super frugality, in the winter months, broil the cabbage and turn your heat down. The heat from the oven should be enough to cover you for an evening.
Finally, don’t forget to ask your local butcher (even in super markets) if they have any long bones back behind the counter. They just throw the things away, most of the time, and will probably be willing to give them to you or sell them for a very low price. A cup of beans, soaked over night, and a half cup of barley cooked in broth made from the bone is a hearty meal that will last you a long time. Even if you don’t think you can eat it all before it spoils, put it in a baggy or butter container, if you have one, and throw it in the freezer. Don’t forget to wash the baggy once you enjoy the frozen soup, turn it inside out to dry, and use it again.
I can’t believe I read all the comments up to here.
Anyways, to #150 “Peter”:
If you could buy the same item for $200 or $500, I guess you would take the $500 one because it’s better to spend more?
“Is it that it’s healthier? That can’t be the real reason, because you can have healthy food that also costs more some times. Go to a health food website if that’s what it is.”
I can’t believe you even said that, you make it sound like you SHOP AROUND for MORE EXPENSIVE food. I don’t think you have the credibility to be calling people “mentally sick.”
Do you stomp on peoples’ gardens and yell furiously at them to buy more food instead, too? The more I think about your reaction, the more it’s just funny.
well a few years ago it was possible to live on $7 AUD a week.. and in a way you still can atleast for a short time
What you do is drop by your Woolworths store and buy cans of tinned spagetti.. Infact you dont even need to cook them.. they used to be 25 cents each (for the last 30 years).. now they are up to 40cents each..
2 cans is 800 grams.. 40% is tomatoes, 60% is pasta.. along with cheese, flavouring etc.
Recommended cooking instructions..
1) Use rock to bash open can..
2) Eat from can..
3) With the money left over you can buy chicken.. not much but its cheap..
I guess just 5 years ago you could have bought 3 cans = 1.2Kg of spagetti + tomatoes.. + 25 cents left over for some chicken..
Damn inflation ^^.
Enjoy.. :)
Thank you so much for sharing how you used to eat for only $15 a week. My fiance is about to move into an apartment, and since we’re both short on cash because we are college students, this will come in very handy. God bless you!
Thanks for this article. I enjoyed it, and all the comments…well almost all the comments!
My husband and I have 7 children. We feed our family of nine, including frequent dinner guests, on $75.00 a week. EVERYTHING is made from scratch, even bread, and we eat very little meat. Our children do not complain about the meals they are served…they know that there are many people in the world who don’t eat as well as we do!
I believe a frugal meal, well-seasoned and served with love and kindness around the family table is nourshing to both body and soul. That is worth 100 fast food meals to us! I work hard to provide my family with good tasting, nourshing food…not junk food in fancy packaging. My husband works hard to provide for us so that I can stay home and homeschool our children. There is no shame in being frugal. We live on one income and have no debt.
We don’t eat out…anything ordered in a restaurant can be made at home for a fraction of the cost. It might take a little time and practice, but it can be done. AND I know what is in our food!
I appreciate all you have said. Thank you!
Just Me:
One income, no debt is excellent.
I agree with all your comments about home cooked meals. When you do it well, the kids usually prefer to eat at home, because most restaurant food isn’t actually that good.
Congratulations on your $75/week food budget for 9 people. Amazing. Do you suplement bought food with food from the garden?
I am an avid small game and deer hunter and when the season permits I will use the game that harvest to add to the freezer. For the cost of a bullet I can get a meal that will last for several months (for a deer). Since the cost of hunting is calculated in my entertainment budget I am acutally saving money in two ways.
Why eat like this? even at tough times, its not necessary. family of four usually contains at least two people that can work, and the worst you can do is get a teen job, like waiter/waitress, they are fairly easy to get, with a nice pay for you to eat well, $2000 per person by obtaining tips and you only have to pay about 12% taxes since gov’t thinks serving job makes avg of $1000 but they dont, my family all worked there at sometimes. so you are making a good $1800 per person AND, at some buffets, they even allow you to bring home a box of food at the end of the day for your family. eat well, and cheap. two people work makes $3600, with housing/car/insurance/bills you would still have a good $1500, personal spending/gas maybe $500 amonth, and you are left with $1000 a month. that is what my family does, and we eat WELL
Why eat like this? Last time I check, you do live in the United States not a 3rd world country.
Ok guys you are missing the point here Phil John, and Phil.
I make a 6 figure income and the other day I spent over $200 at the grocery store. What I brought home was not enough to last very long and I am single. I try not to eat out much yet I weigh over 330 lbs so I’m not exactly starving.
My work situation could change at any time as evidenced by the news recently. If that happens I want to be prepared to live on a shoe string budget. Now just because your situation may make it possible for you to be frivolous not everyone has that luxury. I think everyone can benefit from learning the ways of the frugal. So don’t condemn any one for wanting to save money.
I know of a large family with many dietary allergies so they make many of their meals from scratch. They have taken the kids out to eat from time to time and they would prefer to eat at home.
This country has changed over the years to where everyone wants to eat out many of my friends don’t even know how to cook. There is something wrong with this there is nothing good that can come from eating every meal out.
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but what if our way of life changed drastically and throws us back 40 years we will be hard pressed to survive a few weeks. Lets step back and reevaluate how and why we are doing some of the things we are doing. off the soap box.
Everyone has a unique situation and this situation could change in an instance. How many people that were making 6 figues are now unemployed due to the recession. While this might not force them to go to this extreme there are many middle to low income familes that cannot afford this luxury and are forced to reduce all costs. A thread like this can be the difference between eating and starving. Wake up there are families living in extreme poverty in almost every US city.
Myself I work 40hrs a week and make 8/hr and am single. On this budget I cannot afford very much. Usually I have less than 20$ in my bank a week to spend. This year I cannot even afford to get christmas presents for my parents. Now my job might be cut in January. With no savings and College bills I will have to cut costs severly. I am thankful there is a thread like this. There are several points on here I have taken and am making changes to my diet.
Do not take your situation for granted or you might find youself unable to cope with your situation.
Phil says:
“Why eat like this? Last time I check, you do live in the United States not a 3rd world country.”
This is a fair question. There are many answers. The general answer is “to live consciously.” If you are poor, which many people in the United States are, this can help you live better by reducing your spending to less than you earn (always a good thing). If you are rich, you probably don’t eat quite like this, but working toward this model can help you remain conscious about your life and your surroundings; it can be a blessing.
The answer in my case was $2000 in debt. It doesn’t sound like much, but I was just squeaking by with $16000 /yr gross salary (about $12000 /yr take home) and the $25 in interest payments was significant to me. I chose to eat and live frugally to improve my financial situation, and six months later I was debt free. Since then I’ve used the same discipline to eliminate my mortgage. It was a choice that I made willingly, and it has benefited me every day since I made it.
Thank you for reading, and commenting.
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Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
These tips are great for when it’s necessary, but spending the least possible on food shouldn’t be an aspiration. Instead we should be considering health. The cheapest foods are simple carbohydrates, which should be avoided in favor of slightly more expensive whole grains, etc. There is also not enough emphasis on fresh vegetables. It’s extremely hard to get enough servings of vegetables a day on such a low budget. Many of the people who say they eat on such a low budget in these comments seem to be eating a lot of the most inexpensive foods (of course) and not enough health foods including dark leafy greens, varieties of vegetables, etc.
I honestly think I would be ill if I ate ramen as mainstay in my diet, for example, I think it would adversely affect my health. Tuna, which is a great benefit to all the meal plans mentioned for cheap eating, is very high in mercury (see the FDA warnings) and it’s problematic to eat it so frequently. Fresh vegetables go a long way to keeping me healthy and I don’t think we should try to go without if we have the choice. My main concern is for families who don’t have the choice, and there is a high rate of obesity among the poor for exactly this reason.
We eat very cheaply but never eat ramen, avoid cereals, and eat lots of vegetables. Frozen vegetables in the winter and fresh for the farm in summer are cost effective.
“No organic foods, no fresh vegetables, we were looking for the cheapest of everything,” McGovern said in an interview with The Washington Post at a Washington supermarket. “We got spaghetti and hamburger meat that was high in fat–the fattiest meat on the shelf. I have high cholesterol and always try to get the leanest, but it’s expensive. It’s almost impossible to make healthy choices on a food stamp diet.”
…
Even for those people who are not seeing eroding benefits over time, the reality is “there are health consequences” to living on such a limited budget for more than a few days. People on food stamps are often forced to choose foods with higher fat, breads that are not whole grain and processed foods with unhealthy levels of sodium and sugar–a dangerous combination for people prone to diabetes, heart disease or other diet-related health problems. “Living (on $21 a week) for a week is different from living on it for six months,” Weill said.
…
That is why more people should demand to know why–in a year in which we are projected to give the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation some $56.5 billion in tax breaks
, just to cite one example of the national priorities set by President Bush–we can’t do better than an average of $21 a week to ensure that our fellow Americans can have three decent meals a day.
Thanks for the comment, Annie. Perhaps this did not come clear in the article, but I do not advocate an unbalanced diet. One of the key points is “Make your own food from scratch” which is almost always healthier and less expensive. I think that pre-packaged meals, chips, candy, and cookies, many of which appear cheap on the grocery shelf are probably a mainstay in poorer households – a big contributor to the obesity epidemic in that sector.
BTW: there is nothing wrong with using Ramen as a base for a home cooked meal. Adding fresh or frozen vegetables and a little leftover meat or tofu makes for a healthy, cheap, and substantial meal. If you don’t like the idea of MSG, substitute some bullion or broth for the flavor packet/water.
As for the article you quote: there is some truth to the comments about eating healthy and eating cheaply BUT developing knowledge and skills can radically change that equation. For example, at my house we bake most of our bread. One loaf of fresh whole wheat, no preservative, added bran or flax seed bread costs half what we would pay for the closest comparible in the supermarket, and about the same as a loaf of super cheap white bread. It is possible to eat very well and very cheaply: but it takes a lot of work.
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Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
I don’t get it! Why is it that people post stuff on here that seems as if they have not read this entire blog form start to finish? I guess the better question is why do I get so enraged about these misguided post?
*BEFORE YOU POST READ THIS*
I would not expect some one that makes tons of dough to eat nothing but Ramen noodles and tuna fish every meal. Nor do I think any one on here is saying that they should.
They type of people that I feel that would benefit from this type of information would be college students, families surviving on a limited income, people that are paying child support/alimony that leaves them with little to survive on(lets not get caught up on the politics of this one please) and many more.
The point of this blog is to provide information on how to (insert title here)but more importantly how to do it healthy, this is evidenced by the 10 bold tips at the top of this blog. If do nothing but read those and not the explanations alone it should deter you from making post about not eating “trash” or unhealthy food.
So, if you want to reiterate what others have already said before you, “don’t eat ramen noodles and tuna fish for every meal it is so bad for you and you wont last long,” my answer to you is “DUH”. Don’t bother tickling the keyboard because you have no business voicing your ignorance. Obviously everyone knows that you shouldn’t do this for it is unhealthy and you will not get very for for long with out consequences. To keep this short I will not just rant here, and I easily could, about how I feel about you.
If you want to post that you cannot have a weeks worth of healthy meals on a shoe string budget nor should you try. I say to you don’t bother we do not want to hear your opinion for you do don’t posses the required qualifications for posting on here. If anything you need to read the blog and learn something and try to put it into practice, open your mind a little bit please.
If this topic didn’t have a large number of people interested in it there wouldn’t be many shows on TV about this very subject.
OK I’m off my soap box for now and if you want to post go for it.
A few tips to add: When buying stuff at the grocery and looking at the prices look at the smaller price, typically in the top left corner, for this is price is the bulk price of the item. This price is better to go by because then you can purchase the cheaper bulk items which will save you money in the long run. Having stuff carry over from one week to another is great because then you give yourself some options. The other tip is more for people that live in big cities try to by your fruit and veggies every day in places like china town. This saves you because those items are priced to move because they are ready to eat now and cant be stored. If they rot then they don’t make money on them. This is great because with shopping that way keeps the price low due to the turn over every day.
ummm…you left out two IMPORTANT facts…one, what year was this? as it’s not about 2009 – for example, in 1987-1991, I fed SEVEN people on $100 every two weeks….it was done with ease (price checking, coupons, sale hopping….) You cannot do this in 2009! and two, location, location, location….we have traveled almost all 50 states and what prices are in one state are NOT in another! I could do this in IL, but cannot do this in NY…so, common sense, great share…just remember these two factors and create you’re own game plan…
MaryAnne,
Good points. The story in this article took place in the early 1990’s in Massachusetts. I have no doubt I could have done better with coupons, price checking, and sale hopping: none of these excellent strategies were employed, and all of the shopping was done at a single grocery store.
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Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
I’m very grateful for this post. For those of you who are asking “why eat like this?” The answer for me is: because eating like this means we are guaranteed food every day. Our two-income household just got knocked down to one income, thanks to the economy, and we’re looking at this being the case for the next year or so. I’m very excited about these hints for cheaper eating.
For folks in urban areas, I would add: look around for other stores. We thought the awful prices for food near where we live were just the way it is, but it turns out we’re in a bit of a “food island”, where pries are hiked up. A weekly trip to a cheaper grocery in a different neighborhood saves us a bundle.
just a comment on the dried milk idea – dried milk is now commonly known to contain oxidized cholesterol, which is known to increase blood cholesterol. It’s actually very bad for your health. It’s undoubtedly cheaper but at a cost to individual health. I’d stop drinking it immediately
LauraB:
Thanks for the comment about oxidized cholesterol (also called Oxysterol) in dried milk powders. I had not heard about it, and my wife and I did some immediate research on the topic.
It turns out that your comment is also true for dried eggs and cooked meat (especially if over-cooked or heat processed), and that with dairy products the levels of these oxydized
cholesterols vary depending on the product.
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.med.nutrition/2008-02/msg00022.html
My family consumes only skim milk powder, and (lucky for us)the Oxysterol content is very low (see link for details). The linked report suggests that eating cooked meat is a more worrisome source of this undesirable substance. So we will continue to drink dried milk, but the levels reported in dried cheese lead me to wonder about boxed Macaroni and Cheese, even if it says “organic” and “real cheese”.
:(
On another note: dried milk powder is not necessarily still a good method for saving money. The global demand for dried milk has increased in recent years, and the resulting price rise has reduced or eliminated the savings for many powdered milks. If your only motivation for buyint dried milk is cost savings, do the math before buying it. We will continue stocking it even when the cost savings is not there because of its convenience as a shelf-stable pantry item that can be stocked for emergencies.
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Wishing you a prosperous future
Daiko
Get a better job and stop having to be so CHEAP on the eats! Damn, go shoot a deer or eat some other wild game. It’s healthier than store bought meat by far and no chemicals are added.
Someone mentioned rice pudding as a good cheap dessert — bread pudding is my cheap dessert of choice, and it helps you get rid of old bread to top it off. And it lasts for a long while, on top of being good hot or cold.
This article reminded me of a video I saw on youtube. A mom that buys all groceries, $100s worth of stuff, with coupons. She ends up spending like 25 cents.Coupons will save you so much if you know how to use them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF8BKYtBX8Y shes one of the women I saw. There’s another that does it too, but I can’t find her.
I am glad i found this site cause it is helping me to save money on food for the week. I am on a very tight budget so cant afford to eat out for sure. To save moeny and enjoy food at home is a lifesaver.
thank you for the tips very much.
sandy
RICE.
if you buy a 50-lb bag of rice, and you’re only feeding yourself, that bag will last you a few months. and since you can eat rice with virtually anything else, you get to buy other stuff with the twenty bucks.
What a great article! It’s always so nice to be able to save big amounts of money on groceries…thanks for sharing your tips!
These are some really great tips. I’m tight on cash this week & was looking for a way to get through until pay day :)!
My boyfriend and I spend $20 per person a week on groceries. We will sometimes splurge here and there to treat ourselves and if we do go out we try and go to “happy hours” or “reverse happy hours” for half off appetizers, meals and drinks.
We have a large farmers market up the road and I try to go there once a week for our produce. You can find great deals for almost half the price at most grocery stores (and it is sometimes organic). We still shop at the big box grocery stores but focus on sale items and make a menu off of the weekly ads.
Making a menu has helped us avoid picking up those other unnecessary items that are usually high in calories, sodium and fat.
Tonight we are eating gnocchi with scallops in a pumpkin cream sauce. Super cheap and easy to make believe it or not!
$15 a week, i.e. $60 a month would not feed me in any sense of the word. I not only do not have a stove, I also only have a small mini fridge, and a simple microwave. Can’t afford anything more. Very little in the way of storage, so no bulk buying. Can only cook via the microwave. I have a hypermetabolism, so I need to eat a lot. I buy the cheapest stuff available, usually ramen, or other pastas, and cheeses. No milk(can’t store it). No chips. No soups(they don’t have enough physical substance to fill my metabolism). And just doing that, I still spend around $100 a month, usually more depending on fluctuating prices. Sorry to say, but these suggestions fail miserably, especially considering that $15/week does not work, fact.
I think, despite the ‘spoiled’ comment from one person, that it’s really great advice and a terrific reminder.
Americans aren’t necessarily spoiled and food deserts can make it particularly difficult to shop.
I drive to about four different spots in my town to stock up for several months. My freezer and pantry are my best friends cooking wise. I couldn’t do well without an enormous pot to make stocks, a slow cooker for yogurt, or many many containers to freeze and store … and I live ALONE.
In fact, considering thinking of investing in a very small freezer to keep vegetables, fruits, stocks, meats, bread … you NAME IT .. available to me. (except tomatoes … that’s just wrong. don’t ask me to freeze certain fresh fruits or veg)
My mom, dog, cat and myself used to live off 100 euros / per month.
what we found the most helpful was to keep a list of what we were spending and how much we spent- as to not run out of money.
I definitly agree making one or two cheap meals a week and then eating those for all other meals.
also always buy things on sale. there will always be a sale on something. See whats on sale and maybe google a recipe if you cant think of anything.
meat is expensive but if its on sale we would buy a little more and freeze it.
definitly dont buy drinks. even if you buy the cheaper brands. it still adds up when you can drink water out of the tap.
my personal favorite is jamie olivers tuna pasta. its heaven, quick and realtively cheap to make.
I always had a problem with the money spent in the grocery store and what you actually took home.
We have started baking our own bread instead of paying the $3-4 dollars a loaf. I have made bread out of rice, chick peas and anything else that lends itself to being ground up.
When I grew up, food was never thrown out (parents who grew up in hard times).
We make a meal, and the left overs are our lunches the next day.
Beans are used more often and one piece of chicken will feed all three of us for a meal.
Currently I am trying to get our food budget down to approx $50 per week. We shop in the outside isles of the stores. Any sweets are made at home.
Basic ingredients we have on hand, oil, flour,oatmeal, eggs, milk (trying the milk powder idea), carrots, celery, rice, beans of all sorts, onions, garlic and spices.
With these main ingredients it is easy to make something different everyday. Will see how I make out with my goal.
Great Post! I worked in the Hospitality industry during college and learned a lot of great tricks that many guests would do to save cost on dining out. To those that commented on the struggle to eat out on a budget, these tips may work out great.
Having your entrees split on two separate plates is a great way to save. It feels as if you have your own meal, and you save. Many guest will have their salad “split” onto two plates oftentimes resulting in a large individual salad because the busy kitchen doesn’t have a lot of time to portion them out correctly. If your server has a sense of humor, you can ask for “extra” lettuce. Instead of buying the expensive salad, choose the house salad and get veggies added to it (if there is no extra cost as a lot of places do not charge). Adding the veggies and protein to the salad oftentimes comes out cheaper than the salad selections.
Also, split a soft drink if your going to splurge; two straws, an extra glass of ice with unlimited refills. If dining alone, asking for a box immediately and boxing half for a later meal works out great. Boxing half of the meal right away before diving in helps from over eating, and sets limits to make sure there is the next meal available.
These are just a few tricks I’ve seen being in the business. Probably common sense, but they happen everyday and are nothing new to servers, so don’t be shy to ask or modify!
this is all very well, but the majority of people on the breadline, broken, overworked, harassed, and despairing, aren’t going to live like this. If you’re on 60hrs a week with your two jobs, you simply don’t have the time to devote to cooking when you get home at night for a start. And secondly, the no junk food dictum is a very practical and sensible suggestion…for robots. When you’re facing the very real prospect of never owning your own home, never having a decent job again, and getting to the end of every day being a challenge, you have exactly two options to defer suicide; drugs, or junk food. Oh and lastly, pretend you don’t have a car or much money to spend on all too infrequent buses, and the only shops in easy reach are corner stores and bodegas, with no opportunities to buy in bulk and no fresh produce. This blog describes theoretical exercises in play poverty by people who barely need to perform them.
All really interesting tips on the site – I am in the UK but live quite well on a low food budget. My tips are shop for fresh vegetables that are in season. We have markets in the UK where fresh produce can be honestly bought at the market price in the quantity you need.
Herbs and spices lift a meal – buy the basics if you can dried in bulk rather than silly little jars from supermarkets: Oregano, Basil, Tyme Sage and Parsley; chilli Powder Curry powder and then a whole bunch of other stuff that can add flavour.
Other basics – plain flour, corn flour, sugar and stock powder. Salt and pepper of course.
Always have the basics in the cupboard and fridge – Rice, Pasta, milk eggs and cheese butter and some oil – sunflower/nut for cooking and olive oil for salads.
Look for great deals on fresh fish – one of the UK supermarkets that has a fishmongers counter sells fresh mixed white fish mainly cod and haddock at 1/3the cost of fillets – great for fish pie or a fish pasta dish.
Really cheap – use tined tuna in a fishcake mix – really a cheap and tasty meal with some in season salad.
Chicken or Turkey? Well Turkey is cheaper in the Uk has less fat and you get more for your money – no brainer really.
Soya Mince. I had a partner that was a vegi and in the UK we have a sort of Health Food store Holland and Barret – great for oats and dried nuts and fruit for breakfast. The soya mince is a direct replacement for minced beef. It’s not quite the same but using decent olive oil and in an Italian ar mexican sauce mix its very good. I find a bit of real butter can give it a depth of taste or texture. But as I am not a big red meat eater I prefer this – to cheap mince beef and its a lot cheaper.
Today Mike said: “If I make even $10/hour and I spend 7 hours a week cooking, that’s $70. I’d rather do my job and count on the professionals to prepare my meals.”
That’s OK, Mike. Do what suits you. But for those of us who want or need to save money, food can be one of the most effective places to do it. It would be safe to say that yearly food expenditures for most households comprise one of the largest single expense categories (usually just after housing). If you really must save money, switching from “the professionals” to careful shopping and cooking for yourself can make a huge difference.
Wishing you a prosperous life,
Daiko
As a college student living on a limited, somewhat fixed income, I found this post to be incredibly helpful. I’m lucky enough to have parents who not only taught me to cook, but who also fostered a love for cooking in me. And while I love to occasionally eat out with friends, cooking is often therapeutic for me, especially after a long day of classes. I think many others have taken the original post out of context or did not even read it at all. This isn’t something people generally do just for the hell of it because they want to accumulate vast amounts of wealth; it’s something they do out of sheer necessity. I must make do with about $800/month, most of which is contributed towards my rent and other bills. It may not be a perfect diet, but it suffices.
As for never eating out for a single person sometimes it actually is cheaper to eat out than make your own by the time you buy all the different ingredients. For example, there is a pizza place where I can get a huge slice at lunch for 95 cents, and they always make it fresh right then.
Am I the ONLY one who0 notices –THAT WAS THE NINTETIES AND FOOD PRICES HAVE RISEN SINCE THEN!!!
And this article was published 7 years ago. If you are looking for excuses why you cannot eat for less, I know you will find them. I would not pretend that $15 is as viable as it was then (I used to get 5 or 6 packs of Raman for $1 and 3 cans of Tuna for $1), but I guarantee I could manage on $20 or $30 per week.
The cookbook mentioned in the article is available in every thrift store in America. No need to spend 8 bucks for new.
Thanks for the great article. Some of the comments though… I just have to say I think the reason some people are hating on these ideas is because a lot of Americans treat food as a status symbol (“I can afford the best beer, steak, ONLY organic whole food. You should too. If you can’t get a better job blah blah” )People are so judgmental these days and have to make sure everybody knows that they know better. If you don’t want to do this or don’t have the need to, cool. So close the article and move on.
We are a family of 8 (4 gluten-free) eating off of general $5000/year. That is $12/person/week. Buying in bulk or even “family size” often drives down per ounce costs. Buying directly from farmers, shopping at Aldi’s and Walmart, and for some items, Azure Standard is also very helpful, especially if you lack time to coupon, like me.