Okay /ck/, the shit has gone down and I'm going to be losing a lot of money over the next several months. I'm an alright cook but I need to know some good staples to live off of. What should I hoard, what are some good pauper recipes? No Iceland or prepackaged shit unless it's insanely cheap and keeps.
Beans and rice is the answer you're gonna, just like every other thread like this
>>7130808
Deal in bulk and freeze applicable things. Soups and broths to pad out meals.
Start a little home garden, by the time you're in the hole everything should be about ready to harvest. You can get starter plants at Walmart or at Home Depot. Spend $20 on plants and you'll be able to harvest 3 or 4 meals a week. I recommend roma tomatoes and basil because both are easy to grow and make easy marinara sauce, all you need to do is add some $1.50 a box noodles and Safeway french bread and you're eating a day's worth of food for about $4.
The bulk of your food should be cheap starches to fill you up. Fats improve the taste and add cheap calories, they sell bacon trimming for fairly cheap, it's mostly the fat with a tiny bit of meat, toss it in with your starches when you're cooking it.
Salt and pepper are fairly cheap spices and if used liberally can improve bland food like beans. You can also get salt/pepper packets from restaurants to stretch your dollar a little further along with ketchup packets.
A lot of places have a subsidized program for fresh fruit and vegetables for poor/elderly people, my local one gives a grocery bag of fruits and veggies for $10 a week. It's not a bad deal and helps prevent malnutrition. If not once every few days go to Subway and get a fully loaded 6-in sandwich, you'll feel a little more human for eating out and you'll get the fiber and veggies.
Couscous and learning to work with doughs
Fermented vegetables and dairy you make yourself
Are also options
>>7130808
Look like a mashed dead mouse on your sausage...
>>7130859
>sausage
>>7130815
>Make chili, soups, ready made meals in advance
why?
JUST
>inb4 poorfags who don't even know how to live say beans and rice
Might as well just kill yourself at that point.
Buy cheap ground beef/pork, but no higher than 15%.
You can make some really badass flatbread rolls with it, just add some tomatos, garlic sauce and frozen onions.
Here's my poorfag fabulous lifestyle:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
>125ml large flake oats
>250ml whole milk
>Combine and bring to a boil, stir occasionally
>Remove from heat once it's almost thick enough, add 15ml maple syrup, or jam, or honey or whatever you like, I add maple syrup and pumpkin butter
Lunch: Protein shake
>500ml whole milk
>2 scoops c'mon
Dinner: Lentil stew
>1/4 a medium red onion
>15ml minced garlic
>15ml minced ginger
>400ml chicken stock (water if you're an ultimate poorfag)
>Put in a pot and bring to a boil
>curry powder
>lime juice
>something spicy whether it's hot sauce or chopped peppers or whatever
>65ml red lentils
>reduce to lowest possible simmer, cover and cook 20-ish minutes, add more water as necessary
>Remove from heat once the lentils are tender and stir in a dollop of plain/tart yogurt
>Serve with rice, boiled greens, a boiled egg, anything you like
You can make the stew nicer by sauteeing the onions and stuff before adding the water, but it's not explicitly necessary as long as you cook it long enough for the onions to soften. Using oils will also add calories, which can be very helpful.
All this costs very, very little money. I spend maybe $15 CAD a week on groceries.
>>7131059
Lahmacun is a very decent meal and cheap to make
It's not very stable but you could sometimes find meat on discount that is going to expire
Buy a deep freeze / chest freezer so you can deep-six stuff on sale.
I lived off of steamed potatoes/broccoli/carrots in college, maybe dress that up with a sauteed onion and some mushrooms.
Salad is cheap. Soup is semi-cheap. Buy some red beans, an onion and a smoked ham hock, pick over and soak the beans overnight, put it all in a Crock Pot and let it cook for 6+ hours, very tasty.
A rice cooker is your best friend. Rice is cheap and you can dress it up endless ways.
Sprouts are good for you and reasonably cheap. Dress up salads and sandwiches and pasta/ramen.
My point being don't starve yourself eating empty food, eat cheap food that will sustain you. Oatmeal in a Crock Pot overnight is a great idea, cheap and filling. Buy decent steel cut oats, like from Bob's Red Mill. Don't Jew yourself on ingredient quality.
Don't be bashful about asking the local market about meat or veggies which are not cosmetically perfect or which might be a bit past their prime.
Hang in there, op.
>>7131059
Also you can get rice and beans
>Iceland
>implying bongistan or drunkistan
My biggest money-saving measure is baking my own bread. Loaves of similar quality & size go for $4-$8 (£2.68-£5.35) each here. For me, a roughly 680g loaf costs me about 45¢ to make, which is about 30p. I'm sure flour & yeast prices can't be all that different for UK or IE.
Next, buy dat rice. Get it from, seriously, Iceland. It's decent quality & costs considerably less than rice of similar quality from other stores.
I cook up 500g at a time, which for me makes seven to nine servings, depending on how much I'll eat at a given time. That costs about 6¢ per serving. Again, not sure what the prices are there nowadays, but shouldn't be too costly.
Rice & veg with beans or meat is a very, very cheap meal. My dinner tonight, for example, will be garlic fried rice (about 11¢/7p worth of stuff) & miso-braised chingensai/shanghai choi (about another 25¢/17p). It's a lite meal because I had quite the heavy lunch & snacked on a considerable amount of olives but if I include a serving of meat or beans, that would be an increase of only about 50¢ or 12¢, respectively or about 30¢ if I have the two together (which I don't typically do).
Now, I've never seen manager's specials in the UK, but then, I've never bothered looking for them there, either. All the same, I'm sure something like that exists /somewhere/ wherever it is that you live. Manager's specials are deals on items that are just about to reach expiry or need to be liquidating due to overstock or lack of shelfspace.
For example, today, as Wednesday is my shopping/errands-running day, I was able to get 1lb of green beans/haricots verts, 1lb of portobello mushrooms, 1lb of Brussels sprouts, a 6lb turkey thigh (for roasting tomorrow), 2lbs of turkey necks (for making gravy to go with my turkey thigh) and 1lb of peppers all for $7. The turkey thigh alone will yield about fifteen servings of meat & it only cost me 41¢/lb due to manager's specials.
>>7130811
Lentils and rice are good too, the lentils will cook a lot faster than beans even if you soak your beans.
olde english 800 and mcdoubles (checkem)
Crock pot dude. Just look up cheap crock pot recipes, there are thousands online. Most are hearty, healthy, and make great leftovers so they'll last. Good luck man, I've never had to live lean, but I'm frugal by nature and I've helped out buddies who have hit hard times.
Also, LOOK FOR SALES!!! You're going to need to diversify a little bit to save your sanity and as a treat to yourself. Subscribe to some grocery store ads that get sent to your e-mail. The Kroger around me has Perdue chicken for $2 a pound sometimes. Good for some protein and to switch things up a bit. Fish is actually on sale quite a bit because they need to sell it or it'll go bad. I'll buy solid salmon filets for $2-3 a piece.
Combine the suggestions in this thread and you'll have a relatively diverse, healthy, and hearty diet to get you through lean times. Good luck man.
>>7132047
He's from UK. Your Kroger specials won't help him.
>>7130808
Don't use disposable plates, you'll save money without em.
Beans, rice, potatoes, onions, garlic
>>7132129
Was simply an example, which is why I kept it vague and said "some grocery store ads," then threw in anecdotal evidence. But thanks for the input you turd.
nothing is cheaper than peanut butter sandwiches
>>7130808
The biggest tip is to cook and buy in bulk. Get used to eating leftovers and just make a fuckton of things and either eat leftovers all week or freeze them. This can actually allow you more variety in the long run, and makes sure you can get the best deal on whatever it is you're buying.
Especially if you can afford to go slightly above the absolute bare-minimum and buy some cheap meat, you're always better off buying a bunch of meat at once and cooking for the week. Sometimes whole turkeys go on sale cheap this time of year, or other large things when you get them between the major holidays. You can eat a long time off a turkey, especially if you make soup from the carcass.
Anyway, baking your own bread will also do wonders for your budget if you can find the time. And learn to make soups with beans or lentils. Don't get suckered into just eating one meal all the time.
Milk, eggs, rice, cabbage, onions.
Pork shoulder/cheap large cuts of meat and make a shitload of it. Homemade tortillas/beans/rice/potatoes/starches. It's decently easy to live of of 50$~ a month of groceries it's just fucking boring eating 3 things.
>>7130808
If you live in a decent city then go to a church or temple, if they don't do it directly then they can point you in the right direction to get food and such. If you're an islamic sack of shit then you're fuck out of luck.
>>7130859
looks like an ex smoker sneezed on the hot dogs
>>7130808
why is there a dead mouse over the sausages?
