hi /ck/
i recently moved out of my parents and have found myself running into a problem when grocery shopping:
i can feed myself, and i can do it cheaply. but cannot feed myself cheaply and healthily. i just end up buying ramen and frozen dinners.
how does one do their grocery shopping? are there certain building block ingredients i should get? any tips in general? thanks
>classic image.jpg
Essentials:
Onions
Carrots
Cabbage
Dried beans
Rice
Optional meat:
Minced meat
Stew meat on sale
Whole chicken
Liver
Optional vegetables:
Canned tomatoes
Garlic
Bell peppers
Celery
This should turn out pretty damn cheap, add spices of choice and then spend whatever is left freely.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/your-healthy-grocery-list-and-recipe-guide.html
Research cheap healthy grocery lists.
>>7360703
Keep in mind that eating nothing but ramen will fuck your health up and make you feel like shit, hurting you financially in two ways; your medical bills later and potentially loss or failure to acquire a job due to your low energy and self-esteem.
Shop based on sales. Got a pork loin yesterday for $1.20 a pound. Made a loin roast with other ingredients I got on sale. Great food for less than a dollar per serving.
Ive learned to degrade my standards to Family Dollar/Dollar Tree for things like:
>rice
>pinto beans
>tuna
>pasta
>pasta sauce
>spices
>paper towels
>shampoo
>soap
It's all a few bucks at most and quality is least important for those items, so you can often buy them in bulk.
I still run to Walmart for stuff like:
>cottage cheese
>almond milk
>extra virgin olive oil
>bananas
>apples
>eggs
>>7360748
yes i discovered the down sides of ramen.
truly felt like garbage for a long time
>>7360703
>frozen dinners
>cheap
nice try
>>7360714
Onions are a good one, just a bag of them and they dont go bad for like ever if you keep em in the fridge. Even in the pantry mine last for a long time.
I would say instead of spending freely with whatever is left, start making a list of cooking shit you need that is non perishable like a bottle of soy sauce, a can of tomato sauce, various spices, etc.
Buy these a few at a time each trip until youve built up a good collection.
>>7360703
Late one night, sneak up to your parents' house and set it on fire. They fucked you by not teaching you extremely basic shit.
>>7360714
>ground beef
>optional
>canned tomatoes
>optional
>garlic
>optional
>cabbage
>essential
wut
>>7360714
>no fruits
found the gook
OP if you are really strapped for cash you may be eligible for SNAP benefits (aka food stamps). Check with your state.
Ramen doesn't have to be unhealthy.
My asian family eats ramen every now and then for dinner and we'll throw in some eggs, strips of ham (like lunch meat ham), mushrooms, and vegetables in there.
And use half the flavor packets to reduce the sodium
>>7361490
>to reduce the sodium
reducing the sodium is not really something most people need to concern themselves with
>>7361498
If your meals are entirely ramen and the cheapest of frozen food, you are a candidate for the one percent of sodium vacuums.
>>7360744
>$75 a week
>cheap
>>7361498
Ha, that's true.
Both sides of my family have high blood pressure and I've had an uncle whose had a stroke shortly followed by a heart attack due to a lifetime of poor life choices and eating habits. So we try to stay healthy-ish
>>7360703
What you have to do is work out a bunch of dishes you cook from scratch that have overlap in terms of basic ingredients, and cook them often enough that you don't have things going bad in your fridge. That's the cheapest way to eat healthy. But this is two skills: learning to cook and managing your fridge/larder. These don't come overnight, but over years. You work toward it.
>>7360703
Learn to make soups, stews, casseroles, and pasta dishes. Easy to cook. They tend to be complete meals in themselves. Leftovers can be frozen and reheated as needed.
Most of the time, it's as easy as tossing everything into a pot and applying heat.
that is a lie and an excuse for your laziness dude sorry
dry beans, oats, eggs and canned tuna are cheap as all fuck. potatoes (GI higher than pure glucose, go figure)and rice aren't quite as healthy but they're way better than your shitty alternatives like ramen which have virtually zero nutritional content.
>>7362039
White rice doesn't have any nutritional value either, potatoes are much superior in that regard. Specifically, potatoes have higher values on every single vitamin and mineral in relation to calories, except irrelevant ones, i.e. Manganese and Selenium.
>>7362057
like i said, rice and potatoes are lesser tier. rice because of empty calories and potatoes because of GI.
>>7361098
Hey so turns out that thing you don't wanna eat is in fact cheaper than those things you do wanna eat
>>7362097
yup.
so maybe shit-food addicted motherfuckers should quit claiming that healthy food is too expensive.
>Round up some organic meats, eggs, and juice
>Go to self checkout
>Buy things you normally buy, and slip the organic stuff into your bags as you're checking out.
Very easy and they will never fuck with you because nobody but the managers genuinely give a shit. Just do it when they are really busy. I lived comfortably off of $70 a month when I was in college because of this method.
>>7362182
Why not just straight up rob a store and live with the money instead?
>>7362185
Because that is overt and you would go to jail. I suppose that's why he was in college and you are not.
>>7362182
That's some nigger-tier behavior right there.
>>7360703
>how does one do their grocery shopping? are there certain building block ingredients i should get? any tips in general? thanks
Look at some recipies you want to make.
Decide if you can make them or not
See what you already have
Write down what you need to buy
buy stuff
cook stuff
done
for me it is essentiall that I have a plan and a shopping list. Deciding what you want to cook during shopping is always a bad idea, because it will end with me buying overprized and unhealthy shit.
also, does you local supermarket do various offers on a weekly basis or something? If so, look them up beforehand. That way, you find some stuff that you'd want to cook, instead of just shovelingloads of shit into your shopping cart, just because it's on sale, and then ending up discarding it, or having to buy more expensive ingredients, because you did not plan ahead.
>>7362061
>hurr durr le empty calorie may may
Fuck of to /fit/ and spout your bullshit there. Rice is eaten by 1/5th of the global population for thousands of years. It has minerals and vitamins in addition to the carbs. It's a cheap, easy to store source of energy for humans. Just fuck off.
>>7360703
Buy things in bulk, especially when they're on sale. Get the "family size" meat packages from the meat section and then freeze most of it, it's better value over time. Get like a 10 lbs bag of potatoes (the prebagged ones, not the loose ones), there's so much shit you can do with potatoes, and they're dirt cheap. I usually get a 5 lb bag for $1.50, it usually lasts a little over a week.
>>7360703
Also don't listen to /fit/ broscientists who says rice and potatoes aren't good for you, they're full of shit. The Irish have lived off nothing but potatoes for centuries, so I think they'll get you through college/a promotion.
when people say they need to eat cheaply how much do they mean? according to a spreadsheet I made, in one month I spent $306 on food, but that was including kfc and drinking beer at a bar once a week. the cheapest thing I made was stroganoff for $5.18 a meal, and the most expensive was beef stew at $9.39 a meal.
>>7361055
They are if you're buying the truly scary ones. There's a brand that is literally 1 dollar a package.
I am terrified and.mystified as to what the contents might be
Throwing out a recommendation to look for a Sam's club or similar membership warehouse outlet while you're at it, the membership fee is a small investment for the prices you can get on bulk items like TP
