Hello, /ck/!
This is my first time posting here, and I really need help. You see I come from a poor family, and I have a job that doesn't pay all too well for the time being. My average budget for food is about $240 a month, and if I budget it right I can usually make it work, but I fell I can be eating better and healthier!I love to eat liver and onions because it's cheap, but I need more recipes. Honestly, I'll eat anything really, I don't flinch towards anything so long as it's edible and keeps me healthy.
What say you, /ck/, can you help me eat better?
>>7683012
beans n rice
cheap cuts of chicken (thighs, legs, whole)
fruit
veg
$240 is enough to live like a king for one person. I'm dirt poor and here's what i do.
The vegetables you eat are veggies on sale
learn to work a whole chicken, you get way more for the price, here's what i do, I wait till theres a sale for whole chickens sometimes as low as 99c/lb but I'll typically buy up to $1.29/lb, buy 5 or so and spend an hour or so working through them at home and freezing, keeping the bones for stock
dry beans
pick a grain you like, the cheapest would be rice in those big 15lb bags
Everyone is going to give you hell for thinking $60/week is being poor.
Buy the cheapest items in each food category that still meets your needs. Adjust how much you invest in each food category: A meat, fish and vegetable-based diet is expensive, a grain-based diet is cheap, regardless of how cheap you can buy things. Fats are cheap calories, don't skimp on them. Proteins are generally expensive, they're cheapest in the form of legumes (since those come with carbs that you need anyway). Fruits and vegetables should be limited to what you deem necessary for your health - you can basically eat an unlimited amount of them, which is a waste of money. So set a limit, 2 pounds a day or whatever
>tfw used to spend over $4000 a month on food
I've been taking /ck/ advice in threads like these and have gotten my spending down. Budget apps also helped out alot
$240 can buy you shit tons of groceries and household items. Potatoes, rice and pasta as a base for your dinners will cover the bulk of your caloric needs.
You could still eat decently on half that budget if you cut out soft drinks, take-out and buy less meat.
On your budget you don't have to really bother with using whole chickens and going for rice and beans, unless of course you want to have an extra $100+ to spend at the end of the month.
2 days rice, 2 days potatoes and 2 days pasta as a base with 1 day of whatever should cover most of it. For lunch stick mainly with bread.
A weeks worth of lunch and dinner could look like this:
-Tuna and egg salad sandwiches
- boiled potatoes with fresh vegetables, some gravy and a burger patty
-Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
-Friend leftover potatoes, fresh vegetables and a chicken breast
-Tuna and Egg salad sandwiches
-Rice with sweet and sour sauce + chicken
-Leftover rice and sauce
-Fried rice with some ham and frozen veggie mix
-Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches
-Burritos with mince, beans and vegetables
-Leftover buritos or the saucemix with rice
-Pasta bolognese
-Omelette on bread
-Leftover pasta
Pretty cheap stuff, but lots of vegetables. Also lots of items you can buy in bulk and on sale. Ground beef and chicken can be frozen. Bread can be bought and frozen. Beans, rice and pasta last forever, and potatoes last a long time as well. Onions are used in fucking everything and last a long time as well.
>>7683110
>>tfw used to spend over $4000 a month on food
How, you fucking retard? That's over $100 a day.
Stupid faggot.
>>7683124
https://youtu.be/QTNsbLyMAmk
I am a lot poorer than you, OP. I spend about $50 a week, I'm by myself. It would take a long time to tell you how I do it, but here are a few items:
- Koolaid: 1 packet for 1 milk jug gallon of water, 5 table spoons of sugar. Never soda or beer. Make tea in your Mr. Coffee, then put it in milk jugs too; add lemonade for an Arnold Palmer.
- Rice, lots of it
- Oatmeal, until you can't stand it.
- Pasta, but make your own tomato sauce, many ways to do that.
- Eggs, but test them in cold water before you use them, Last sunday I almost died, not kidding.
- Frozen burritos, cheap n easy
- Never eat at a restaurant
- Learn from friends how to cook
- Make a steak once a month, plan for it & look forward to it.
- Crock pot: lots of things like stew, chicken lotsa ways.
- Potatoes, many many potatoes. Velveeta isn't healthy but it's good. Pepper and lots of different recipes.
- Peanut butter: like they said above, plus it's protein
- If you treat yourself rarely you can get through. It takes discipline to live like a soldier, but you can do it. Sometimes I wonder why God is hurting me so badly, but some of this is my fault as well. I just keep up hope that maybe the sun will come out someday. You can't let go of that. Best of luck to you, man.
>>7683129
lol...this tickles me. wealth shaming is the new hate crime.
>>7683087
It's not poor, but it's not living well either. Regardless it's good eating with some common ingredients if you're willing to buy bulk. Just don't expect a lot of variety, but these will be the dishes that one learns to cook well if they're actually mentally present in the kitchen
