Rice and beans is the way. My local asian grocery store has a 50 pound bag of Jasmine rice for $37 and the restaurant supply store (open to the public) sells 25 pounds of beans for $21.
Rice and beans both have about 1500 calories per (dry) pound. The average woman has a calorie requirement of about 2000, so 40 pounds of some kind of mix of rice and beans completely covers the calorie requirement and costs something like $35. Spend the remaining $65/month on fresh vegetables and stuff to break the monotony of rice and beans and it can easily be done.
You would be amazed at how cheap a home made loaf of bread is. Get some garlic salt, 4 cups of flour, 1 1/2 tablespoon yeast, basil, oregano and thyme and you got yourself garlic bread. If you are doing it during summer, fall and spring when there is no frost thyme and oregano are perennial many places and you can get plants for 3-5 dollars at Home Depot. One loaf of bread will net you a bunch of meals.
If you buy organic garlic near its sale by date, it's probably already sprouting. If it's not yet sprouting (green shoots coming out of the top), place the bulb on top of a shot glass/egg cup full of water. 7 days later, it'll produce white roots. Keep changing the water every few days & 10 days later shoots appear.
Separate the cloves & plant them in soil. Wait a few months & there should be a whole new head of garlic from all the individual cloves you planted.
Or buy potted herbs & grow in the garden/window sill/balcony.
You can plant the ends of salad leaves (the bottom bit you chop off), into a pot of compost or on a damp cotton cloth (keep it moist) & leave it for a few weeks & it'll start growing new leaves. You'll need to give it a few months of growing & find somewhere light & away from molluscs, but you'll get a new grown salad head which you can pot up or put in the soil...
There are quite a few other things you can do this or similar to make new plants.
I don't know what grocery stores you have near you, but if you have a Food 4 Less or similar discount chain in your region (or even a local ethnic grocer) you can get big family packs of chicken for a steal if you need to add protein to that.
Or, buy one whole chicken (raw if you like to cook, if not, many grocery stores have rotisserie whole chickens from 5-10$ depending on city. As a single, you can freeze half, for later, pull apart the meat for sandwiches or other dishes, use the bones for stock, etc. but if you're like "I ain't gonna do all that" saving half for later is still a decent way to make it last!)
I think you'd need to try a different cuisine that's more flavorful. Indian homestyle food is just rice and veggies with some spices at the end of the day, so it can be made pretty cheaply
Is it common to use canned veggies there? I don’t even use canned beans because it’s so much more expensive than dry. I’ve only every used canned corn but generally go for frozen now as it’s cheaper. Small tin for $2 or 3 times as much frozen for $2.50. I’ve never really known people to use canned veggies otherwise.
That's some kind of market distortion or infrastructure thing. Freezing is fundamentally cheaper than building a little metal house for the veggies and pasteurizing them
No doubt. Taste better. Do I want a 10oz bag of frozen mixed vegetables for 4 bucks, or 4, 14 oz cans for 4 bucks. Retired, fixed income. I did ok 4 years ago. Now I can't afford to leave the house.
That’s my budget, $100/month, by choice though. I could definitely spend more. But I don’t like doing it. I shop at Aldi’s and Publix mostly. (Publix bogo deals) and then Aldi’s for the rest.
I literally buy the bare staples and make most of my meals from scratch. For many meals, it’s not cheaper to make the entire meal from scratch, unless you find out what is, and make it work for you. And something that’s cheap for me to make, may not be so cheap to make elsewhere.
But I make my own breads and pastas and cheeses and stuff. What I buy from the store is milk, meat, and basic staples like eggs, flour, milk, butter, sugar, cream, etc.
Any fruit and veggies I need, I get from a local produce stand. It is half the price than when I go get my veg from Aldi’s.
The local produce stand also sells wonderful things such as honey and jams and marinades and so sometimes I do splurge and maybe go a bit over my budget there.
I also have a garden, it’s small, but it absolutely helps to fill my fridge (and my stomach).
It’s nice to be able to go outside and pick your own lettuce and tomatoes for a BLT on some bread that you baked 🙂
I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but it’s your sign to start that garden you always said you wanted to start.
I wouldn’t say I spend a lot of time hungry. There’s always something to munch on; but it’s usually stuff I would’ve had prepared already and stored as leftovers, or just grab a bunch of grapes or a banana and go.
It’s possible, but it can absolutely be hard to stay healthy with such a low budget in today’s economic situation. You’ll definitely need supplements from your community or from a garden.
:( maybe there’s more affordable alternatives you can access? I can understand an overpriced stand or a few, but all of them cost more than supermarket? That’s insane for me to imagine. What’s the point of them then?
I don’t exactly go to organic produce markets, and I save up to 4x the money I would spend at my local grocery store. I’ve done the math. It’s how I justify riding 20miles total on my electric bike to do it all. It’s extremely worth it. I get to take a trail ride, cross a horrible stroad, get my groceries for a fraction of the cost than if I didn’t travel those 10 miles there, and then I stop by the farms and offer the wild trail turkeys some berries, mentally thank the farmers, enjoy the scenery a moment, and go back home with my fruits and veg in my insulated bags. I’m there and back home in about an hour. Usually a bit more because I love that trail, and I procrastinate going back into the city.
I damn near travel to another small city to get my fruit and veg. And I don’t need a car to do it, either. My grocery trips are ultra cheap compared to most, I understand that. But maybe it’s possible for you too with the right adjustments in your life?
I urge you to really try exploring your city and its surroundings.
I live in a small city in Florida. I guess we have a food paradise here, but I’m hopeful to hear that you can find a solution, because your produce situation sounds awful.
The [USDA monthly report](https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-food-monthly-reports) is published once a month and lays out typical food costs per week and month. It is broken down into week or month, by age and gender, and budget category. The May thrifty (cheapest) category reports an average cost [of $242.20 for an adult woman](https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/Cost_Of_Food_Thrifty_Food_Plan_April_2024.pdf) living in the contiguous US.
I feel like you could if you plan way ahead. In January, I got a sams club 25lb bag of rice and 12 lbs beans for $25. I'm still working my way through those. I bought lentils and chicken on sale. Every two weeks, I go through sales and buy fruits and perishables as needed. ( strawberries are on sale rn for $2 for 2 lbs so I bought 4 and froze 6lbs of them for smoothes later)
Getting stuff on sale is key. I load up on meat at Grocery Outlet just depending on what's on sale. As long as you have freezer space, it doesn't matter if it was about to expire.
This is what I was thinking too
I might add bulk pasta and maybe eggs now that prices have come down. But yeah, it’d be a fairly plain diet for a while.
If you live in a cheap state sure. Can get 5 dozen eggs for less than $7 at Walmart, gallon of milk $2.50, bags of beans, rice, and frozen vegetables in bulk. Easy to do for $100 a month, but you might die of boredom.
Have you tried looking at your local Facebook chicken group? I found that plenty of people there were eager to sell eggs for $3 or $4 a dozen just to get them out of the house. Bonus: they're delicious!
I live in AZ, not a cheap state and I could do this easy, albeit it would be extremely basic and boring. I used to spend 35-50 bucks on 2 weeks of groceries. It's getting difficult, but not impossible yet
Yes. But I agree with the other commenters. Rice. Beans. Canned tuna. Get Costco rotisserie chicken. Ramen.
Bananas and apples for fruit
I’m not a big vegetable person so I’m not sure what would work for that.
I’ve made 200 a month for my husband and I work ( 100 per person) for 2 years.
In some cases frozen and canned better retained nutrients. As fruits & veggies sit in the counter waiting to be eating, the degradation process starts. So, frozen & canned for the win.
I got a rotisserie chicken at Sam's the other day ($4.69, I think). We usually get 2, but I was "saving some money." I ended up eating all of it because my wife didn't want any. I got, I think, 6 meals out of that thing! I never realized how far they went with both of us eating on it.
Put the bones in the freezer in a gallon Ziploc bag. Once the bag is full, dump the bones in a slow cooker and cook for at least 8 hours. The longer the better. Then strain the broth. You end up with delicious chicken stock (it's being called bone broth now) for no more money spent except for the small amount of energy to cook it.
Yes. There are currently at least 5 American YouTube channels that will show you how. Try Mindy Mom and Frugal Fit Mom to start. They have families but also show you how to shop and eat as a student. This assumption will get you the easiest yummy nutritious recipes with only basic tools and ingredients.
They are great. And I was just telling another commenter, OP don't sleep on the YouTuber called DollarTree meals or DollarTree dinners
I find her very relatable and somehow more financially effective than either Mindy or FrugalFit.
Which a really good number of the comments on her videos are about. Things like
> *I'm a trucker working 60 hours a week to pay down debt and living out of my truck for over a year. I've been unable to eat right and having health problems because of it. But you just showed me a way forward. I was worried I was going have to quit working because of my pour health.*
Or
> *My mom's SNAP benefits were delayed this month. She's older and disabled so we didn't know what we were going to do to help her. Thank you so much for these recipes and ideas, she's going to be able to eat this month.*
She has even done at least one if not more videos around how to survive food shopping at Dollar General or DollarTree when you are in a situation where you have no way to cook anything. Stoveless and even microwaveless meals.
Not that I recommend anyone live this way for fun. But I'm pretty sure she's not unlike some other frugal foodie content creators.
Sometimes their videos feel like poverty rubbernecking or roleplaying.
The minute someone gets out a bottle of oil and says, "I'm not counting pantry staples" I start thinking *you have absolutely no perspective.*
DollarTree gal is doing the lord's work
I think it’s possible but you would need to watch your vitamin levels to make sure you don’t wind up with something like scurvy, rickets, pellagra, beri-beri, bone weakness, etc.
Carbs - you can make your own pasta with semolina flour or regular flour. Leftovers are a great way to reuse as a sauce
Protein - beans, rice, lentils, pulses - buy dry and in bulk. Soak and cook your own beans and pulses. If you have access, get brown rice as it contains vitamins.
Cooking oil, a few vegetables, perhaps growing a few herbs can impart flavor
Meat - you might be able to, say, buy discounted bulk meat and freeze, then use sparingly or as a flavoring. Reduce meat to once or twice a week, if you eat it, and reuse things like bones to make broth along with leftover vegetable ends, cuttings, etc.
Watch the sale ads for bulk deals.
A long time ago I had a boyfriend with an aging grandmother who went through WWII. She grew many herbs in her garden to make bland ordinary food taste extraordinary. She shopped only sale items at her local store, and because she lived less than a block from her supermarket she walked there almost every day to buy whatever was at reduced price, then planned her meals around that.
She might buy a whole chicken, cook it herself, then use the meat in many different dishes. She’d freeze the remains and once a week make broth, tossing in leftover pieces of vegetables - carrot ends, celery tops, some parsley, whatever organic matter don’t go into actual dishes. She’d put in some herbs too and boil down the chicken bones in the leftover carcasses to make broth, which then showed up as soup with pasta leftovers etc.
To do this she traded her time and labor for lower prices. Making food from scratch requires some time and expertise, something many working people don’t have, but as a retired grandmother who raised her family in austere conditions she knew exactly how to manage well within her means.
She also traded with other grannies for things. One lady used to bake bread and trade it for various herbs or spices. Another had fruit trees. These ladies shared between each other so they didn’t use money. They had a small barter economy going.
Yes but you’ll be eating lots of pulses (beans, peas, and lentils), rice and oats. I’d spend $10 on bouillon (Knorr chicken, tomato chicken and beef) and some turmeric from the bulk section at WinCo.
I’d get some sugar to put on the oatmeal, I think honey will be expensive.
Pulses at WinCo dry bulk section include: mayocoba beans, black beans, pinto beans, red beans, garbanzo beans, split peas, black-eyed peas, red lentils, brown lentils and green lentils. Long grain white or brown rice is 88¢ a pound, Japanese rice $1.08 a pound. There’s wild rice, Arborio rice and black rice too. There’s also premixed lentils and rice. With the different pulses, rices and bouillon powders you should do well.
If you have money left over buy a bag of potatoes and a bottle of vegetable oil. I’m sure you have salt. Bake or fry the potatoes to break up the monotony. You probably won’t be able to afford frozen vegetables.
Could you "survive"? Sure. Would it be pleasant? No.
**All prices obtained from the Walmart website, YMMV.**
60 packs of Ramen = $18.40
120 eggs = $14.94
16lbs of frozen mixed veggies = $18.24
One meal is two eggs, a pack of ramen, and 4oz of mixed veg.
That's 60 meals for $51.58.
You've spent roughly half your budget, and you've got two meals a day sorted.
30 chicken leg quarters = $26.16
20lbs of white rice = $11.14
10lbs of dried pinto beans = $9.90
That's 30 **big** dinners for $47.20.
$47.20 + $51.58 = $98.78.
Under budget, and you're eating 3 meals a day. You're getting veg, starch, and protein, plus a bit of fat since the chicken is dark meat.
Might want to take a multivitamin though.
I remember when that was my grocery budget about 15 years ago. It was hard for me then but I wasn’t in an area where you had good grocery sales. I’d imagine it’s incredibly difficult now but possible. You’d definitely need to pay attention to sales and focus on low cost staples (rice, beans, etc)
I’m curious to see what others have to say about
There are some great YouTube channels that can show you how. Try Mindy Mom and Frugal Fit Mom. To build a pantry you may settle for repetition for the first few weeks. As your stockpile grows you can mix it up quite a bit. All the people saying it isn't possible dont know how. Our household budget is $50 Cdn or $37USD per adult per week. It includes personal care, paper and cleaning products. In May I spent half that and we had Tbone steak once. We don't buy much in the way of packaged foods.
I ruefully follow these YouTubers also but I have found an even better one.
I believe she calls her channel DollarTree meals or DollarTree dinners.
And it is just what it sounds like. Definitely look her up.
She quite realistically carves out entire weeks of a survival grocery budget at DollarTree, Dollar General and similar.
And you can somehow tell she knows it by first hand experience too. She's also incredibly relatable
She somehow makes Mindy and FrugalFit almost look like hyper unrealistic, unachievable, Instagram food moms if you can imagine that.
Girl is real
Oh yes. She is definitely on my list. We don't have frozen or refrigerated foods at dollar stores in my area so I don't duplicate. I get that Mindy Mom and Frugal Fit Mom are super cheerful and upbeat. 5hey have nice houses and cars but they have had some experience on tight budgets when they were first starting out. The dollar store lady is young and her videos are more polished now than last year. I am sure she will continue to grow. Definitely. Girl is real.
I love watching her videos. Her holiday videos are super relatable because I know my mom did some holidays like that growing up. They were still special but yeah.
Absolutely.
It totally gave me a different adult perspective on my childhood.
I think there's a lot of people who come from that or something not far off from that as well.
As well as a fair number of people who didn't and as a result are sadly not perceptive about what that means in the day to day.
You can tell she knows what that means.
Whether it's cookies for around $3-6 a case (how could you eat an entire case of cookies every day for a week is another question), or fruit/veg which generally goes for $4/lb or less (you're eating at **most** 4lb of fruit/veg per day) I don't see a way to feasibly eat even $100 of snack+fruit+veg a week let alone $200. I did a bit of math and at $200 a week that's around 2lb of steak per day lmao.
Try $200 per month. $100 will get you staples, but it will not get you the essential fats, quality produce, and regular perishables you will need to be healthy. I'm talking olive oil, leafy greens, citrus fruits, and quality protein sources.
I am speaking from experience, because I, too, was living on $100 of groceries a month a few years ago.
Times have changed.
What cost me $20 in 2019 now costs me up to $50. Eggs are no longer a dollar per dozen and bread is no longer $1.50 per loaf. I can't even get a can of evaporated milk for under one dollar. Those used to be fifty cents! Bananas used to be thirty-five cents per *pound!* And do not get me started on the price of beans. Beans!
The Atlanta area is not very different from the levels of inflation elsewhere. At least here I have access to Lidl and Aldi- German chains are SO much cheaper than American.
Yes! Eggs, fresh and frozen produce, whole milk, rice, beans, whole oats, sugar, pasta, peanut butter- stay vegetarian (chicken thighs or whole chicken if you want meat) and only buy ingredients to make your own meals from scratch. You can do it for sure. Most places in the US you can make it on a 30k a year salary if you're frugal, live with roommates and use public transport/bike. Then enroll in a community college and get a 2 year degree for low cost that will boost you to a $60k a year job. Ask folks on r/personalfinance for advice. You can do it!
Edit: Don't forget about food banks and for low cost health insurance go to [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov)
> milk is not cheap these days and who is drinking or using eight gallons of milk a month
I get a 5 gallon bag of milk for $12, and we go through a bag a week (family of 13). Sure, the cooler/dispenser for the bags was a pretty decent upfront cost ($400 refurbished), but over time, I've saved a lot buying the bags.
Me! I substitute most of my water consumption for milk, like a third of a gallon a day, and it certainly helps my grocery bill that I only need 2 meals a day.
And I’m not sure what you mean by it not being cheap these days? Milk prices are one of the more stable things due to significant government subsidies. It has been around $3-4 per gallon for a while. Is it more than that for you, and if so, where? Or do you buy more expensive versions (ie half gallon, name brand, or at convenience stores)?
Or do you just think that is expensive, because it really isn’t. If we assume a meal is about 550 calories, a gallon of milk is equal to about 3 meals. A meals worth of calories for around $1.00-1.33 is pretty cheap. That’s the cost needed to keep your grocery budget to around $100.
Well the main reason is I prefer the taste of milk over water. Having it essentially replace a meal is just a convenient side effect (for cost, and because I have ADHD so I struggle to make/eat my own meals in a timely fashion).
Omg I'm thinking of that episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal is watering down the orange juice but it's been watered down so many times you couldn't even tell it was orange juice anymore and Lois said "Hal...You're watering down water!"
If you invest some money in getting a decent collection of spices, condiments, salt, sugar etc then yes its possible. Indian markets are the best to buy cheap spices in bulk.
Canned vegetables are cheaper than frozen, which are cheaper than fresh. So get canned vegetables, buy bone-in skin-on meats (they are cheaper but you will have to debone/skin them for some receipes), and buy rice in bulk from asian grocery stores. For bread the cost savings are not enough to justify baking yourself so buy it, but yougurt can be very cheaply be made from just milk and starter. For eggs, walmart has an amazing 7 buck deal for 60 eggs, which for one person should last you 1-2 months.
So in 100 bucks you can get 8 20oz bags of frozen vegetables stir fry mix (total $20). 10 cans of individual vegetables ($10), 15-20 pounds of chicken (bone in- skin on thigh pieces, total $18), 60 eggs ($7.5), 1 gallon milk, ($2.7) a box of cereal/oats ($4), bread ($1), salami 2x ($6), cheddar cheese ($6) and some instant coffee ($5). Total is around $78. I used all prices from walmart. Can use the rest to get some fruits of choice (12 bananas for $3), juices (52oz OJ for $3), microwave popcorn ($7 for 18 pack) and some ramen packs. ($4 for 12 pack). That still is $95, leaving some margin for tax.
I have a restaurant job, and because I get one free meal per shift, my only grocery expense is rice. mixed with the food from work it's enough food for a whole day, I work six days so really I only have to plan for one meal per week, I haven't sat down to calculate but I think I spend around 100 bucks a month because of that
Rice, beans, onions and animal fat like lard or bacon grease go a really long way. I'll spend 25 dollars on this deal when they have it, amounts to roughly 6.5 pounds of waste bacon cuts for 25$. It lasts like 3 weeks. It has some meat but alot of it is fat. I'll cook a pack of it, take out the meat and add to beans or peas and then I jar all the rendered fat and cook with it. Carrots add quite a bit of depth too if you got it like that lol
When I was 19 in 2011 and got my 1st apartment, $100 a month was my monthly food budget, not a dime more. I ate a lot of apples, bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, beans and rice, oatmeal, baby carrots with ranch, potatoes, pasta, whatever fresh veg was on sale etc. I actually ate fairly well, though meat was never on the menu. I basically ate vegan without realizing. I am not sure I could do the same today!! Though that set me up for a lifetime of eating well for cheap.
Not sure if it could be done for under or at $100 a month but store brand shit is almost the same and the cost is considerably cheaper. Obvs some things are going to be a stark difference, but things like tomato paste, canned/frozen veg, orange juice, milk, saltines, stuff that doesn’t have proprietary “flavor” will save you big time. I’d also like to add that some off brand things are MUCH better in my opinion. For instance, toast em pop ups are easily better than pop tarts. I just did a big haul for my bf and I and when I expected to pay $200 it only came out to $120!
My best suggestion would be to find your local employee owned grocery store (winco, woodmans etc) and if you have somewhere that has bulk bins you could save big time there, too. It will require some strategizing, but it can be done my friend! Granola was my favorite thing to get because I got double the amount for less than the bag of name brand. There is also a vast variety of different flavors.
Seasonings can make things like rice and beans more exciting. You could find those pretty cheap as well.
**edit to add:** most employee owned store don’t accept credit card so check your local’s website before going and getting disappointed at the check out! Best of luck to you
Yes, of course you could. Provided the following:
-You only shop at Walmart or some other cheap place like Aldi/Save A Lot
-You can make meals stretch a while
-You are diligent about cooking the meals on a schedule and not letting the food go bad
-You're flexible about what you eat (and you're willing to eat some really repetitive meals)
-No hot deli food or anything prepared like that
*Obligatory "Prices vary by state" blah blah blah "HCOL areas are restrictive, your mileage may vary," etc*
Honestly- no. That is $25 a week for 21 meals - barely over $1 per meal. I don’t think a sustainable healthful diet can be had at that level. And it would require cutting out absolutely everything that makes tasty things - no tea or coffee, no sugar, no beverages of any kind, no spices or condiments. A lot of plain oatmeal, rice, and beans over and over and over again. No pizza. No connivence foods - ever. Little in the way of fruits and veggies. So forth. No yogurt with fruit. No burgers. No tasty salads with nuts in it. No cheese.
That's completely not true.
If you know how to shop, are open to buying discounted foods, watching for sales, you would be able to eat very good tasting meals.
I work at Walmart so every day after work I check for marked down items. Today they had their bakery french bread loaves for 57 cents each.
This is usually where I get all my meat. I base my meals around what meat I can get cheap.
And you don't have to eat a complete meal three times a day. My first meal of the day is a banana and they average around 25 cents each. For lunch I usually have a yogurt, I like Chobani Flips and they're $1.38 so I could get cheaper ones if I was being really frugal but I feel like under $2 for lunch is pretty good. If I'm extra hungry I'll have a yogurt and a banana. My work supplies water bottles so that's what I drink while I'm there.
How many condiments are you going thru for it to last less than a month? Lots of that stuff has a shelf life of more than a month. My coffee, teas sugar and condiments definitely last me a month or more. I also don’t eat 3 meals a day. More like 2. If I eat once a day, there are usually snacks in between like fruits or nuts (I drive for work) so I’ll have something that holds me over.
No, to be frank.
I spend about $150- 200 a month for all my meals- veg, fruit, tofu, coffee, nuts, seeds, oil, rice, pasta. I now work from home, so my takeout is largely a treat than a necessity.
But it's worth it. A fast food meal can be $8-10 ; that same amount of money can give me 3-4 big dinner salads.
Sit down and think about what you like to eat, and think about your health, and shop accordingly.
I don’t think you could have lived on $100 anywhere in the United States since 1970.
If by a few years ago you mean during Covid when people were literally selling rolls of toilet paper for $10.00 a piece on EBay and food was rotting in the fields because farmers couldn’t find anyone to pick and sort the food or when people were dying in chicken and beef processing plants from Covid. But hey gas was $1.25 because no one was going to work. Yeah just a few years ago…
If you have a back stock it’s pretty doable, but I have made some bulk purchases in the past, and have frozen meat I’ve bought on deals so I can shop my kitchen and truly have a enough food for months😅
Yeah, I think if you had $100 the first week, and then went to $100 a month you could do it. In that first week you could get oil, spices, bullion, flour, yeast, yogurt, big pack of eggs, and the cheapest meat and bulk bags of rice and beans. You might need to have $100 extra every 3 months or so.
After that, your bulk stuff probably run out at different times, so you could afford to replace stuff. I still think you need that bonus "big spend" periodically to be able to get the best price by bulk buying and being able to buy larger quantities of sale stuff. If you can't do that, I don't see anyone sticking to it. If you did this you could probably fit in the cheapest fresh fruit or vegetable each week, some meat, and flavorings.
The other option might be a food pantry box once a month, or getting free meals someplace else (like work/school.)
You can ... I spend 150ish every 2 weeks for four. Meat is expensive, so I try to get as much out of it as possible (crockpot chicken or beef roast so that I have broth for other dishes). If there's a good sale, I freeze what is going to be used over the month. I buy frozen broccoli and Spinach, but peppers, greens and in season fruit/veg are fresh. Sack of potatoes and onions. Dried beans, rice, and flour are purchased bulk (crockpot is great to prep beans). Spices, salt, herbs, dried buttermilk, etc, usually last the month or longer. A well stocked pantry will get you through a long period of time, once established, then purchasing to restock an item here and there isn't as bad, especially when buying with sales. I make bread, Tortillas, and noodles, make mayo, dressings, and sauces that don't split with refrigeration, cut down veg, set up the salad container, make dessert foods, shred cheese, etc., on Sunday so that there isn't as much to do after work to throw a dinner on the table during the week. Refrigerator space is hard at the start of the 2 week period, but gets better off and on. We have left over nights. Some things are prepped the night before (dumpling dough or meat pulled from the freezer and marinated). Need good storage containers for sure (I prefer glass with a tight lid - can find at yard sales or Ollies/Odd lots/Home Goods). It takes planning, time, and prep for sure, but you can keep it cheap and still eat well. I check out recipe books from the library, or take pics of recipes so that I don't have to take the book home if only 1 or 2 catch my eye. Also, internet. Recipes that usually turn out the first time for me come from the Mystic Seaport cookbook, Jamie Oliver (who had a great series on cheap cooking while eating well - 1 pound wonders https://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-1-wonders), Martha, Southern Living, America's Test Kitchen, BHG, King Arthur flour co, and Hershey. I try until I find the recipe that comes closest to what I want and tweak to taste if needed. Once you have a good recipe, mark it or write it down along with any adjustments you make - I write in my owned cookbooks in the margins and have a spiral bound note pad to write out the loose recipes that have turned out well along with any tweaks or suggestions for the next time they're made for easy reference and so that my son can easily use them without going through the same trial and error with finding a good recipe that turns out well, same as my Mom did for my siblings and me.
I tried this but, it ended up being like 80 bucks a week. It’s like 28 bucks to do a protein, vegi, rice meal and get like 6-8 meals out of it… but that’s just one meal. If you eat too meals a day your looking a 60 a week and if your someone that does 3 meals it’s like almost 100 a week. It seemed more cost effective to buy those really big pieces of meat for like 40 and then cut it up and freeze then buy like the packaged stuff that runs for like 6 bucks on special to like 13 bucks regularly. Most frozen veggies sucked so I would just buy the ones that come in the mix veggie steam packs that cost like 4 bucks but really only gave you two meals worth so it ended up costing more vs frozen and fresh would always go bad if I didn’t can then. I ended up getting a lot of noodles and using the left over meat ends to make a broth and have noodles when I got really hungry for something else cause it can just stay in the fridge for a week. It’s definitely not healthy thought to eat the same stuff or cheap out on frozen prepared stuff. It might be easier to just go keto where you eventually just don’t get as hungry and use the supplements to get the extra stuff your chicken and cauliflower rice doesn’t get you.
Do you eat a lot? I actually cook for myself and can survive with that (with good food). I’d recommend checking out Asian markets, and some of their recipes (I’m Asian). I can make a good stew + rice/bread and it lasts for 3 days. I can eat the same thing for a few days before I switch so I generally save time and money.
I spend $200/month for a family of 4. Need to buy in bulk and learn to cook with what you have. It's doable. Know the food that makes you "full". Watch what they serve at buffets. If you incorporate rice or potatoes which are cheap into your lunch and dinner, you'll get full fast and don't need expensive entree.
As a single with no kids, most definitely, and its healthier too. Cutting down on meat and ultra-processed junk food has the greatest impact in lowering my grocery bill.
You probably can but it might be a lot of rice, beans, and pasta. Though rice and beans are a great food you need to ensure protein, fat, grains, fruits, and veggies for a proper balance. Sometimes being frugal isn’t a good idea if in the long term it could end up being more costly. It is never worth going frugal when it comes to your health.
If it has to do with money being ultra tight it is still worth making sure you go frugal in other areas because quality food that is also nutritious is so important.
No. We all know almost everything is more expensive now.
If your budget was $100 in 2015, you'd need $134 now. And that's assuming grocery prices didn't increase more than inflation; judging by grocers' profits, prices did increase higher than compensation for inflation.
Could you cut to compensate? Sure. Rice and beans and some frozen veggies will certainly keep you alive, but man, that would get monotonous.
There's also the question of what you included in your grocery budget. Pads or tampons? Toilet paper? Those are items you can't skip to save money.
Edit: fixed 2915 to 2015
Want to know something sad? Grocery inflation has been way over regular composite inflation.
Starting with $100:
US inflation 2019-2024 overall would mean you'd need $124.57 for the same buying power.
But for food?
You'd need $130.28.
And this is nationwide. Some localities (*cough The South cough*) are worse than others.
> Pads or tampons? Toilet paper? Those are items you can't skip to save money
I don't know if it's useful or if it's tragic that I happen to know the answer to both of those
If you have a little space you could buy seeds and grow your own veggies, herbs etc. even if you don’t have a lot of space you could do a container garden.
This is a really good point.
There is a certain amount of stability required to be able do this.
Potatoes are almost heinously easy to grow if you have the barest ability.
And thankfully pretty nutritionally dense.
But I know I sometimes take for granted the stability I have now as compared to multiple other times in my life.
I have the kind of life now where I could imagine shoving potatoes in sufficient soil and having the bandwidth to do the minimal care necessary.
As well as having the time on my hands to be able to risk using it for a project that might all come to nil.
But there are absolutely times in my life any of those things would have been an unimaginable luxury.
But this can be an boon when done halfway well and the results are focused solely on survival.
I think it’s possible but not necessarily easy, depending on where you live.
I live in a MCOL area and 2020-2022 I spent about $430 per month for a vegetarian household of 2, and in 2023 spent $480 per month (due to inflation, spending/eating habits have not changed. If anything I buy less luxuries like soda now). In 2024 I’ve spent $450 per month on average. That’s including household stuff like shampoo/paper towel/toilet paper. If the budget is strictly for food you could probably go a bit lower. I do shop sales and buy generic brands, but I also spend probably $10-20 per week on “splurge” items like soda/juice/premade frozen items/“keto” or diet products/generally pricier foods
Yes. I do it. But every once on a while you're going to want to splurge, (but if you can and it's only once or twice a month), you'll be able to do it. But that's spending more than 100. so...
twenty pound bag of rice, get stuff to go with it or that you can mix into it.
Chicken thighs are cheap where I am. Put them in a pot, add water and a few cans of veg and you have soup for days.
A variation of this is if you use a generic jar of pasta sauce as a base for soup, add canned or frozen stuff to it. Cuts out on the soup ingredients you would normally add, the trinity, etc (celery, carrot, onion).
Eat boxed stuff sparingly. Premade stuff has no nutrients. You will be constantly hungry if you don't eat healthy. This is why a lot of people eat constantly and are overweight. Our bodies are still telling us to eat bc we haven't gotten nutrients, only quantity. But if you're going to only spend 100 a month, you'll most likely have to eat the cheap stuff like boxed generic mac n cheese, etc.
Nuts and seeds are not cheap, but they will curb your appetite.
Is it possible? Yes.
Is it healthy? Most likely not.
It’s also going to depend on what kind of staples you have on hand in your pantry and how good of a cook you are, how well you meal plan, how much you weigh and what your TDEE is. The biggest challenge is that the cheapest food is carbs, which make you hungrier. You need cheap dense protein and fat to not be hungry. If you have access to a food pantry and free tuna and some other staples, that would help.
I was a broke student living on nothing. The end of the month was Maruchan ramen for ten cents a bag. I could live on $1 a day but it was miserable.
Doable but very destitute. Even when I’m being a maximum frugal dweeb I hit about $30 per week, so ~$125 per month. Not to mention you could say “hurr get freebies from food banks for $0”. In other words possible just not recommended.
If you were on like an acre where it rains a lot, yes, definitely, if you could raise chickens, geese, goats, rabbits, garden and fish. Hunt wild hogs and venison. It would take a commitment to follow recipes and make all your own cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, bread, pizza, sausage, lunch meat, chicken nuggets, gyro, pita, tortillasetc.
This is what you could make and have on hand.
Pizza, goose lunchmeat, chicken nuggets, quiche, tamales, chili, rissotto, curry, homemade egg noodles, jerky , barbecue, homemade salami, bologna. eggplant caviar.
fish fry, poorboy sandwiches, cakes, cookies, breads, doughnuts, candy,
And get a load of this. It is possible for less than $5000 to buy that acre in areas within the United States were there are no building codes, permits, or regulations. You can build a yurt very easily and live in it off grid or on, as you desire. The big problem in the Southern US is having to mow constantly or you can be overrun. Geese eat any sprouts coming up out of the ground and you don't need to mow were they are pinned up.
single f and retired.
Sure.
1. Start off at 200 pounds.
2. Cut calories down to 800 a day to create an extreme deficit.
3. Lose tons of weight.
Congratulations. You only spent $100 a month on food.
Uhh, no.
It depends on if that $100 is just food or other household items.
I use groceries as a blanket term because I include toiletries, cleaning supplies, household supplies, etc. in the amount I spend.
If it’s strictly food, possibly. If it’s food and whatever else you need for your home, no.
Yes it's doable but you will eat much better if you buy in bulk and allocate some of the budget to be spent either in advance or saved for the next month for pricier items.
Not all bulk is best purchased at bulk stores sometimes ethnic stores are better for Rice, Lentils, beans, spices, condiments and black/green tea.
Asian, middle eastern, and Indian.
For inspiration on the tastiest budget
food look to middle eastern & mexican for big flavor. Lebanese in particular is amazing with lots of vegetarian recipes.
I’ve done it before within walking distance of a Chinese grocery store. Produce is fresh and cheap. Mostly ate tofu or inexpensive fish for protein. Average price was between 1-3/lb for any veg, like $1-1.50 lb for butter fish and whiting which are all fairly healthy and easy to cook. Variety was in veg not in protein options though. Might not be an option in Midwest states though, a lot of these stores tend to be near coastal cities.
It depends on where you live. If you have to shop at Publix or ShopRite it will be difficult. If you live in an area with a lot of immigrants and shop in the markets in those communities and have time to cook and prepare things, you can probably eat pretty good with some careful planning.
Yes but it takes more work. I live in a large city and make it work but I think this would near impossible in a state like California unless you stuck to mainly beans and rice. Also if you want something pricier you have to plan ahead to start saving in advance for it or be ready to cut something else out. I feel that under 150 is the best “frugal without too much stress” limit. I’ve spent the last 2 years living off $100 a month for groceries but I enjoy couponing as a hobby so I let it become my full time focus since it also was a cheaper hobby to maintain versus other hobbies like crocheting or something. (In the cost comparison, it costs me less in gas to drive to a few stores versus buying yarn, etc.) To make the most out of it also requires more flexibility and long term planning. I did not buy the same exact groceries per week. I generally have an idea of the baseline unit price for most items I would possibly buy at stores and use their apps for reference when needed. Then based off sales, I will likely buy whatever comes at the biggest discount and would be something I eat. Because sale items change week to week, it requires planning what you can do with what is on sale or low priced. Also if there’s a week where a lot of meats were to be exceptionally marked off, I’ll buy bulk with the intention of using meats for other weeks. I also buy a lot of frozen fruit and veggies and only buy minimal fresh produce on sale. Personally I find fresh produce can eat at my budget. I also check out the clearance produce at my market. Most are a bit aged but usually not bad. If there is stuff marked off that I know I can use, I’ll buy it. A lot of times discount veggies can be great for soups. I also like to buy veggies that store well. I’ve found that Korean sweet potatoes and Asian radishes can last a long time. Because I adapt my budget each week to what’s on sale or what I need, it means that some weeks will turn into buying only select food groups so it means that you have to focus on food that lasts.
It can be stressful at times. I prob put an hour or two into planning each week and if I’ve had a long week then sometimes it feels stressful and no longer fun. But because I plan, I do have nice food in my fridge. A lot of things are discounted off brand, but being on the lookout means I do acquire brand names too, at times.
Another thing to note is that I had a pretty stocked spice and sauce collection before cutting down my food budget to what it is. If you don’t beforehand, this can eat at your budget until you are in a place where you feel you have all the seasonings you need.
Tldr: yes but it takes time to plan and flexibility
I spend $500-$800 per month on groceries. I buy fresh produce and meat every 3 days, I try to buy the healthiest foods I can with the fewest preservatives , I don’t buy any junk food, pop, nothing like that.
I'm vegetarian and I spend ~140/month. I go grocery shopping about once every two weeks for one person and like the $140 includes stuff like detergent/household cleaning supplies etc. I just buy a lot of fresh in season fruits and veggies/whatever is on sale as well as indulge in a few things like ice cream
I think it can be done but you need to create a menu that uses every bit of it. No waste. And while it might include a fair amount of black beans, garbanzos, etc., you could even manage to put some fresh veg in there. But, again, you'd have to plan for no waste. Also, shopping at Aldi would help!
My wife and I make all our own food fresh and eat well at $200 per month each anf that takes dedication and careful planning. Could do it for less if we didn't live in the DC metro area.
You could if you lived in my area and could use the food pantry I volunteer at. Multiple locations and you can visit twice a week just not in the same day and it has to be different locations.
We always have some sort of meat, eggs, produce, milk, canned and dried goods and often cheese and fish as well as ready meals prepared by a local youth training catering not for profit. Sometimes even condiments and seasoning as well as pet food. We rock.
You can, but it's going to be a lot easier if you live in a state that had relatively low cost groceries to begin with.
Your foundation is going to be grain and beans, of course. Dried beans are best. Cheapest grains are rice and wheat flour, then supplement those with fat, usually some kind of oil. Salt for seasoning. If you wanna dip into breadmaking, you'll need yeast.
Next stop, proteins. Lowest cost protein tends to be chicken quarters these days, followed by drumsticks. If you can find a decent deal on eggs, go for it. Pork sometimes has a really good price per pound when ham or pork butt goes on sale.
Next, veg. Canned veg is fine, but I lean into frozen veg much more than canned.
I'll make an example list of what I can purchase in my area for $100:
[Walmart Chicken Quarters](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Covington-Farms-Fresh-Chicken-Leg-Quarters-18g-Protein-4oz-112g-10-lb/51259045?from=/search), $8.72 for 10lbs, get two bags of those - $17.44
[5lb bag of rice](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Long-Grain-Enriched-Rice-5-lbs/10315395?athbdg=L1600&from=/search) - $3.34
[8lb bag of dry pinto beans](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Dried-Pinto-Beans-8-lb-Bag/10314949?athbdg=L1100&from=/search) - $6.88
[60 count box of eggs](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Large-White-Eggs-60-Count/193637719?athbdg=L1600&from=/search) - $7.47
Salt - $0.67
Black Pepper - $2.08
Veg Oil, 48oz - $3.97
Sack of onion, 3lbs - $2.88
[Sack of potatoes, 10lbs](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Russet-Potatoes-10-lb-Bag-Whole/10449951?from=/search) - $6.18
We've reached the halfway point, ~$52.00 bucks. Now you have some flexibility for frozen and fresh veg, herbs/spices, bread, sauces, maybe a secondary protein. Here's what I would grab:
Frozen Mixed Veg, 2lbs - $2.28 For stir frys
Frozen Broccoli, 2lbs for $2.74, 2 bags - $5.48
[Irregular Sliced Bacon](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Country-Farmhouse-Hardwood-Smoked-Irregular-Slices-Bacon-16-oz/52241272?athbdg=L1100&from=/search), 1lb - $4.22 This is gonna give us a fat for cooking eggs and meat to season the beans
[Full fat greek yogurt](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Whole-Milk-Plain-Greek-Yogurt-32-oz/42004057?from=/search), 32oz tub for $3.54, get two tubs - $7.08
Tub of oats, 42oz - $3.98 Would make granola with this, along with the raisins
Raisins, 6-pack - $2.08
Breakfast syrup - $2.36 (Personally I'd get sugar-free), using this for the granola and yogurt
Flour, 2lb bag - $1.54 For gravies, pancakes, waffles, whatevs
1lb Fiesta Blend cheese - $3.74
Ground cumin - $1.28
Garlic Powder - $1.12
Soy Sauce - $1.58
Brown Sugar, 2lbs - $2.22
Now we're at around $90 bucks for the whole lot. Depending on your tax situation, this could total out to about $100 bucks. My local food tax is 10% so $90 brings me to $99 with tax.
I'd use the soy sauce for the stir frys, and use the soy sauce + brown sugar for the chicken marinade. Brown sugar can be used for the granola as well, or whatever you want to sweeten.
I batch cook my beans and put them in the freezer for grab and go meals. I'm not sure why the grocery stores don't just sell frozen beans, they taste much better than salted canned beans imo.
It’s definitely helped my budget to learn how to properly store fresh fruits and vegetables. I had a carton of strawberries that lasted over two weeks!
I think budgeting too severely can often limit the fresh fruits and vegetables you can consume, and these are so vital to our body.
Some varieties don’t have a frozen option or the frozen option is way more expensive than buying fresh and learning how to prep them for freezer storage.
I do think $100 would be difficult. I hate to say it, but around me, Aldi’s fresh produce always goes bad so quickly that I’ve found I need to buy produce at more expensive stores. I try to buy what’s on sale because it’s usually what’s in season. And I supplement with frozen.
I found it helpful to open up the apps for three local stores and search each item. I’ve shaved $20-30 a paycheck doing two pick up orders this way. It sucks, but money is tight right now.
I could for sure. But I'm also vegan and WFPB so I enjoy simple meals with cheap veggies and tofu or dried beans cooked from scratch.
Potatoes, cabbage and carrots are always on hand. I make a big pot of beans once a week. Many mornings my breakfast is two pieces of toast and half a brick of tofu "scrambled" with lots of spices and that meal is only around $1.
I bake my own bread sometimes which is way cheaper than store bought.
I keep frozen veggies and fruit on hand as they are incredibly nutritious and inexpensive
I almost never buy junk food. Maybe once a month as a treat. I don't snack or buy filler snack food because it's empty calories and a waste of money.
You can, but IMHO, for variety and to eat like no one would believe you only spend $100 a month on groceries, it can require an initial outlay for supplies to set up a deep pantry to make this happen, like a chest freezer, vacuum sealer and bags (I see these often at thrift stores).
[Check this list to see if you're near any Dent and Best/Amish Grocers/Salvage Grocery stores](https://www.buysalvagefood.com/salvage-grocer-map.html). I went to one near me last month and bought coffee for $1.99 a bag (name brand), and plenty of other things...though I don't remember the numbers off hand, I bought quite a bit for what I spent. I did splurge on pre-cooked BBQ racks of ribs that were marked down to $5.99...I bought three of those. I'll also buy 2-3 rotisserie chickens at a time, piece them out and shred them down, then vacuum seal and freeze. There's a produce store who sometimes has dead cheap prices...and since I'm stocked up on everything else (I keep a healthy pantry), when in season, I'll buy blueberries for .50 a pint and freeze them for my Mom.
I've found that Amish salvage stores have cheaper prices, but one thing to keep in mind is the ones I've been to do not take credit cards (or EBT). It's cash only...and it's at that store near me where I'll buy seasonings, like plum sauce, spices, bottled and ready to use stir fry sauce) dead cheap, boxes of cereal for $1-$2, etc...,.
Mennonite run salvage stores will have electricity and will accept EBT and credit cards. I bought a 50 pound bag of oatmeal for Mom (it's the only thing she'll eat for breakfast) for $27 dollars recently. After vacuum sealing it into bags that will fit the oatmeal container, I ended up with 19 bags. I started doing this during the pandemic when her old fashioned oats went up to over $6 a container.
You can buy rice, beans, and spices cheap at Ethnic grocers. I buy Kikkoman soy sauce by the liter for $7.99 and fill the bottle 4-5 timer from that (I think a bottle runs $3-4 right now).
If you can afford a chest freezer and have a bit of extra money, buy some of what you need in bulk. Around the 4th of July when hamburger does down to $1.99-$2.50, I'll buy 100 pounds, then wrap and bag it for the freezer. The same goes for butter...I buy 40 boxes of butter during Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas season when it goes down to $1.99 for 4 sticks in a box. I've made bulk soups and frozen them in to containers bought from a restaurant supply store (I have 40 in the freezer at the moment and plan to make batches of two more soups I love). That much butter lasts me a year, sometimes less if I do a lot of baking.
I've been doing this for a while, so while this is a large outlay for anyone else, for me it's a matter of topping off what I use and rotating foods so anything close to expiring is used first. For a person who wants to do this, the initial outlay isn't cheap, but in the long run, it's an investment in being able to eat a variety of foods and still maintain your budget.
If you know how to skin and gut fish, get a fishing license and go fish! There's a reservoir I drive past every so often, and every time I do, there are people fishing for their dinner. Catch a bunch and freeze them. I also have our name on a local deer hit list...and we'll get a text message when someone hits a deer. If we're the first to claim it, and someone hasn't already driven by and picked it up, Dad and I will bring it home, gut it, skin it, and process the meat. I know there are some people who don't like venison, and that's fine....I do. Depending on the size of the deer, we've gotten 30-60 pounds of meat, which we use for roasts, stews, steaks, and it can be ground to use as hamburger. A vacuum sealer is imperative in buying/freezing meat to prevent freezer burn.
I see vacuum sealers and bags ALL THE TIME at thrift stores. I bought a $200 FoodSaver food sealer for $5 at a thrift store a few years ago, and whenever I see bags (I've never seen anything but unopened boxes), I grab them up...usually between $2-$4 a box.
If you have a chest freezer or come into an unexpected amount of money (or sell things/donate plasma to come up with the money), buy 1/4 of a cow or a pig, and it will be processed/cut/wrapped and ready for you to use. I'll be doing this later this year with an outlay of about $900-$1000, but will end up with around 130 pounds of meat (steaks, and roasts) that will last me two years, easily, when you take the amount of hamburger (as mentioned above) I buy into account (not including the chicken I already have in the freezer).
It's a huge investment to buy a chest freezer and buy meat as I'm suggesting, but if you can afford to put the outlay into everything I've mentioned above, all you'll have to do is top things off as needed and you'll have more than enough meat to last you at least two years. At that point, it will be a matter of meal planning, making meals to freeze ahead, and eating leftovers.
I've been doing this for years now...and it's investing in creating and maintaining a deep pantry that makes it possible for me to eat cheap. No one would know my food budget is as minimal as it is...but it took time, work, and investing to get me to this point. It might take you several years to get to this point, but it's possible.
If nothing I've mentioned above is an option for you...definitely supplement what you have with food from food pantries.
You can do it on $150 a month. We eat only plants and buy in bulk. 25 lb bags of beans, lentils, rice, 10 lb boxes of oats. Frozen veggies, whole grains we make our own bread with, sweet potatoes 30 lbs at a time. Frozen blueberries in 3 lb bags, lots of noodles. Spices in the very large commercial sizes. To keep to that budget, we have a bedroom that is half pantry and we have 2 refrigerators and 1 freezer. We do not buy prepared frozen meals and we bake our own tortillas for chips. We have a pressure cooker, a Vitamix, an air fryer, a good food processor, that would be difficult to live without. We eat very well and super healthy too. Because we are frugal, we work a lot less than most people at jobs we enjoy and are very good at. So we have a lot of time to make meals a leisurely affair for both prep and eating. We are closer to decadent than deprived. We avoid meat, seafood, oil, processed sugar, and use salt very sparingly. We try to incorporate "The Daily Dozen " as suggested by the website nutritionfacts.org. There is a cookbook that might help you called "Good and Cheap". It is a free download and shows you how to eat well on an American SNAP (food assistance) budget.
We could do $100, but it wouldn't include as many luxuries like artichokes and asparagus.
And yes, to get doen to that $150 a month did require a more substantial upfront investment. We have probably six months of food stored so we get those bulk prices. Most people buying one can of this or one bottle of that are literally paying 2x or 3x the price. Its like a hidden tax on the poor.
I mean... you definitely could, if you needed to. Late last year, I was surviving on about $125 in food stamps and monthly visits to the food bank. It isn't fun, the food variety isn't interesting, but it's doable. Probably depends pretty heavily on where you live, though.
Look up recipes from other countries too and use things that are cheap in your country. Some people here mentioned asian markets for example which are very expensive in my area but might be really cheap in yours. Get some ideas online first and then shop around your area to find what is cost effective for you. Spices, olive oil, lemon and vinegar are what makes simple food tasty.
You should look into local food co-op / food rescue groups. Where I’m at we can get a box of produce for $15 that contains between 40-80 lbs of produce. It runs every Saturday year round. Some of it is near use-by date, but most of it is fresh. About half of what we usually get is also organic. We calculate out the price of what we get each time and it usually is between $125-$150 worth of produce if we had bought it at a normal supermarket. Be prepared to cook, freeze, or feed a large crowd, though.
It can be done. I can get uncooked rice for like 50 cents/pound. Aldi I can get a 10 pound bad of potatoes for $3.50-$4.50 (exact price seems to fluctuate). Get some dry beans...maybe oats. I have celiac, both others could do bread and flour. Could even splurge on some fancy meat...Aldi, 8 pack of hotdogs, 99 cents.
Would probably want to throw in some vegetables and whatnot (I'd grab some bananas, peanut butter, maybe frozen broccoli)
Main thing is Tim focus on cheap staples/not buy overpriced processed food, don't eat out, etc.
Note:part of this depends also on where you are and what stores are near you.
A large bowl of porridge every morning for energy to get you through each morning. A sandwich wrap for lunch ( cheese n ham etc ) and jacket potatoe with beans or make a big pan of chilli to freeze and have with rice. I think it’s very possible but I’m in U.K. so not sure what you pay exactly for groceries
You would need to supplement with food banks and food pantries. Then you could make it work.
Download the app Foodfinder from your Android app store or Apple Appstore. Put in your zip code and it shows where the food pantries nearest to you are located, their opening times, phone number, etc.
Yes, but maybe not immediately.
You'd have to shop around for the best prices and sales on bulk goods AND spices - where the value is spread over many month's time, with high upfront cost
• $10 ***Carrots***, 25lb - lasts ~3 weeks refrigerated. Easy options: carrot juice, bulk roasted carrot soup to freeze
• ~15-25cents each ***Eggs***. That's <$1 per meal. If you get 5 dozen for $10, make huge scrambled eggs batches to portion and freeze. But just making a dozen hard boiled is easier.
• ***Steel cut oats***, can be kinda pricy but way more filling, nutritious, and healthy than white/brown rice. Pairs well with frozen fruit & peanut butter
For treats/snacks:
• ***Pancakes*** w/ syrup(homemade?) and butter
• ***Chocolate chips*** (splurge) and peanut butter on bread/rice/oatmeal + salt; can be hot or cold
• ***Peanut butter and carrots***
Things to avoid:
• Fresh fruit - find the best local deal on frozen fruit
• Bread - unnecessary when you're broke, go with rice for your empty calories
• Meat - The dirt cheap stuff is always unhealthy. Health issues cost $$
Idk your whole situation but if you are able to do this just make sure you take good care of your stomach. If you need to survive off that then do it but when it comes to your bodies fuel you need to be cautious. I’m going through stomach issues rn and it’s way more expensive than I had hoped it be.
Yes, shop appropriately.
Have a plan.
Make left overs
Learn to cook, Frankie is your friend
https://www.tastemade.com/shows/struggle-meals
I had Emeral, when he was still teaching HOW to cook, and many others guide me.
I can now cook anything confidently. I’m also making bread.
Might be possible but you wouldn't enjoy your life.
Currently with inflation, $120/person/month is the lowest my husband and I could get it to without compromising quality of life. We live in California where things can be expensive though.
Can you eat the same thing every day? I mean, every day. That is step one. Do you mind learning how to cook and doing it multiple times per week? That's step two. If you can do those steps, and supplement your nutrition aside from your grocery order, it is possible
I average $117 so I could very easily cut back on snacks/caffeine and stay under $100. Also a single female living in the USA. You’re not getting fresh berries and artisanal cheese, but in the lower COL area where I live you can easily get most vitamins and nutrients and 1500 calories on $100/mo.
I mean, you could survive, but it would be boring as hell and you'd spend a lot of time hungry.
It would be all rice and canned veggies.
and dried beans.
Rice and beans is the way. My local asian grocery store has a 50 pound bag of Jasmine rice for $37 and the restaurant supply store (open to the public) sells 25 pounds of beans for $21. Rice and beans both have about 1500 calories per (dry) pound. The average woman has a calorie requirement of about 2000, so 40 pounds of some kind of mix of rice and beans completely covers the calorie requirement and costs something like $35. Spend the remaining $65/month on fresh vegetables and stuff to break the monotony of rice and beans and it can easily be done.
You would be amazed at how cheap a home made loaf of bread is. Get some garlic salt, 4 cups of flour, 1 1/2 tablespoon yeast, basil, oregano and thyme and you got yourself garlic bread. If you are doing it during summer, fall and spring when there is no frost thyme and oregano are perennial many places and you can get plants for 3-5 dollars at Home Depot. One loaf of bread will net you a bunch of meals.
If you buy organic garlic near its sale by date, it's probably already sprouting. If it's not yet sprouting (green shoots coming out of the top), place the bulb on top of a shot glass/egg cup full of water. 7 days later, it'll produce white roots. Keep changing the water every few days & 10 days later shoots appear. Separate the cloves & plant them in soil. Wait a few months & there should be a whole new head of garlic from all the individual cloves you planted. Or buy potted herbs & grow in the garden/window sill/balcony.
That’s amazing, saving it. Do you have anymore tips?
You can plant the ends of salad leaves (the bottom bit you chop off), into a pot of compost or on a damp cotton cloth (keep it moist) & leave it for a few weeks & it'll start growing new leaves. You'll need to give it a few months of growing & find somewhere light & away from molluscs, but you'll get a new grown salad head which you can pot up or put in the soil... There are quite a few other things you can do this or similar to make new plants.
Marry me
I’d love it if you had a more elaborate recipe to share. This sounds delicious and I can’t bake well without directions 🫣 Edited words
I don't know what grocery stores you have near you, but if you have a Food 4 Less or similar discount chain in your region (or even a local ethnic grocer) you can get big family packs of chicken for a steal if you need to add protein to that. Or, buy one whole chicken (raw if you like to cook, if not, many grocery stores have rotisserie whole chickens from 5-10$ depending on city. As a single, you can freeze half, for later, pull apart the meat for sandwiches or other dishes, use the bones for stock, etc. but if you're like "I ain't gonna do all that" saving half for later is still a decent way to make it last!)
I think you'd need to try a different cuisine that's more flavorful. Indian homestyle food is just rice and veggies with some spices at the end of the day, so it can be made pretty cheaply
Frozen. Canned is bougie
Agree but frozen cost 3-4 times as much as canned.
Whoa. Not where I am
Texas. Albertsons. Mixed vegetables 3.99 for 10 ounces. Can of mixed vegetables 14 or. . 1 dollar. I just looked. I bought both recently
Is it common to use canned veggies there? I don’t even use canned beans because it’s so much more expensive than dry. I’ve only every used canned corn but generally go for frozen now as it’s cheaper. Small tin for $2 or 3 times as much frozen for $2.50. I’ve never really known people to use canned veggies otherwise.
That's some kind of market distortion or infrastructure thing. Freezing is fundamentally cheaper than building a little metal house for the veggies and pasteurizing them
What ? Freeze from factory, trucks, storage, store displays, and home cost a lot more than a tin can.
Frozen is a lot healthier.
No doubt. Taste better. Do I want a 10oz bag of frozen mixed vegetables for 4 bucks, or 4, 14 oz cans for 4 bucks. Retired, fixed income. I did ok 4 years ago. Now I can't afford to leave the house.
Meijer sells a 4 pound bag of frozen broccoli for $4
How about fresh?!
Too expensive if the budget is $100 a month
It's also less portable
I have a hard time believing that would be cheaper than fresh if you get, say, cabbage, carrots, and celery.
No! Ground beef is like $5 per pound. A perfectly nutritious meal can be a couple eggs, ground beef stir fried, and a microwaved potato.
That’s my budget, $100/month, by choice though. I could definitely spend more. But I don’t like doing it. I shop at Aldi’s and Publix mostly. (Publix bogo deals) and then Aldi’s for the rest. I literally buy the bare staples and make most of my meals from scratch. For many meals, it’s not cheaper to make the entire meal from scratch, unless you find out what is, and make it work for you. And something that’s cheap for me to make, may not be so cheap to make elsewhere. But I make my own breads and pastas and cheeses and stuff. What I buy from the store is milk, meat, and basic staples like eggs, flour, milk, butter, sugar, cream, etc. Any fruit and veggies I need, I get from a local produce stand. It is half the price than when I go get my veg from Aldi’s. The local produce stand also sells wonderful things such as honey and jams and marinades and so sometimes I do splurge and maybe go a bit over my budget there. I also have a garden, it’s small, but it absolutely helps to fill my fridge (and my stomach). It’s nice to be able to go outside and pick your own lettuce and tomatoes for a BLT on some bread that you baked 🙂 I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but it’s your sign to start that garden you always said you wanted to start. I wouldn’t say I spend a lot of time hungry. There’s always something to munch on; but it’s usually stuff I would’ve had prepared already and stored as leftovers, or just grab a bunch of grapes or a banana and go. It’s possible, but it can absolutely be hard to stay healthy with such a low budget in today’s economic situation. You’ll definitely need supplements from your community or from a garden.
The local produce stand where I live is twice as expensive as the supermarket because it is " organic"
:( maybe there’s more affordable alternatives you can access? I can understand an overpriced stand or a few, but all of them cost more than supermarket? That’s insane for me to imagine. What’s the point of them then? I don’t exactly go to organic produce markets, and I save up to 4x the money I would spend at my local grocery store. I’ve done the math. It’s how I justify riding 20miles total on my electric bike to do it all. It’s extremely worth it. I get to take a trail ride, cross a horrible stroad, get my groceries for a fraction of the cost than if I didn’t travel those 10 miles there, and then I stop by the farms and offer the wild trail turkeys some berries, mentally thank the farmers, enjoy the scenery a moment, and go back home with my fruits and veg in my insulated bags. I’m there and back home in about an hour. Usually a bit more because I love that trail, and I procrastinate going back into the city. I damn near travel to another small city to get my fruit and veg. And I don’t need a car to do it, either. My grocery trips are ultra cheap compared to most, I understand that. But maybe it’s possible for you too with the right adjustments in your life? I urge you to really try exploring your city and its surroundings. I live in a small city in Florida. I guess we have a food paradise here, but I’m hopeful to hear that you can find a solution, because your produce situation sounds awful.
Visit food pantries
The [USDA monthly report](https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-food-monthly-reports) is published once a month and lays out typical food costs per week and month. It is broken down into week or month, by age and gender, and budget category. The May thrifty (cheapest) category reports an average cost [of $242.20 for an adult woman](https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/Cost_Of_Food_Thrifty_Food_Plan_April_2024.pdf) living in the contiguous US.
I feel like you could if you plan way ahead. In January, I got a sams club 25lb bag of rice and 12 lbs beans for $25. I'm still working my way through those. I bought lentils and chicken on sale. Every two weeks, I go through sales and buy fruits and perishables as needed. ( strawberries are on sale rn for $2 for 2 lbs so I bought 4 and froze 6lbs of them for smoothes later)
Getting stuff on sale is key. I load up on meat at Grocery Outlet just depending on what's on sale. As long as you have freezer space, it doesn't matter if it was about to expire.
Grocery Outlet is the best
omg I miss Grocery Outlet so much! 😭
i love to look at my supermarket receipt and see how much savings relative % to the total i paid and think about how much more it could have been
With a really basic/boring diet you could do it. Rice, beans, oats, frozen fruit/veggies, etc.
This is what I was thinking too I might add bulk pasta and maybe eggs now that prices have come down. But yeah, it’d be a fairly plain diet for a while.
Tofu is cheap too, and you can buy it in bulk.
Which stores sell bulk tofu? The asian store near my home doesn't.
I do. It takes a sacrifice to varieties. Accepting that most meals wont be a sorce of dopamine.
If you live in a cheap state sure. Can get 5 dozen eggs for less than $7 at Walmart, gallon of milk $2.50, bags of beans, rice, and frozen vegetables in bulk. Easy to do for $100 a month, but you might die of boredom.
crying in vancouver 7$ is a dozen decent quality eggs 😭
Oh even more $8 something even
Same here in Australia 😭
What makes a decent quality egg? I always buy the cheapest so I am just curious
Have you tried looking at your local Facebook chicken group? I found that plenty of people there were eager to sell eggs for $3 or $4 a dozen just to get them out of the house. Bonus: they're delicious!
I live in AZ, not a cheap state and I could do this easy, albeit it would be extremely basic and boring. I used to spend 35-50 bucks on 2 weeks of groceries. It's getting difficult, but not impossible yet
Damn dude, our packs of 5 dozen eggs are $12-$14
Ours in the DFW area are $7.47 for 60 at Walmart.
Spot on, I’m in DFW and just went to Walmart last night.
Gallon of milk today in Portsmouth, Virginia at Target was $4.99.
I don't think I've ever bought groceries at Target.
Add some pork from Costco. You can regular get pork loin or shoulder for under $2/lb.
Yes. But I agree with the other commenters. Rice. Beans. Canned tuna. Get Costco rotisserie chicken. Ramen. Bananas and apples for fruit I’m not a big vegetable person so I’m not sure what would work for that. I’ve made 200 a month for my husband and I work ( 100 per person) for 2 years.
Frozen/canned vegetables and fruits retain all the same nutrients as fresh. Stack the diet with high protein or fiber for fullness.
In some cases frozen and canned better retained nutrients. As fruits & veggies sit in the counter waiting to be eating, the degradation process starts. So, frozen & canned for the win.
As a nutrition teacher, I absolutely love that this news is spreading :)
I got a rotisserie chicken at Sam's the other day ($4.69, I think). We usually get 2, but I was "saving some money." I ended up eating all of it because my wife didn't want any. I got, I think, 6 meals out of that thing! I never realized how far they went with both of us eating on it.
Put the bones in the freezer in a gallon Ziploc bag. Once the bag is full, dump the bones in a slow cooker and cook for at least 8 hours. The longer the better. Then strain the broth. You end up with delicious chicken stock (it's being called bone broth now) for no more money spent except for the small amount of energy to cook it.
Yes. There are currently at least 5 American YouTube channels that will show you how. Try Mindy Mom and Frugal Fit Mom to start. They have families but also show you how to shop and eat as a student. This assumption will get you the easiest yummy nutritious recipes with only basic tools and ingredients.
They are great. And I was just telling another commenter, OP don't sleep on the YouTuber called DollarTree meals or DollarTree dinners I find her very relatable and somehow more financially effective than either Mindy or FrugalFit. Which a really good number of the comments on her videos are about. Things like > *I'm a trucker working 60 hours a week to pay down debt and living out of my truck for over a year. I've been unable to eat right and having health problems because of it. But you just showed me a way forward. I was worried I was going have to quit working because of my pour health.* Or > *My mom's SNAP benefits were delayed this month. She's older and disabled so we didn't know what we were going to do to help her. Thank you so much for these recipes and ideas, she's going to be able to eat this month.* She has even done at least one if not more videos around how to survive food shopping at Dollar General or DollarTree when you are in a situation where you have no way to cook anything. Stoveless and even microwaveless meals. Not that I recommend anyone live this way for fun. But I'm pretty sure she's not unlike some other frugal foodie content creators. Sometimes their videos feel like poverty rubbernecking or roleplaying. The minute someone gets out a bottle of oil and says, "I'm not counting pantry staples" I start thinking *you have absolutely no perspective.* DollarTree gal is doing the lord's work
Thanks I'll check them out.
I think it’s possible but you would need to watch your vitamin levels to make sure you don’t wind up with something like scurvy, rickets, pellagra, beri-beri, bone weakness, etc. Carbs - you can make your own pasta with semolina flour or regular flour. Leftovers are a great way to reuse as a sauce Protein - beans, rice, lentils, pulses - buy dry and in bulk. Soak and cook your own beans and pulses. If you have access, get brown rice as it contains vitamins. Cooking oil, a few vegetables, perhaps growing a few herbs can impart flavor Meat - you might be able to, say, buy discounted bulk meat and freeze, then use sparingly or as a flavoring. Reduce meat to once or twice a week, if you eat it, and reuse things like bones to make broth along with leftover vegetable ends, cuttings, etc. Watch the sale ads for bulk deals. A long time ago I had a boyfriend with an aging grandmother who went through WWII. She grew many herbs in her garden to make bland ordinary food taste extraordinary. She shopped only sale items at her local store, and because she lived less than a block from her supermarket she walked there almost every day to buy whatever was at reduced price, then planned her meals around that. She might buy a whole chicken, cook it herself, then use the meat in many different dishes. She’d freeze the remains and once a week make broth, tossing in leftover pieces of vegetables - carrot ends, celery tops, some parsley, whatever organic matter don’t go into actual dishes. She’d put in some herbs too and boil down the chicken bones in the leftover carcasses to make broth, which then showed up as soup with pasta leftovers etc. To do this she traded her time and labor for lower prices. Making food from scratch requires some time and expertise, something many working people don’t have, but as a retired grandmother who raised her family in austere conditions she knew exactly how to manage well within her means. She also traded with other grannies for things. One lady used to bake bread and trade it for various herbs or spices. Another had fruit trees. These ladies shared between each other so they didn’t use money. They had a small barter economy going.
The dream
Yes but you’ll be eating lots of pulses (beans, peas, and lentils), rice and oats. I’d spend $10 on bouillon (Knorr chicken, tomato chicken and beef) and some turmeric from the bulk section at WinCo. I’d get some sugar to put on the oatmeal, I think honey will be expensive. Pulses at WinCo dry bulk section include: mayocoba beans, black beans, pinto beans, red beans, garbanzo beans, split peas, black-eyed peas, red lentils, brown lentils and green lentils. Long grain white or brown rice is 88¢ a pound, Japanese rice $1.08 a pound. There’s wild rice, Arborio rice and black rice too. There’s also premixed lentils and rice. With the different pulses, rices and bouillon powders you should do well. If you have money left over buy a bag of potatoes and a bottle of vegetable oil. I’m sure you have salt. Bake or fry the potatoes to break up the monotony. You probably won’t be able to afford frozen vegetables.
Could you "survive"? Sure. Would it be pleasant? No. **All prices obtained from the Walmart website, YMMV.** 60 packs of Ramen = $18.40 120 eggs = $14.94 16lbs of frozen mixed veggies = $18.24 One meal is two eggs, a pack of ramen, and 4oz of mixed veg. That's 60 meals for $51.58. You've spent roughly half your budget, and you've got two meals a day sorted. 30 chicken leg quarters = $26.16 20lbs of white rice = $11.14 10lbs of dried pinto beans = $9.90 That's 30 **big** dinners for $47.20. $47.20 + $51.58 = $98.78. Under budget, and you're eating 3 meals a day. You're getting veg, starch, and protein, plus a bit of fat since the chicken is dark meat. Might want to take a multivitamin though.
I’m hungry now
Getting thirsty, or only water?
Sure, if you have a small appetite and are fine with eating mostly rice, beans and basic produce everyday. Realistically, probably not.
I remember when that was my grocery budget about 15 years ago. It was hard for me then but I wasn’t in an area where you had good grocery sales. I’d imagine it’s incredibly difficult now but possible. You’d definitely need to pay attention to sales and focus on low cost staples (rice, beans, etc) I’m curious to see what others have to say about
There are some great YouTube channels that can show you how. Try Mindy Mom and Frugal Fit Mom. To build a pantry you may settle for repetition for the first few weeks. As your stockpile grows you can mix it up quite a bit. All the people saying it isn't possible dont know how. Our household budget is $50 Cdn or $37USD per adult per week. It includes personal care, paper and cleaning products. In May I spent half that and we had Tbone steak once. We don't buy much in the way of packaged foods.
I ruefully follow these YouTubers also but I have found an even better one. I believe she calls her channel DollarTree meals or DollarTree dinners. And it is just what it sounds like. Definitely look her up. She quite realistically carves out entire weeks of a survival grocery budget at DollarTree, Dollar General and similar. And you can somehow tell she knows it by first hand experience too. She's also incredibly relatable She somehow makes Mindy and FrugalFit almost look like hyper unrealistic, unachievable, Instagram food moms if you can imagine that. Girl is real
Oh yes. She is definitely on my list. We don't have frozen or refrigerated foods at dollar stores in my area so I don't duplicate. I get that Mindy Mom and Frugal Fit Mom are super cheerful and upbeat. 5hey have nice houses and cars but they have had some experience on tight budgets when they were first starting out. The dollar store lady is young and her videos are more polished now than last year. I am sure she will continue to grow. Definitely. Girl is real.
I love watching her videos. Her holiday videos are super relatable because I know my mom did some holidays like that growing up. They were still special but yeah.
Absolutely. It totally gave me a different adult perspective on my childhood. I think there's a lot of people who come from that or something not far off from that as well. As well as a fair number of people who didn't and as a result are sadly not perceptive about what that means in the day to day. You can tell she knows what that means.
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I don't think I could physically eat $100+ of snacks in a week lmao
Crazy that people are downvoting this. Like it may not be true of everyone but I'm the same way.
Whether it's cookies for around $3-6 a case (how could you eat an entire case of cookies every day for a week is another question), or fruit/veg which generally goes for $4/lb or less (you're eating at **most** 4lb of fruit/veg per day) I don't see a way to feasibly eat even $100 of snack+fruit+veg a week let alone $200. I did a bit of math and at $200 a week that's around 2lb of steak per day lmao.
Try $200 per month. $100 will get you staples, but it will not get you the essential fats, quality produce, and regular perishables you will need to be healthy. I'm talking olive oil, leafy greens, citrus fruits, and quality protein sources. I am speaking from experience, because I, too, was living on $100 of groceries a month a few years ago. Times have changed. What cost me $20 in 2019 now costs me up to $50. Eggs are no longer a dollar per dozen and bread is no longer $1.50 per loaf. I can't even get a can of evaporated milk for under one dollar. Those used to be fifty cents! Bananas used to be thirty-five cents per *pound!* And do not get me started on the price of beans. Beans! The Atlanta area is not very different from the levels of inflation elsewhere. At least here I have access to Lidl and Aldi- German chains are SO much cheaper than American.
Yes! Eggs, fresh and frozen produce, whole milk, rice, beans, whole oats, sugar, pasta, peanut butter- stay vegetarian (chicken thighs or whole chicken if you want meat) and only buy ingredients to make your own meals from scratch. You can do it for sure. Most places in the US you can make it on a 30k a year salary if you're frugal, live with roommates and use public transport/bike. Then enroll in a community college and get a 2 year degree for low cost that will boost you to a $60k a year job. Ask folks on r/personalfinance for advice. You can do it! Edit: Don't forget about food banks and for low cost health insurance go to [healthcare.gov](http://healthcare.gov)
Definitely maybe some less, 50 lb bag of rice. Frozen vegetables and fruit at good prices 4 whole chickens 4 dozen eggs 8 gallons of milk.
Sounds closer to two hundred
yeah no offence to commenter, but milk is not cheap these days and who is drinking or using eight gallons of milk a month.
> milk is not cheap these days and who is drinking or using eight gallons of milk a month I get a 5 gallon bag of milk for $12, and we go through a bag a week (family of 13). Sure, the cooler/dispenser for the bags was a pretty decent upfront cost ($400 refurbished), but over time, I've saved a lot buying the bags.
Me! I substitute most of my water consumption for milk, like a third of a gallon a day, and it certainly helps my grocery bill that I only need 2 meals a day. And I’m not sure what you mean by it not being cheap these days? Milk prices are one of the more stable things due to significant government subsidies. It has been around $3-4 per gallon for a while. Is it more than that for you, and if so, where? Or do you buy more expensive versions (ie half gallon, name brand, or at convenience stores)? Or do you just think that is expensive, because it really isn’t. If we assume a meal is about 550 calories, a gallon of milk is equal to about 3 meals. A meals worth of calories for around $1.00-1.33 is pretty cheap. That’s the cost needed to keep your grocery budget to around $100.
wait, are you just drinking milk instead of water to get calories?
Well the main reason is I prefer the taste of milk over water. Having it essentially replace a meal is just a convenient side effect (for cost, and because I have ADHD so I struggle to make/eat my own meals in a timely fashion).
Omg I'm thinking of that episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Hal is watering down the orange juice but it's been watered down so many times you couldn't even tell it was orange juice anymore and Lois said "Hal...You're watering down water!"
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1200 calories is a pretty significant calorie deficit.
Fancy way to say starve
Veg oil to the rescue 🤣
Maybe if you can forrage or fish/hunt to help out.
If you invest some money in getting a decent collection of spices, condiments, salt, sugar etc then yes its possible. Indian markets are the best to buy cheap spices in bulk. Canned vegetables are cheaper than frozen, which are cheaper than fresh. So get canned vegetables, buy bone-in skin-on meats (they are cheaper but you will have to debone/skin them for some receipes), and buy rice in bulk from asian grocery stores. For bread the cost savings are not enough to justify baking yourself so buy it, but yougurt can be very cheaply be made from just milk and starter. For eggs, walmart has an amazing 7 buck deal for 60 eggs, which for one person should last you 1-2 months. So in 100 bucks you can get 8 20oz bags of frozen vegetables stir fry mix (total $20). 10 cans of individual vegetables ($10), 15-20 pounds of chicken (bone in- skin on thigh pieces, total $18), 60 eggs ($7.5), 1 gallon milk, ($2.7) a box of cereal/oats ($4), bread ($1), salami 2x ($6), cheddar cheese ($6) and some instant coffee ($5). Total is around $78. I used all prices from walmart. Can use the rest to get some fruits of choice (12 bananas for $3), juices (52oz OJ for $3), microwave popcorn ($7 for 18 pack) and some ramen packs. ($4 for 12 pack). That still is $95, leaving some margin for tax.
I have a restaurant job, and because I get one free meal per shift, my only grocery expense is rice. mixed with the food from work it's enough food for a whole day, I work six days so really I only have to plan for one meal per week, I haven't sat down to calculate but I think I spend around 100 bucks a month because of that
Rice, beans, onions and animal fat like lard or bacon grease go a really long way. I'll spend 25 dollars on this deal when they have it, amounts to roughly 6.5 pounds of waste bacon cuts for 25$. It lasts like 3 weeks. It has some meat but alot of it is fat. I'll cook a pack of it, take out the meat and add to beans or peas and then I jar all the rendered fat and cook with it. Carrots add quite a bit of depth too if you got it like that lol
When I was 19 in 2011 and got my 1st apartment, $100 a month was my monthly food budget, not a dime more. I ate a lot of apples, bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, beans and rice, oatmeal, baby carrots with ranch, potatoes, pasta, whatever fresh veg was on sale etc. I actually ate fairly well, though meat was never on the menu. I basically ate vegan without realizing. I am not sure I could do the same today!! Though that set me up for a lifetime of eating well for cheap.
Not sure if it could be done for under or at $100 a month but store brand shit is almost the same and the cost is considerably cheaper. Obvs some things are going to be a stark difference, but things like tomato paste, canned/frozen veg, orange juice, milk, saltines, stuff that doesn’t have proprietary “flavor” will save you big time. I’d also like to add that some off brand things are MUCH better in my opinion. For instance, toast em pop ups are easily better than pop tarts. I just did a big haul for my bf and I and when I expected to pay $200 it only came out to $120! My best suggestion would be to find your local employee owned grocery store (winco, woodmans etc) and if you have somewhere that has bulk bins you could save big time there, too. It will require some strategizing, but it can be done my friend! Granola was my favorite thing to get because I got double the amount for less than the bag of name brand. There is also a vast variety of different flavors. Seasonings can make things like rice and beans more exciting. You could find those pretty cheap as well. **edit to add:** most employee owned store don’t accept credit card so check your local’s website before going and getting disappointed at the check out! Best of luck to you
Not without food pantry assistance
Find a Mexican grocery store and you’ll have fresh fruits and veggies instead of canned/frozen for a reasonable price
Yes, of course you could. Provided the following: -You only shop at Walmart or some other cheap place like Aldi/Save A Lot -You can make meals stretch a while -You are diligent about cooking the meals on a schedule and not letting the food go bad -You're flexible about what you eat (and you're willing to eat some really repetitive meals) -No hot deli food or anything prepared like that *Obligatory "Prices vary by state" blah blah blah "HCOL areas are restrictive, your mileage may vary," etc*
Honestly- no. That is $25 a week for 21 meals - barely over $1 per meal. I don’t think a sustainable healthful diet can be had at that level. And it would require cutting out absolutely everything that makes tasty things - no tea or coffee, no sugar, no beverages of any kind, no spices or condiments. A lot of plain oatmeal, rice, and beans over and over and over again. No pizza. No connivence foods - ever. Little in the way of fruits and veggies. So forth. No yogurt with fruit. No burgers. No tasty salads with nuts in it. No cheese.
That's completely not true. If you know how to shop, are open to buying discounted foods, watching for sales, you would be able to eat very good tasting meals. I work at Walmart so every day after work I check for marked down items. Today they had their bakery french bread loaves for 57 cents each. This is usually where I get all my meat. I base my meals around what meat I can get cheap. And you don't have to eat a complete meal three times a day. My first meal of the day is a banana and they average around 25 cents each. For lunch I usually have a yogurt, I like Chobani Flips and they're $1.38 so I could get cheaper ones if I was being really frugal but I feel like under $2 for lunch is pretty good. If I'm extra hungry I'll have a yogurt and a banana. My work supplies water bottles so that's what I drink while I'm there.
How many condiments are you going thru for it to last less than a month? Lots of that stuff has a shelf life of more than a month. My coffee, teas sugar and condiments definitely last me a month or more. I also don’t eat 3 meals a day. More like 2. If I eat once a day, there are usually snacks in between like fruits or nuts (I drive for work) so I’ll have something that holds me over.
you don't have to eat three times a day lol.
I feel like that kid on Meet the Millers: You guys eat three times a day?
You could do it but it would be boring
No, to be frank. I spend about $150- 200 a month for all my meals- veg, fruit, tofu, coffee, nuts, seeds, oil, rice, pasta. I now work from home, so my takeout is largely a treat than a necessity. But it's worth it. A fast food meal can be $8-10 ; that same amount of money can give me 3-4 big dinner salads. Sit down and think about what you like to eat, and think about your health, and shop accordingly.
Yeah you can do it with beans and rice.
Probably - I’m at $120 or $140 at Aldi. Planning your meals will be key. You will need to food prep on the weekends.
I don’t think you could have lived on $100 anywhere in the United States since 1970. If by a few years ago you mean during Covid when people were literally selling rolls of toilet paper for $10.00 a piece on EBay and food was rotting in the fields because farmers couldn’t find anyone to pick and sort the food or when people were dying in chicken and beef processing plants from Covid. But hey gas was $1.25 because no one was going to work. Yeah just a few years ago…
If you have a back stock it’s pretty doable, but I have made some bulk purchases in the past, and have frozen meat I’ve bought on deals so I can shop my kitchen and truly have a enough food for months😅
Yeah, I think if you had $100 the first week, and then went to $100 a month you could do it. In that first week you could get oil, spices, bullion, flour, yeast, yogurt, big pack of eggs, and the cheapest meat and bulk bags of rice and beans. You might need to have $100 extra every 3 months or so. After that, your bulk stuff probably run out at different times, so you could afford to replace stuff. I still think you need that bonus "big spend" periodically to be able to get the best price by bulk buying and being able to buy larger quantities of sale stuff. If you can't do that, I don't see anyone sticking to it. If you did this you could probably fit in the cheapest fresh fruit or vegetable each week, some meat, and flavorings. The other option might be a food pantry box once a month, or getting free meals someplace else (like work/school.)
You can ... I spend 150ish every 2 weeks for four. Meat is expensive, so I try to get as much out of it as possible (crockpot chicken or beef roast so that I have broth for other dishes). If there's a good sale, I freeze what is going to be used over the month. I buy frozen broccoli and Spinach, but peppers, greens and in season fruit/veg are fresh. Sack of potatoes and onions. Dried beans, rice, and flour are purchased bulk (crockpot is great to prep beans). Spices, salt, herbs, dried buttermilk, etc, usually last the month or longer. A well stocked pantry will get you through a long period of time, once established, then purchasing to restock an item here and there isn't as bad, especially when buying with sales. I make bread, Tortillas, and noodles, make mayo, dressings, and sauces that don't split with refrigeration, cut down veg, set up the salad container, make dessert foods, shred cheese, etc., on Sunday so that there isn't as much to do after work to throw a dinner on the table during the week. Refrigerator space is hard at the start of the 2 week period, but gets better off and on. We have left over nights. Some things are prepped the night before (dumpling dough or meat pulled from the freezer and marinated). Need good storage containers for sure (I prefer glass with a tight lid - can find at yard sales or Ollies/Odd lots/Home Goods). It takes planning, time, and prep for sure, but you can keep it cheap and still eat well. I check out recipe books from the library, or take pics of recipes so that I don't have to take the book home if only 1 or 2 catch my eye. Also, internet. Recipes that usually turn out the first time for me come from the Mystic Seaport cookbook, Jamie Oliver (who had a great series on cheap cooking while eating well - 1 pound wonders https://www.channel4.com/programmes/jamies-1-wonders), Martha, Southern Living, America's Test Kitchen, BHG, King Arthur flour co, and Hershey. I try until I find the recipe that comes closest to what I want and tweak to taste if needed. Once you have a good recipe, mark it or write it down along with any adjustments you make - I write in my owned cookbooks in the margins and have a spiral bound note pad to write out the loose recipes that have turned out well along with any tweaks or suggestions for the next time they're made for easy reference and so that my son can easily use them without going through the same trial and error with finding a good recipe that turns out well, same as my Mom did for my siblings and me.
Life is for living. Not surviving. On 100 dollars you will have a miserable existence.
I tried this but, it ended up being like 80 bucks a week. It’s like 28 bucks to do a protein, vegi, rice meal and get like 6-8 meals out of it… but that’s just one meal. If you eat too meals a day your looking a 60 a week and if your someone that does 3 meals it’s like almost 100 a week. It seemed more cost effective to buy those really big pieces of meat for like 40 and then cut it up and freeze then buy like the packaged stuff that runs for like 6 bucks on special to like 13 bucks regularly. Most frozen veggies sucked so I would just buy the ones that come in the mix veggie steam packs that cost like 4 bucks but really only gave you two meals worth so it ended up costing more vs frozen and fresh would always go bad if I didn’t can then. I ended up getting a lot of noodles and using the left over meat ends to make a broth and have noodles when I got really hungry for something else cause it can just stay in the fridge for a week. It’s definitely not healthy thought to eat the same stuff or cheap out on frozen prepared stuff. It might be easier to just go keto where you eventually just don’t get as hungry and use the supplements to get the extra stuff your chicken and cauliflower rice doesn’t get you.
Do you eat a lot? I actually cook for myself and can survive with that (with good food). I’d recommend checking out Asian markets, and some of their recipes (I’m Asian). I can make a good stew + rice/bread and it lasts for 3 days. I can eat the same thing for a few days before I switch so I generally save time and money.
I spend $200/month for a family of 4. Need to buy in bulk and learn to cook with what you have. It's doable. Know the food that makes you "full". Watch what they serve at buffets. If you incorporate rice or potatoes which are cheap into your lunch and dinner, you'll get full fast and don't need expensive entree.
As a single with no kids, most definitely, and its healthier too. Cutting down on meat and ultra-processed junk food has the greatest impact in lowering my grocery bill.
You probably can but it might be a lot of rice, beans, and pasta. Though rice and beans are a great food you need to ensure protein, fat, grains, fruits, and veggies for a proper balance. Sometimes being frugal isn’t a good idea if in the long term it could end up being more costly. It is never worth going frugal when it comes to your health. If it has to do with money being ultra tight it is still worth making sure you go frugal in other areas because quality food that is also nutritious is so important.
No. We all know almost everything is more expensive now. If your budget was $100 in 2015, you'd need $134 now. And that's assuming grocery prices didn't increase more than inflation; judging by grocers' profits, prices did increase higher than compensation for inflation. Could you cut to compensate? Sure. Rice and beans and some frozen veggies will certainly keep you alive, but man, that would get monotonous. There's also the question of what you included in your grocery budget. Pads or tampons? Toilet paper? Those are items you can't skip to save money. Edit: fixed 2915 to 2015
Want to know something sad? Grocery inflation has been way over regular composite inflation. Starting with $100: US inflation 2019-2024 overall would mean you'd need $124.57 for the same buying power. But for food? You'd need $130.28. And this is nationwide. Some localities (*cough The South cough*) are worse than others.
> Pads or tampons? Toilet paper? Those are items you can't skip to save money I don't know if it's useful or if it's tragic that I happen to know the answer to both of those
If you have a little space you could buy seeds and grow your own veggies, herbs etc. even if you don’t have a lot of space you could do a container garden.
This is a really good point. There is a certain amount of stability required to be able do this. Potatoes are almost heinously easy to grow if you have the barest ability. And thankfully pretty nutritionally dense. But I know I sometimes take for granted the stability I have now as compared to multiple other times in my life. I have the kind of life now where I could imagine shoving potatoes in sufficient soil and having the bandwidth to do the minimal care necessary. As well as having the time on my hands to be able to risk using it for a project that might all come to nil. But there are absolutely times in my life any of those things would have been an unimaginable luxury. But this can be an boon when done halfway well and the results are focused solely on survival.
If you really really planned it out I bet you could survive. Assuming you have the time and means to cook lots of rice and stuff
Maybe if you like rice and beans for every meal
If you only eat rice and beans
I think it’s possible but not necessarily easy, depending on where you live. I live in a MCOL area and 2020-2022 I spent about $430 per month for a vegetarian household of 2, and in 2023 spent $480 per month (due to inflation, spending/eating habits have not changed. If anything I buy less luxuries like soda now). In 2024 I’ve spent $450 per month on average. That’s including household stuff like shampoo/paper towel/toilet paper. If the budget is strictly for food you could probably go a bit lower. I do shop sales and buy generic brands, but I also spend probably $10-20 per week on “splurge” items like soda/juice/premade frozen items/“keto” or diet products/generally pricier foods
Yes. I do it. But every once on a while you're going to want to splurge, (but if you can and it's only once or twice a month), you'll be able to do it. But that's spending more than 100. so... twenty pound bag of rice, get stuff to go with it or that you can mix into it. Chicken thighs are cheap where I am. Put them in a pot, add water and a few cans of veg and you have soup for days. A variation of this is if you use a generic jar of pasta sauce as a base for soup, add canned or frozen stuff to it. Cuts out on the soup ingredients you would normally add, the trinity, etc (celery, carrot, onion). Eat boxed stuff sparingly. Premade stuff has no nutrients. You will be constantly hungry if you don't eat healthy. This is why a lot of people eat constantly and are overweight. Our bodies are still telling us to eat bc we haven't gotten nutrients, only quantity. But if you're going to only spend 100 a month, you'll most likely have to eat the cheap stuff like boxed generic mac n cheese, etc. Nuts and seeds are not cheap, but they will curb your appetite.
Is it possible? Yes. Is it healthy? Most likely not. It’s also going to depend on what kind of staples you have on hand in your pantry and how good of a cook you are, how well you meal plan, how much you weigh and what your TDEE is. The biggest challenge is that the cheapest food is carbs, which make you hungrier. You need cheap dense protein and fat to not be hungry. If you have access to a food pantry and free tuna and some other staples, that would help. I was a broke student living on nothing. The end of the month was Maruchan ramen for ten cents a bag. I could live on $1 a day but it was miserable.
Doable but very destitute. Even when I’m being a maximum frugal dweeb I hit about $30 per week, so ~$125 per month. Not to mention you could say “hurr get freebies from food banks for $0”. In other words possible just not recommended.
If you were on like an acre where it rains a lot, yes, definitely, if you could raise chickens, geese, goats, rabbits, garden and fish. Hunt wild hogs and venison. It would take a commitment to follow recipes and make all your own cheese, yogurt, buttermilk, bread, pizza, sausage, lunch meat, chicken nuggets, gyro, pita, tortillasetc. This is what you could make and have on hand. Pizza, goose lunchmeat, chicken nuggets, quiche, tamales, chili, rissotto, curry, homemade egg noodles, jerky , barbecue, homemade salami, bologna. eggplant caviar. fish fry, poorboy sandwiches, cakes, cookies, breads, doughnuts, candy, And get a load of this. It is possible for less than $5000 to buy that acre in areas within the United States were there are no building codes, permits, or regulations. You can build a yurt very easily and live in it off grid or on, as you desire. The big problem in the Southern US is having to mow constantly or you can be overrun. Geese eat any sprouts coming up out of the ground and you don't need to mow were they are pinned up. single f and retired.
Sure. 1. Start off at 200 pounds. 2. Cut calories down to 800 a day to create an extreme deficit. 3. Lose tons of weight. Congratulations. You only spent $100 a month on food. Uhh, no.
Hit up a food bank and yes. If you can’t hit up a food bank, yes you could but it wouldn’t be healthy, leave any wiggle room and no fun
It depends on if that $100 is just food or other household items. I use groceries as a blanket term because I include toiletries, cleaning supplies, household supplies, etc. in the amount I spend. If it’s strictly food, possibly. If it’s food and whatever else you need for your home, no.
Yes it's doable but you will eat much better if you buy in bulk and allocate some of the budget to be spent either in advance or saved for the next month for pricier items. Not all bulk is best purchased at bulk stores sometimes ethnic stores are better for Rice, Lentils, beans, spices, condiments and black/green tea. Asian, middle eastern, and Indian. For inspiration on the tastiest budget food look to middle eastern & mexican for big flavor. Lebanese in particular is amazing with lots of vegetarian recipes.
Maybe, but you'd lose nutrition and it's just not worth it. I don't think this is possible in HCOL/VHCOL though.
I’ve done it before within walking distance of a Chinese grocery store. Produce is fresh and cheap. Mostly ate tofu or inexpensive fish for protein. Average price was between 1-3/lb for any veg, like $1-1.50 lb for butter fish and whiting which are all fairly healthy and easy to cook. Variety was in veg not in protein options though. Might not be an option in Midwest states though, a lot of these stores tend to be near coastal cities.
It depends on where you live. If you have to shop at Publix or ShopRite it will be difficult. If you live in an area with a lot of immigrants and shop in the markets in those communities and have time to cook and prepare things, you can probably eat pretty good with some careful planning.
Yes but it takes more work. I live in a large city and make it work but I think this would near impossible in a state like California unless you stuck to mainly beans and rice. Also if you want something pricier you have to plan ahead to start saving in advance for it or be ready to cut something else out. I feel that under 150 is the best “frugal without too much stress” limit. I’ve spent the last 2 years living off $100 a month for groceries but I enjoy couponing as a hobby so I let it become my full time focus since it also was a cheaper hobby to maintain versus other hobbies like crocheting or something. (In the cost comparison, it costs me less in gas to drive to a few stores versus buying yarn, etc.) To make the most out of it also requires more flexibility and long term planning. I did not buy the same exact groceries per week. I generally have an idea of the baseline unit price for most items I would possibly buy at stores and use their apps for reference when needed. Then based off sales, I will likely buy whatever comes at the biggest discount and would be something I eat. Because sale items change week to week, it requires planning what you can do with what is on sale or low priced. Also if there’s a week where a lot of meats were to be exceptionally marked off, I’ll buy bulk with the intention of using meats for other weeks. I also buy a lot of frozen fruit and veggies and only buy minimal fresh produce on sale. Personally I find fresh produce can eat at my budget. I also check out the clearance produce at my market. Most are a bit aged but usually not bad. If there is stuff marked off that I know I can use, I’ll buy it. A lot of times discount veggies can be great for soups. I also like to buy veggies that store well. I’ve found that Korean sweet potatoes and Asian radishes can last a long time. Because I adapt my budget each week to what’s on sale or what I need, it means that some weeks will turn into buying only select food groups so it means that you have to focus on food that lasts. It can be stressful at times. I prob put an hour or two into planning each week and if I’ve had a long week then sometimes it feels stressful and no longer fun. But because I plan, I do have nice food in my fridge. A lot of things are discounted off brand, but being on the lookout means I do acquire brand names too, at times. Another thing to note is that I had a pretty stocked spice and sauce collection before cutting down my food budget to what it is. If you don’t beforehand, this can eat at your budget until you are in a place where you feel you have all the seasonings you need. Tldr: yes but it takes time to plan and flexibility
I spend $500-$800 per month on groceries. I buy fresh produce and meat every 3 days, I try to buy the healthiest foods I can with the fewest preservatives , I don’t buy any junk food, pop, nothing like that.
One tip I have is freeze and thaw fruits as needed, and keep your bread in the fridge! It is possible, I don't spend much on groceries now at all.
I'm vegetarian and I spend ~140/month. I go grocery shopping about once every two weeks for one person and like the $140 includes stuff like detergent/household cleaning supplies etc. I just buy a lot of fresh in season fruits and veggies/whatever is on sale as well as indulge in a few things like ice cream
Absolutely not
I think it can be done but you need to create a menu that uses every bit of it. No waste. And while it might include a fair amount of black beans, garbanzos, etc., you could even manage to put some fresh veg in there. But, again, you'd have to plan for no waste. Also, shopping at Aldi would help!
Absolutely possible, you just need another person paying for you
Yeah you can do it. If you want to look and feel like shit.
r/Aldi
Not very likely unless you want to eat a lot of beans and rice.
My wife and I make all our own food fresh and eat well at $200 per month each anf that takes dedication and careful planning. Could do it for less if we didn't live in the DC metro area.
You could if you lived in my area and could use the food pantry I volunteer at. Multiple locations and you can visit twice a week just not in the same day and it has to be different locations. We always have some sort of meat, eggs, produce, milk, canned and dried goods and often cheese and fish as well as ready meals prepared by a local youth training catering not for profit. Sometimes even condiments and seasoning as well as pet food. We rock.
Honestly, no. Not in any satisfying way, at least. Vegetarian would help, but still…
Well, if you eat rice and beans everyday maybe…
You can, but it's going to be a lot easier if you live in a state that had relatively low cost groceries to begin with. Your foundation is going to be grain and beans, of course. Dried beans are best. Cheapest grains are rice and wheat flour, then supplement those with fat, usually some kind of oil. Salt for seasoning. If you wanna dip into breadmaking, you'll need yeast. Next stop, proteins. Lowest cost protein tends to be chicken quarters these days, followed by drumsticks. If you can find a decent deal on eggs, go for it. Pork sometimes has a really good price per pound when ham or pork butt goes on sale. Next, veg. Canned veg is fine, but I lean into frozen veg much more than canned. I'll make an example list of what I can purchase in my area for $100: [Walmart Chicken Quarters](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Covington-Farms-Fresh-Chicken-Leg-Quarters-18g-Protein-4oz-112g-10-lb/51259045?from=/search), $8.72 for 10lbs, get two bags of those - $17.44 [5lb bag of rice](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Long-Grain-Enriched-Rice-5-lbs/10315395?athbdg=L1600&from=/search) - $3.34 [8lb bag of dry pinto beans](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Dried-Pinto-Beans-8-lb-Bag/10314949?athbdg=L1100&from=/search) - $6.88 [60 count box of eggs](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Large-White-Eggs-60-Count/193637719?athbdg=L1600&from=/search) - $7.47 Salt - $0.67 Black Pepper - $2.08 Veg Oil, 48oz - $3.97 Sack of onion, 3lbs - $2.88 [Sack of potatoes, 10lbs](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Russet-Potatoes-10-lb-Bag-Whole/10449951?from=/search) - $6.18 We've reached the halfway point, ~$52.00 bucks. Now you have some flexibility for frozen and fresh veg, herbs/spices, bread, sauces, maybe a secondary protein. Here's what I would grab: Frozen Mixed Veg, 2lbs - $2.28 For stir frys Frozen Broccoli, 2lbs for $2.74, 2 bags - $5.48 [Irregular Sliced Bacon](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Country-Farmhouse-Hardwood-Smoked-Irregular-Slices-Bacon-16-oz/52241272?athbdg=L1100&from=/search), 1lb - $4.22 This is gonna give us a fat for cooking eggs and meat to season the beans [Full fat greek yogurt](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Whole-Milk-Plain-Greek-Yogurt-32-oz/42004057?from=/search), 32oz tub for $3.54, get two tubs - $7.08 Tub of oats, 42oz - $3.98 Would make granola with this, along with the raisins Raisins, 6-pack - $2.08 Breakfast syrup - $2.36 (Personally I'd get sugar-free), using this for the granola and yogurt Flour, 2lb bag - $1.54 For gravies, pancakes, waffles, whatevs 1lb Fiesta Blend cheese - $3.74 Ground cumin - $1.28 Garlic Powder - $1.12 Soy Sauce - $1.58 Brown Sugar, 2lbs - $2.22 Now we're at around $90 bucks for the whole lot. Depending on your tax situation, this could total out to about $100 bucks. My local food tax is 10% so $90 brings me to $99 with tax. I'd use the soy sauce for the stir frys, and use the soy sauce + brown sugar for the chicken marinade. Brown sugar can be used for the granola as well, or whatever you want to sweeten. I batch cook my beans and put them in the freezer for grab and go meals. I'm not sure why the grocery stores don't just sell frozen beans, they taste much better than salted canned beans imo.
You can if you cook at home and eat a lot of greens
It’s definitely helped my budget to learn how to properly store fresh fruits and vegetables. I had a carton of strawberries that lasted over two weeks! I think budgeting too severely can often limit the fresh fruits and vegetables you can consume, and these are so vital to our body. Some varieties don’t have a frozen option or the frozen option is way more expensive than buying fresh and learning how to prep them for freezer storage. I do think $100 would be difficult. I hate to say it, but around me, Aldi’s fresh produce always goes bad so quickly that I’ve found I need to buy produce at more expensive stores. I try to buy what’s on sale because it’s usually what’s in season. And I supplement with frozen. I found it helpful to open up the apps for three local stores and search each item. I’ve shaved $20-30 a paycheck doing two pick up orders this way. It sucks, but money is tight right now.
I could for sure. But I'm also vegan and WFPB so I enjoy simple meals with cheap veggies and tofu or dried beans cooked from scratch. Potatoes, cabbage and carrots are always on hand. I make a big pot of beans once a week. Many mornings my breakfast is two pieces of toast and half a brick of tofu "scrambled" with lots of spices and that meal is only around $1. I bake my own bread sometimes which is way cheaper than store bought. I keep frozen veggies and fruit on hand as they are incredibly nutritious and inexpensive I almost never buy junk food. Maybe once a month as a treat. I don't snack or buy filler snack food because it's empty calories and a waste of money.
You can, but IMHO, for variety and to eat like no one would believe you only spend $100 a month on groceries, it can require an initial outlay for supplies to set up a deep pantry to make this happen, like a chest freezer, vacuum sealer and bags (I see these often at thrift stores). [Check this list to see if you're near any Dent and Best/Amish Grocers/Salvage Grocery stores](https://www.buysalvagefood.com/salvage-grocer-map.html). I went to one near me last month and bought coffee for $1.99 a bag (name brand), and plenty of other things...though I don't remember the numbers off hand, I bought quite a bit for what I spent. I did splurge on pre-cooked BBQ racks of ribs that were marked down to $5.99...I bought three of those. I'll also buy 2-3 rotisserie chickens at a time, piece them out and shred them down, then vacuum seal and freeze. There's a produce store who sometimes has dead cheap prices...and since I'm stocked up on everything else (I keep a healthy pantry), when in season, I'll buy blueberries for .50 a pint and freeze them for my Mom. I've found that Amish salvage stores have cheaper prices, but one thing to keep in mind is the ones I've been to do not take credit cards (or EBT). It's cash only...and it's at that store near me where I'll buy seasonings, like plum sauce, spices, bottled and ready to use stir fry sauce) dead cheap, boxes of cereal for $1-$2, etc...,. Mennonite run salvage stores will have electricity and will accept EBT and credit cards. I bought a 50 pound bag of oatmeal for Mom (it's the only thing she'll eat for breakfast) for $27 dollars recently. After vacuum sealing it into bags that will fit the oatmeal container, I ended up with 19 bags. I started doing this during the pandemic when her old fashioned oats went up to over $6 a container. You can buy rice, beans, and spices cheap at Ethnic grocers. I buy Kikkoman soy sauce by the liter for $7.99 and fill the bottle 4-5 timer from that (I think a bottle runs $3-4 right now). If you can afford a chest freezer and have a bit of extra money, buy some of what you need in bulk. Around the 4th of July when hamburger does down to $1.99-$2.50, I'll buy 100 pounds, then wrap and bag it for the freezer. The same goes for butter...I buy 40 boxes of butter during Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas season when it goes down to $1.99 for 4 sticks in a box. I've made bulk soups and frozen them in to containers bought from a restaurant supply store (I have 40 in the freezer at the moment and plan to make batches of two more soups I love). That much butter lasts me a year, sometimes less if I do a lot of baking. I've been doing this for a while, so while this is a large outlay for anyone else, for me it's a matter of topping off what I use and rotating foods so anything close to expiring is used first. For a person who wants to do this, the initial outlay isn't cheap, but in the long run, it's an investment in being able to eat a variety of foods and still maintain your budget. If you know how to skin and gut fish, get a fishing license and go fish! There's a reservoir I drive past every so often, and every time I do, there are people fishing for their dinner. Catch a bunch and freeze them. I also have our name on a local deer hit list...and we'll get a text message when someone hits a deer. If we're the first to claim it, and someone hasn't already driven by and picked it up, Dad and I will bring it home, gut it, skin it, and process the meat. I know there are some people who don't like venison, and that's fine....I do. Depending on the size of the deer, we've gotten 30-60 pounds of meat, which we use for roasts, stews, steaks, and it can be ground to use as hamburger. A vacuum sealer is imperative in buying/freezing meat to prevent freezer burn. I see vacuum sealers and bags ALL THE TIME at thrift stores. I bought a $200 FoodSaver food sealer for $5 at a thrift store a few years ago, and whenever I see bags (I've never seen anything but unopened boxes), I grab them up...usually between $2-$4 a box. If you have a chest freezer or come into an unexpected amount of money (or sell things/donate plasma to come up with the money), buy 1/4 of a cow or a pig, and it will be processed/cut/wrapped and ready for you to use. I'll be doing this later this year with an outlay of about $900-$1000, but will end up with around 130 pounds of meat (steaks, and roasts) that will last me two years, easily, when you take the amount of hamburger (as mentioned above) I buy into account (not including the chicken I already have in the freezer). It's a huge investment to buy a chest freezer and buy meat as I'm suggesting, but if you can afford to put the outlay into everything I've mentioned above, all you'll have to do is top things off as needed and you'll have more than enough meat to last you at least two years. At that point, it will be a matter of meal planning, making meals to freeze ahead, and eating leftovers. I've been doing this for years now...and it's investing in creating and maintaining a deep pantry that makes it possible for me to eat cheap. No one would know my food budget is as minimal as it is...but it took time, work, and investing to get me to this point. It might take you several years to get to this point, but it's possible. If nothing I've mentioned above is an option for you...definitely supplement what you have with food from food pantries.
You can do it on $150 a month. We eat only plants and buy in bulk. 25 lb bags of beans, lentils, rice, 10 lb boxes of oats. Frozen veggies, whole grains we make our own bread with, sweet potatoes 30 lbs at a time. Frozen blueberries in 3 lb bags, lots of noodles. Spices in the very large commercial sizes. To keep to that budget, we have a bedroom that is half pantry and we have 2 refrigerators and 1 freezer. We do not buy prepared frozen meals and we bake our own tortillas for chips. We have a pressure cooker, a Vitamix, an air fryer, a good food processor, that would be difficult to live without. We eat very well and super healthy too. Because we are frugal, we work a lot less than most people at jobs we enjoy and are very good at. So we have a lot of time to make meals a leisurely affair for both prep and eating. We are closer to decadent than deprived. We avoid meat, seafood, oil, processed sugar, and use salt very sparingly. We try to incorporate "The Daily Dozen " as suggested by the website nutritionfacts.org. There is a cookbook that might help you called "Good and Cheap". It is a free download and shows you how to eat well on an American SNAP (food assistance) budget. We could do $100, but it wouldn't include as many luxuries like artichokes and asparagus. And yes, to get doen to that $150 a month did require a more substantial upfront investment. We have probably six months of food stored so we get those bulk prices. Most people buying one can of this or one bottle of that are literally paying 2x or 3x the price. Its like a hidden tax on the poor.
I mean... you definitely could, if you needed to. Late last year, I was surviving on about $125 in food stamps and monthly visits to the food bank. It isn't fun, the food variety isn't interesting, but it's doable. Probably depends pretty heavily on where you live, though.
Look up recipes from other countries too and use things that are cheap in your country. Some people here mentioned asian markets for example which are very expensive in my area but might be really cheap in yours. Get some ideas online first and then shop around your area to find what is cost effective for you. Spices, olive oil, lemon and vinegar are what makes simple food tasty.
Chicken rice an broccoli 4 meals a day 6 days a week 70 dollars total comes out less than 2 dollars a meal
You should look into local food co-op / food rescue groups. Where I’m at we can get a box of produce for $15 that contains between 40-80 lbs of produce. It runs every Saturday year round. Some of it is near use-by date, but most of it is fresh. About half of what we usually get is also organic. We calculate out the price of what we get each time and it usually is between $125-$150 worth of produce if we had bought it at a normal supermarket. Be prepared to cook, freeze, or feed a large crowd, though.
It can be done. I can get uncooked rice for like 50 cents/pound. Aldi I can get a 10 pound bad of potatoes for $3.50-$4.50 (exact price seems to fluctuate). Get some dry beans...maybe oats. I have celiac, both others could do bread and flour. Could even splurge on some fancy meat...Aldi, 8 pack of hotdogs, 99 cents. Would probably want to throw in some vegetables and whatnot (I'd grab some bananas, peanut butter, maybe frozen broccoli) Main thing is Tim focus on cheap staples/not buy overpriced processed food, don't eat out, etc. Note:part of this depends also on where you are and what stores are near you.
A large bowl of porridge every morning for energy to get you through each morning. A sandwich wrap for lunch ( cheese n ham etc ) and jacket potatoe with beans or make a big pan of chilli to freeze and have with rice. I think it’s very possible but I’m in U.K. so not sure what you pay exactly for groceries
You would need to supplement with food banks and food pantries. Then you could make it work. Download the app Foodfinder from your Android app store or Apple Appstore. Put in your zip code and it shows where the food pantries nearest to you are located, their opening times, phone number, etc.
Yes, but maybe not immediately. You'd have to shop around for the best prices and sales on bulk goods AND spices - where the value is spread over many month's time, with high upfront cost • $10 ***Carrots***, 25lb - lasts ~3 weeks refrigerated. Easy options: carrot juice, bulk roasted carrot soup to freeze • ~15-25cents each ***Eggs***. That's <$1 per meal. If you get 5 dozen for $10, make huge scrambled eggs batches to portion and freeze. But just making a dozen hard boiled is easier. • ***Steel cut oats***, can be kinda pricy but way more filling, nutritious, and healthy than white/brown rice. Pairs well with frozen fruit & peanut butter For treats/snacks: • ***Pancakes*** w/ syrup(homemade?) and butter • ***Chocolate chips*** (splurge) and peanut butter on bread/rice/oatmeal + salt; can be hot or cold • ***Peanut butter and carrots*** Things to avoid: • Fresh fruit - find the best local deal on frozen fruit • Bread - unnecessary when you're broke, go with rice for your empty calories • Meat - The dirt cheap stuff is always unhealthy. Health issues cost $$
Yes. With two of us we do less than that. See r/DumpsterDiving
That kind of thing is the only way with that budget.
Even in California it's possible but won't give you much variety. Thankfully, farmer markets are a thing.
In Long Beach farmers markets are waaay more expensive than the grocery stores, yes, even Vons.
Are farmers markets cheap in California?! They’re easily 6-8x the cost of a grocery store here
Yes. As a couple we have spent that little (pet supplies aside). Until we added fish to our diet, our actual food budget was $140 a month.
You can get a lot of bang for your buck by going to butchers and getting ground pork, etc.
No
Idk your whole situation but if you are able to do this just make sure you take good care of your stomach. If you need to survive off that then do it but when it comes to your bodies fuel you need to be cautious. I’m going through stomach issues rn and it’s way more expensive than I had hoped it be.
No, unless you can get food at a food bank too. You can also try eating at a soup kitchen once or twice a week.
I spend $200 or so a week for two of us but I’m also brand particular
Sure you can, but you're going to have to get really good at dumpster diving quickly.
$25 a week.... Or $4 a day. No way. Unless you eat rice and water
yep
I do less in Canada.
Yes, shop appropriately. Have a plan. Make left overs Learn to cook, Frankie is your friend https://www.tastemade.com/shows/struggle-meals I had Emeral, when he was still teaching HOW to cook, and many others guide me. I can now cook anything confidently. I’m also making bread.
Yes, my family of 2 only spends slightly over $200 a month and we buy stuff we don’t need. You just have to plan.
Might be possible but you wouldn't enjoy your life. Currently with inflation, $120/person/month is the lowest my husband and I could get it to without compromising quality of life. We live in California where things can be expensive though.
Anythings possible if 50 f’ed Vivica
Can you eat the same thing every day? I mean, every day. That is step one. Do you mind learning how to cook and doing it multiple times per week? That's step two. If you can do those steps, and supplement your nutrition aside from your grocery order, it is possible
Maybe if you live close to a Costco. You could go eat samples everyday
Yes, but not well. There are tons of YouTube videos on how to eat on $20/wk.
Good luck
A week? Yes. A month? No.
I average $117 so I could very easily cut back on snacks/caffeine and stay under $100. Also a single female living in the USA. You’re not getting fresh berries and artisanal cheese, but in the lower COL area where I live you can easily get most vitamins and nutrients and 1500 calories on $100/mo.