Eating well, but cheap

DNW · Jan 4, 2007

One of my favorites to make when I was poor in undergrad: rice, eggs (sunny side up), soy sauce, tabasco. Mix everything up and you have a tasty and delicious meal for a buck. Do this once or twice a week and you'll be good. Mix in a can of tuna if you want some extra protein.

Also, fried rice is cheap to make too. Just rice, eggs, frozen veggies, oyster sauce and soy sauce and you have a couple of meals.

I second the banh mi recommendation. Good stuff.

As for pasta, buy some cheap sauce, then add some dried italian herbs mix and it should be pretty decent.

Stay away from the fresh meats and seafood and you'll be okay for $50/wk.

CTGuy · Jan 4, 2007

I definitely lived on this amount when I was in law school. It really should not be that difficult- you just are not going to be able to eat out unless you are doing something cheap like the vietnamese sandwiches.

I like the Barilla tortellini with some homemade sauce and some chicken. I usually buy a big bag of frozen chicken and/or salmon from costco and alternate between the two. Pasta and veggies make an inexpensive side dish. I also eat a lot of yogurt and cottage cheese. Make salads at home.

Shouldn't be hard as long as you realize you cannot be a gourmet this month.

Sabrosa · Jan 4, 2007

$50/week seems like a pretty reasonable amount to feed a single person. No, not extravagant, but I hardly think one would go hungry with $200 to spend on food for a month.

If you think $50 a week is a small amount, this guy managed to spend under $30 on food for 30 days. I think he said it came out to somewhere around 93 cents a day. I wouldn't exactly call his diet healthy, but it was an interesting experiment.

http://hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/...h_archive.html

Huntsman · Jan 4, 2007

Oh, that's not too bad -- I suggest making some soups/stews. A whole chicken is like 3-4 bucks, an onion, some carrots, a little canned tomatoe and that's a few days. And it's versatile -- the poached chicken can be stripped and made into cheicken salad, or sliced with cheese and bread for a good sandwhich, put with lettuce, vingegar and oil for a salad. Many options. You can do that with cheap cuts of beef, etc. Even at theat budget, you can eat better/healthier/less preserved crap than most Americans.

~ Huntsman

DNW · Jan 4, 2007

Most tasty meal for under a buck: IndoMie Mi Goreng, available at oriental food stores near you. Add a fried or poached egg if you want to splurge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IndoMie_Mi_Goreng I eat this stuff at least once a week, regardless of whether my pocket is full or not.

Valgar · Jan 4, 2007

Frozen Veges
Chicken
Rice
Oatmeal (big cheap box of original quaker oats)
eggs
lettuce
tomatoes
bread
cottage cheese
bananas
peanut butter
tuna

Stay away from drinks and just go with water.

breakfasteatre · Jan 4, 2007

for me and my girlfriend, thanks for the suggestions guys.

i bartend at a restaurant, but only friday saturday and sunday, and i live half an hour away, but i definitely take advantage of the discount there when im at work

ruben · Jan 4, 2007

I gave up eating out for 6 months last year, and vowed to do next-to-all the food prep myself (i.e. no canned meals or frozen dinners).

I ended up saving hundreds of dollars, eating far healthier and picking up some usefull culinary skills.

I easily spend less than $25 many weeks.

Dried beans are a godsend, a pound (when cooked) is around a dime.

If you're willing to put a little prep time into it vegetables get pretty affordable (i.e. cut your own lettuce don't buy a bag of chopped iceberg).

holycowbanana · Jan 4, 2007

find a sugar mama! ahhahaaha

but yea... load up on carbs and protein from costco, it should last u a few weeks.

montecristo#4 · Jan 4, 2007

Buy your own whole chicken and cook it.

You can also just do legs and thighs which are really cheap, but probably not as healthy.

oldseed · Jan 5, 2007

what could be cheaper than pasta?

try this: fry up a salmon steak on both sides, then pepper with some shrimp. drizzle with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper. some zucchini and mushroom slices if u wish. then douse the whole enchilada in italian soave, let it reduce. add cream, reduce. then toss in ur linguini. if u wish, rotate some parmigiani on the top.

how can u afford that? ez: get a smaller crappier place.

seed, who doesn't skimp on food. ever.

Bandwagonesque · Jan 5, 2007

$50 a week - that's easy. My food budget is actually ~$175/month, in Canadian dollars, and I never go hungry, and eat well (IMO). I'm not buying $7 salad dressings, but I'm also not buying the generic no name crap either. Every now and then I'll splurge on something like prime rib, lamb, turkey, etc. The less processes and steps a food goes through before you buy it, the cheaper your meal will be.

Bandwagonesque · Jan 5, 2007

Originally Posted by montecristo#4

Buy your own whole chicken and cook it.

You can also just do legs and thighs which are really cheap, but probably not as healthy.

This is one case where I'm willing to pay the grocery store to cook the chicken for me. When an uncooked bird is $6, and a fully cooked and seasoned bird is $8, I suck it up and pay that extra $2. It's probably tastier and juicier than if I made it myself too.

Huntsman · Jan 5, 2007

I totally agree on the 'less processes' point (value added -- or is it taken away, I wonder), but man, are whole fryers six bucks in your area? I usually buy ~3.5lb fryers for $0.75-1.19/lb. Roasters or bigger and cost more, but are tougher birds.

And if you're really stretching it, a carcass from a chicken you did yourself can also make a mean soup. That's the only way I make turkey soup, in fact.

~ Huntsman

whacked · Jan 5, 2007

'Eating well, but cheap' is definitely feasible if not even enjoyable if you have access to Costco, Sam's Club or the likes.. Tuna + oats + eggs + chicken breasts (of course the selection would be much better if you don't want to eat healthy all the time

) go for dirt cheap there. All very versatile stuff so you can make a variety of dishes as well.

Eating well, but cheap

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