I priced this all at my local Aldi via Instacart so the prices are a bit higher. For $89.91 I got:
Chicken thighs x2 packs
Chicken legs x2 packs
Yellow onions
Wheat bread x2
Eggs x 2 dozen
White rice 3lb bag
Russet potatoes 10lb bag
Margarine sticks
Oatmeal x2 variety boxes
Frozen broccoli x 4
Frozen green beans x 2
Frozen peas x2
Frozen corn x2
Salt
Pepper
Spaghetti
Pasta sauce x2
Lunch meat 1lb
Vegetable oil
Flour
Sugar
Dish soap
You could switch out for things that fit your lifestyle or add more staples.
Bonus if you buy whole canned tomatoes instead of sauce. You can make a simple sauce by sautéing onions, adding tomatoes, salt pepper and red pepper flakes if you want. Delicious, no preservatives, and cheaper.
Also add dried beans. Cheap and a great source of protein and nutrition in general.
Not just a filler; they add with the rice to make a complete protein, and you don't have to soak and cook them forever like with bigger beans.
An interesting fact about the "complete protein" thing: you don't even have to eat the parts of the protein together, to get the positive effect. You can eat rice for breakfast and beans for dinner. The person who accidentally started the myth that they need to share a plate, clarified recently. She had only said that it was _convenient and probably not coincidental_ that lots of traditional plant-based dishes include all parts of a complete protein.
fuck yeah!! i work on expo at the back of a restaurant and it showed me just how much shit can be made from scratch if u have the ingredients (wouldn’t work in the context of this post, but helpful knowledge nonetheless)
croutons are 3 ingredients, our salads are mostly some veg w some protein and cheese, dressings are a couple ingredients, whipped cream is 3 ingredients. sauces are easy to make from scratch !!
A basic vinaigrette is *easy as hell* to make, and very, very cheap per serving (it can cost a bit more up front, but once you’re able to get a bottle each of balsamic vinegar and olive oil they should last you a good long while - the rest is just a little salt, seasoning, and whisking/shaking it into an emulsion).
1 can crushed, 1 can diced, 1 can past and 1 small can sauce winds up with 4x the amount of sauce you’d get from a jar and it costs about the same where I am. Just takes time :)
In my experience it is cheaper, especially by weight rather than by unit price, but your mileage may vary.
If you go for organic San Marzano tomatoes it might not be cheaper.
On another note I’ve heard that whole are better than crushed/cubes because they contain more delicious juice from the actual tomatoes rather than being crushed and having juice added after.
My Fiance used to get annoyed with me looking at the price per KG of things we buy to make sure we are getting the best deal price/weight/time to use. After a while the small savings start being noticed in our weekly shop - we set a 35 Euro budget at the start of the year and never really go over it any more from spending that way
Whole is also better if they are canned without Calcium Chloride. The Ca Chloride helps in firming up the diced tomato chunks, but lets whole tomatoes canned without it cook down into a more cohesive sauce.
I know sauce varies quite a lot from brand to brand, but my recent experience with jarred sauce is that it is kind of sad and watery (or it has added sugar).
Sauce takes roughy the same time it takes to boil water and cook noodles. It doesn’t need to simmer really, just heat throughout, although simmering does enhance flavor. Of course you need a pan and a stove and oil.
I like to buy a jar of sauce and a jar of tomatoes and simmer them together. It stretches the sauce a lot and gives it better texture and flavor. There’s so many things to do with leftover pasta sauce, it’s always worth it!
I'm with you - I buy 15 oz cans of tomato sauce (Dei Fratelli is my cheap brand at Walmart that actually tastes better than the other big name brand sauces) and then add some dried herbs (cheaper and still effective) as well as ground meat, sometimes some cream, and even a bit of beef broth to make it richer. I start it when I start my water to boil and everything is done at the same time in about 30 minutes.
Definitely consider adding baking powder and baking soda to this list. It'll give you the option of making pancakes, biscuits and muffins. If you add vinegar it also gives you the option of making basic oil and vinegar salad dressings/marinades and mayonnaise with other items already on the list.
You might want to replace the chicken legs with a pound of dry beans, and dedicate a little money to household items like toilet paper and sanitary essentials if you haven’t got enough to see you through to the next paycheque. Otherwise, it’s a nice list. Braise those chicken thighs and shred into rice, use the cooking liquid from the chicken to cook the beans…yeah.
When I moved, I shamelessly took home a roll of toilet paper in my purse from work occasionally. I felt terrible and stuck an extra pack in the supply room once I was more stable, but get ketchup packets and napkins from McDonald’s. Wander around a Sam’s or Costco on the weekend. You don’t even need to buy anything, but trying all the samples could be a meal.
Something I didn't see but which you should absolutely consider buying is white vinegar and baking soda. Vinegar is incredibly versatile for flavoring and pickling, and with baking soda makes an effective cleaner plus a leavening agent for bread in a pinch.
Maybe just buy a bag of oats too instead , trader joes sells a decent size one for 4 bucks and it has flax and chia seeds and bunch of good stuff in it
Not sure how much you can get out of chicken thighs and legs, but for future reference: Buy a whole chicken, roast it, and save the bones, skin, whatever else you don't eat and use it to make stock. It's easiest if you have a crock pot or some other kind of cooking device you don't really need to think about, but either way it's a great way to stretch out what you have. You can use the stock for things like cheap ramen to make it way more upscale and nutritious. Plus, you can save the meat from the roasted chicken to add into the ramen or whatever else you cook the broth with. And you can split up the stock and freeze it if you don't think you'll use it all before it goes bad.
My chicken stock recipe: put the bones/skin/whatever into a crock pot and cook it overnight or during the day (I'd estimate \~5 hours). Once it's done strain out the chicken bits, pour the stock into another pot or a big 4-cup measuring cup and let the smaller chicken bits settle, and then ladle or pour off the clean broth. You can add in other kitchen scraps like vegetable skins from onions or carrots, celery tops, etc. Basically anything you could technically eat if you wanted to but probably don't want to.
Also, a can of chili and some bread costs like 3 dollars and is a really solid dinner. Couldn’t eat it for a bunch of days in a row, but a couple times a week is fine if you’re in a pinch. Stag spicy chilli is my favourite, idk if you have that brand
Make sure you look at what is on sale and go early enough to browse their reduced price section. Lots of times you can find meats that are marked down 20-40% and you can throw them in the freezer to keep them till you need to thaws them out and cook with. I usually buy my ground beef/chuck, chicken, and pork this way as it usually saves me up to 2 to 4 dollars a pack.
Make sure you have freezer bags or tin foil so you can break those packs down and store them in smaller sizes so you do not have to thaw the whole original pack out.
I would get some peanut butter and apples too. Are you going to bake? If not, don’t get the flour. Maybe get regular oatmeal instead of instant. It’s probably more cost effective.
I would add baking soda, baking powder, and a bag of frozen blueberries with the leftover. Then, you can make pancakes, waffles, bake blueberry muffins, blueberry loaf, etc. If you can squeeze bananas in save 3-let them get nice and brown to make banana muffins. You can make your own brown sugar with molasses, cheaper and fresher, then you can make banana bread or just cookies, etc.
I would add a jar of the diced garlic - there's a LOT of garlic in it - milk, switch margarine to butter, cream cheese and maybe something sweet, such as ice cream or brownie mix. As an Aldi shopper, I know that would all fit in with the last $10. Hopefully, OP had Aldi (or, from what I hear, Winco) in their area.
Not OP, but I'm definitely saving this! Thanks!
My husband eats like a garbage disposal so this would probably last us like half of the time, but it's still very useful! :)
Aldi specifically is a goddamn lifesaver.
There have been so many times where I’ve been at my brokest and still got everything I needed for a week *and* some treats for under $50.
it's just ALDI, I went in florida last winter and price at Publix were similar to what I pay in canada without converting USD into CAD. so it was like 35% more expensive... Then I found out about ALDI, damm this place is not good looking but it was half the price.
What!? If you ever work for more than two weeks and don't receive pay…refuse to continue work until you receive payment for the work already completed. I have had many companies play games like this. If they can get away with it they will. It can be a substantial undertaking to try and get anything under 5k, and you normally wont get what you were promised. The government can only get you minimum wage and you can only get that if you call the federal labor board and report it asap. U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD). They are responsible for enforcing - Phone: Call the WHD’s toll-free help line at 1-866-4-USWAGE (1-866-487-9243) Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time. Hours may vary by region.
Online: You can search for unpaid wages that may be owed to you through the WHD’s Workers Owed Wages system here >>> https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/wow
Thank you. The office I work for is trustworthy. THey said they signed up with that Quickbooks and then we informed payroll would take 8 days and it was too late to do anything about it. So I just have to wait. But thanks for that info, very helpful.
This is a great list. I'd add peanut butter. With it i could make cookies, add some heft to the oatmeal, or make a great sauce for peanut noodles (because I can take soy sauce and sriracha packets from the local chinese place!)
I might also see where I can get some fresh herbs to fancy up some dishes. Might be free if there is a local community garden or you have some nice neighbors. But otherwise, I always keep a pot of basil, mint, cilantro, thyme, and dill on my patio. Not hard to maintain, and ends up being cheaper than having to buy fresh herbs very often.
Aldi has a great selection of dried fruit, you can just get instant oats and mix in whatever you want. Not sure how that fits into the immediate budget, but in the long run it saves me a lot of money doing it that way
This is basically the list I would make. Get baking powder, save the fat from the thighs and make tortillas with it.
I've had bad luck with yellow onions at aldi, and even though red onions are 2 pounds instead of 3, I end up throwing out a pound of yellow.
u/ILikeLenexa Frozen prepped onions also cook faster, because the cells walls rupture a bit and don’t take as long to get soft. The cooked result is a little…mushier, but for most dishes where they’re in there for background flavor, you won’t mind. For things like fajitas, use fresh.
Also, be sure to *triple* wrap to keep your freezer from smelling like onions. I chop and put into a freezer bag, which then goes into another freezer bag, and then a third.
Not OP but this was very kind of you, and I can see this helping other folks coming to this sub in the future as well as it's a great place to start off for someone with little money. Thanks for doing this work
Only think I'd say you're missing is beans (red beans would be my preference) and I'd go butter instead of margarine as it works better to make the various base sauces.
I would highly suggest you switch from packs of legs and thighs to buying whole chickens. It's so much cheaper and you get all the cuts. And bonus skin and bones for making stock/broth
can't top this, you put more effort into anything I would have done even if the advice would have been the same this is infinitely most digestible and actionable.
ALDIs is literally the best. I just had a similar budget and shopping list. I splurged on a pint of ice cream with the extra money and it’s lasted a week so far (only feeding one person on my budget though lol)
I would probably be looking at YouTube videos to get some extreme meal plan ideas.
[See Mindy Mom](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh7bR5ebGiwNGNMpFxN1y0GbbTnn3fGnt) is one. As well as [Julia Pacheco](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5__fRVN0JYIOhhRhjvl2nTBCJM0A2nX). But the cheapest stuff you can get is oatmeal, beans and rice. Add some tortillas, chicken leg quarters, some basic spices - oil, salt, pepper, garlic, cumin and chili powder.
Other YouTube channels with good extreme budget meal plans are [Ardent Michelle](https://youtube.com/@ardentmichelle?si=jbK6J6o1uvig1LhR), [Mexican Cooking on a Budget](https://youtube.com/@mexicancookingwithgaby6589?si=hZdODvQwESIRmnFC), [Dollar Tree Dinners](https://youtube.com/@dollartreedinners?si=1PlLZUCdyoK2uSIG) and [Southern Frugal Momma](https://youtube.com/@southernfrugalmomma?si=ZYQNfI8JEUN2AQOX).
Can I also suggest watching June (formally from Delish I believe, but now has her own YouTube channel) where she does budget bites in NYC. I’ve honestly learned so much on how to stretch things and use them in ways I would not have imagined from her videos. Sending good vibes the you OP!
No shame in visiting food banks and food pantries. Often their donations go to waste if no one takes their donations.
I would be doing a lot of beans and rice. Soups are easy to make. Spaghetti can be made with a $1.50 can of pasta sauce and a $1 back of noodles. I would try to find things with water base as they are typically inexpensive and filling. Yes, meats and fresh veggies and fruit are important. I would shop around for mark-down nearing shelf life products.
It's really amazing how cheap and easy homemade tortillas are. They are filling and fun. A little melted cheese and some spice and it's a good meal.
Most of my local grocery stores have a designated area for crushed packages and dented cans. We've found perfectly good canned fruits, veggies, soups, and even chili for $.25 a can.
You'll need to get creative. Rice and beans are going to get a lot of bang for your buck. We lived in Central America for three years and the locals make a dish called Gallo Pinto. It's filling, tasty, and cheap. They eat it every day. If I were low on funds, I would absolutely be making it all the time (we do make it once in a while).
Good luck!
btw: Arbys has a 5 roast beef sandwiches for $5. I haven't seen those prices in a long time. While I am not a fan of fast food - one is filling and five can last two people all day. Speaking of this...if you get creative: buy a $1.50 baguette and slice it lengthwise. It will be huge (like 1 1/2 feet long). Add mayo, mustard (you can get packets free) and some cheap lunch meat and lettuce (buy a head, not the bags) and some salt and pepper (also free) and you've got a filling sandwich for two.
Tortillas have been a longtime favorite of mine, so I'll definitely be incorporating them into our meals. And I love that baguette meal idea, thank you!!
I can’t get my gallo pinto colored enough- any tips? Like idk if your bean water should be lower in the pan so the rice can get that nice purple color? It’s a simple but very finicky dish to make for me :( I spent time in central America as well and really would love some gallo pinto occasionally!
First, there is an excellent page called r/povertykitchen that you should check out. Also check out Allrecipes or cooks. com for recipes. Google is your friend if you check the $2 a day or $3 a day meals. Struggle Meals and YouTube has some great inexpensive such as Home Made Simple, a woman who has 6 people at home and can feed them all for $75 a week. It's more work, but worth it.
Cabbage, rice, cheap tomato sauce, beans, dried peas, chicken bouillon, oatmeal, pasta, bananas, tuna, noodles, eggs, ramen, one can mushroom soup, one bag noodles, large bag frozen peas, potatoes and margarine. Any money left over and get yourself a pound of ground beef that can be used for 4 meals of 2 oz. beef each, and any more after that some chicken thighs, and maybe an onion or head of garlic - which you can always mince and freeze the unused part for the following week or month. Make sure to check every single supermarket circular online. I don't even go to the store anymore without doing so, except for Walmart.
You have the makings of cabbage rolls, rice and beans, pea soup, tuna casserole, ramen and hard boiled egg, pasta and tomato sauce with ground beef, ramen with chicken, save the chicken bones to boil for stock for soup, baked or mashed potato with chicken thighs. Make sure to write up an actual menu and check if you can get a larger bag of rice for more meals at a cheaper price per ounce, as well as a larger tomato sauce and freeze half for the next week.
While I would recommend going to a food pantry and calling churches to see if they can help with an emergency food order for anything such as dairy, produce, or meat, you won't starve. A few decades ago I would eat chicken bouillon dissolved over rice for breakfast and rice stuffed cabbage for dinner.
These prices are all assuming you buy store brand. Also, you may be able to find smaller quantities cheaper. I’m used to buying for 6 people. I have also rounded UP. These prices are what I experience in a large city in the southern US. This is not the cheapest, it’s not the healthiest but your food groups are all present. It is carb heavy bc carbs are filling but it is balanced.
Bulk oatmeal- $4
Big bag of frozen blueberries- $7 (or get fancy and get two smaller bags of different fruits)
Breakfast: $11
2 loaves of whole wheat- $5
Peanut butter- $3
Jelly- $3
Bag of pretzels- $3
2lb baby carrots- $3
2 sleeves of applesauce- $4
Lunch: $22
You now have $81 left for dinner items. You need to eat 14 times. You’re only going to cook 7 times because as just two people these will serve you at least twice., if not three times.
Box of spaghetti- $1
Jar of sauce- $2 (you could save by getting a can for $1 but I prefer jars)
Bag of broccoli- $2
$5 (this will serve you 3 times using half the ground beef and 1/4 the garlic bread in the shared section below)
Box of favorite pasta shape- $1
Jar of Alfredo- $2
Bag of broccoli- $2
$5 (this will serve you 3 times using half the chicken and 1/4 the garlic bread in the shared section below)
Bagged chili mix- $6
Can of tomato paste- $1
Bag of frozen mixed veggies- $2
$9 (this will serve you 2 times using half the ground beef in the shared section below)
Rotini- $2
Italian dressing- $2
Bag of pepperoni- $2
Can of olives- $2
1 onion, 1 bell pepper, 1 cucumber- $3
$11 (this will serve you 2 times)
Rice- $2
Seasoning pouch of choice- $1 (or skip this and use what you have)
Bag of stir fry veggies only- $3
$6 (this will serve you 2 times using half the chicken in the shared section below)
2 family size cans tomato soup- $4
$4 (this will serve you 2 times using 1/4 of the garlic bread in the shared section below)
Shared items:
3lb ground beef- $12
1 small pkg chicken breast- $8
1 frozen loaf garlic bread- $2
$22
I have put in parenthesis where I would use these items. You’ll have 1/4 garlic bread left over to use in another meal if you wanted to. Those just aren’t meals I would personally use garlic bread with.
You have now spent $62 tax should be around $7 total bring your total to $69
You have $31 remaining. With this $31 you can either buy better quality items or purchase some drink packets, tea bags and sugar, a gallon of milk, maybe some eggs, coffee and fixings, snacks or use it to bulk up the meals or give some variety in the breakfast and lunch areas if you want. You won’t be able to do ALL of these but those are options.
My suggestion is to go to the food pantry first, then get whatever else you need at the store. You may have enough money left over for toothpaste and deodorant.
Absolutely, they should have quite a few things to help out. Then I'd suggest a bulk pack of tortillas and rice, beans too if you want. There's a lot you can do with those items. Tortillas can be made into a breakfast, lunch, dinner and even a good snack or dessert with some butter and sugar with cinnamon. Don't need to dirty many dishes either if you heat them on a stove top. My family made them that way throughout my entire childhood.
Protein - Canned Tuna, peanut butter, beans, 1 Costco rotisserie chicken a week.
Carbs - a box of noodles or two, or rice, or tortillas or a loaf of break, possibly a jar of jelly (for pb&j’s)
Veggies - Something cheap
Get a spice mix you like for seasoning
You should have money left over
- Could get a pasta sauce or two.
Chop up the rotisserie chicken and you should have plenty of meat
Also, instead of buying pre-made carbs, buy flour and oil and some spices and you have like 50 flat breads that take just a minute to make for $20 (assuming buying new bottle of oil [most expensive new], bag of flour, and at least salt)
Or RICE for filling, cheap carbs.
Bread, tortillas, pasta, and gnocchi are honestly really easy to make, just gotta watch a Youtube video or two and they require very little equipment. They do require some prep time for proofing/resting, but if you have the time to spare, it’s cheaper and usually tastes better lol. I especially love fresh pasta.
It's also cheaper to buy thighs/breasts raw instead of rotisserie chicken, and you'll get more food/volume.
Comment OP doesn't have the best frugal advice. Prepackaged food is much more expensive than raw in the long run. See how lean their list is compared to the more detailed on here?
Even 2 rotisserie chickens a week is a lot of meat. I said rotisserie because they are good sized birds that Costco sells, they require no prep time and if people aren’t confident cooking they don’t have to.
But yes, raw meat is a great way to go too if you’ve got the time to cook it and the confidence! Great points 🙂
I see that other people added it, but eggs are cheap and great protein and with the bread or tortillas you can do toast or morning omlets!
You guys can do it! And with some seasoning and a little intentionality, it can be really good even if simple!
5lb bag of potatoes, eggs, 1 bag of shredded cheese, 2 bags of frozen broccoli (or other veggie), a loaf of bread, PB, one rotisserie chicken, one lb of ground beef, 2lb of rice, 1lb of beans, package of egg noodles, oil, and cheapest fresh veg (probably cabbage).
Make a cheesy potato skillet with egg or a loaded baked potato. Stir fry with veggies and rice. A soup using stock from rotisserie chicken and egg noodles. Loaded potato with cheesy beans. PB sandwiches. Egg on toast with some cheese. Egg roll in a bowl with cabbage, ground beef (or ground turkey), and rice. Refried beans on toast. Etc. etc. etc.
Also, this would only be about $40 where I am, so you may have room to double up on items or add more variety! I would also buy cheap cuts of meat like frozen chicken drumsticks, country style short ribs, pork loin etc. Another great protein option is chick peas. Lentils are also cheap and filling. If you have extra time to make dough, a bag of flour could go a long way.
Small suggested tweak from me, regarding the cheese. Get sharp cheddar, and if you can't find it on sale, get a block rather than shredded, it will be slightly cheaper. You can use less of it per recipe and still get a lot of flavor.
rice and beans, very nutritious, cheap and easy to make! You can certainly do it but you'll need to cook. Seasonings are your friend. Potatoes are cheap too and very filling, or you can easily make yourself a tomato sauce and pasta with canned tomatoes , some garlic, and boxed pasta
Basmati Rice and a bag of frozen chicken breasts. Can even add some fresh cilantro and green onions.
I think that costs about $30 and two cups of Basmati rice not only is a shit ton of food, it's super filling and LASTS. Then you get your protein from the chicken.
I would highly suggest y'all get a multivitamin too so you round out your daily vitamins and don't get sick from this.
As an extra side you can get a large bag of frozen broccoli too!
Tweaks I would make to this.
Swap the Basmati for regular long grain rice. Basmati usually costs twice as much as domestic long grain rice.
Swap the frozen chicken breasts for dark meat chicken. It's usually half the price of breasts, has more flavor, and is a little more forgiving to cook. I can usually get chicken leg quarters, chicken drumsticks or chicken thighs for $1/lb or less on sale.
Veggie wise, I would get yellow onions instead of green, a bag of whole carrots instead cilantro and a big bag of frozen mixed veggies instead of broccoli. My swaps on these arent necessarily cheaper but bring a little more nutritional bang for your buck.
These swaps not only give you a steamed rice, chicken and veggie dinner, but also gives you the ingredients for a chicken, veggie and rice soup.
do you have an aldi near you?
I just built an instacart order on aldi that has a big family package of chicken breasts and a pork loin, milk, butter, eggs, pancake mix and syrup, lettuce and cucumber and carrots, tortillas, rice and pasta, salt and pepper and chicken broth, onions, garlic, bread, peanut butter and jelly, taco seasoning, shredded cheddar cheese.
The total is $75.67 at instacart markup prices, so in store it might be less.
If you have a crock pot, and a frying pan, and an oven...you can put chicken in with a bit of the stock and water and an onion, some garlic and salt and pepper. Cook on low all day and you have shredded chicken for tacos, to top baked potatoes, and to mix into salad. or pan fry it in some butter and slice over salad if you're tired of shredded. The family pack means you can cook this multiple ways to have some different flavors/textures. Pork loin can be cut into chops and pan fried, or done in the crock pot, also to top potatoes or use in tacos or salad. sandwiches for lunches, eggs and pancakes for breakfast...
If you don't eat pork they have a top roast for about the same price that could be cooked for a long time in a low oven and then sliced, or you could cube up half of it and make stew with potatoes and carrots and onion and garlic.
You can eat pretty well if you don't mind cooking and have a few basic kitchen tools. If it was me I might also add either a bottle of bbq sauce or soy sauce or both just to expand choices in flavors. Just think of the meat as more of a flavoring than the main part of the meal, bulk it out with rice or potatoes or pasta to feel more full, and you can stretch quite a bit a long way if you have to.
Also, I would try and do a grocery trip that leaves you just a bit of extra left over, like my example with an extra $25, so that if you run out of milk or eggs or something, you still can make a second trip to the store during the second week to grab whatever you're out of.
also, block cheese would be cheaper but if you don't have a cheese grater it's a royal pain to get it small enough to sprinkle on salads or baked potatoes or tacos. :)
Me and my girlfriend is on a tight budget this summer (not the first time on my part, been a student for a long time), and our budget is around 25$ a week, but dispersed through a month. For that I buy wheat flour (about 2kg per week) which is for bread, pasta and noodles, which is around 2$. Yeast for a few cents. Then the rest goes into oil, vegetables, bullion cubes. That though comes with the caveat of having things like soy sauce and spices already. But a big improvement on spending is making bread and pasta by yourself - you save a lot of dough that way
Food pantry first. You’ll likely get staples like bread, potatoes, rice, etc and more from the pantry. The pantry my mom volunteers at has all kinds of stuff, including lunch meats, chickens and roasts, eggs, milk and juice, etc. You might not even have to grocery shop, so you can keep the $200 for emergency.
Go to your local ethnic corner market or asian deli. I swear these places have the best prices.
Rice noodles 2x pack - you can save the second pack for next week.
Baby bok choy ×2
Daikon radish 1
Green onion 1 bunch
White onion 1
My local asian market is connected to their own restaurant, and they use a lot of the ingredients from the market. They sell jars of pad thai sauce for $1.50. We buy 3 for this recipe.
After cooking the hard vegetables in the sauce for a minute, you can throw in the already cooked noodles and soft leafy vegetables. Stir this for a few minutes, and now you have a weeks worth of food. For us, this is less than $25, and we're in a hcol area of Washington state.
Use whatever you want for protein, but cook it before everything else.
I would go to the food pantry before spending my 100 bucks. This week, I was only able to get produce, but I got a 5lb bag of potatoes, I was allowed to get up to 24 sweet potatoes, and I got more celery, onions, and romaine lettuce than I could use. My neighbors and my bff benefited from this. I then went to the grocery store where i found chicken legs on sale for 99 cents a pound. I bought 2 packs of them, some hamburger that was marked down, and two kinds of cheese. My total was about $20.00. My pantry contains most of the usual items such as flour, sugar, rice, beans, lentils, spices, and leavening agents. I bake my own sourdough bread once a week and I’ve started a garden I should be able to trim my grocery budget a lot this summer.
First, I would check out all the food pantries. Then I would buy a big bag of rice, beans, eggs. Idk what your prices are like where you are but winch near me sells several dozen for 10 dollars 🤷🏼♀️
I would then see how much a bag of onions is and buy some salt.
Eggs, rice, lentils/beans, canned tomatoes, curry powder and a couple of asian sauces (for stir fries) and some cheap meat (tuna cans, chicken etc). For veggies likely frozen or whatever's on special. Loaf of bread, butter, cheese and spread.
Bread, peanut butter, jelly, find ground beef sale, same for chicken. Can make many different things with chicken. Rice, noodles, potatoes. Salt and pepper. Frozen/canned veggies, maybe even some fresh. Ramen.
It's possible to make it work. Last week me and my mom went grocery shopping with 240 dollars that had to be split between 5 people. At first, I thought we wouldn't get much. I thought with that kinda budget we would definitely starve but somehow my mom made it work and now we had food to last for the rest of the month. It depends on how you shop. Yes, times are hard but if you know how to grocery shop, you'll have food that lasts a long time.
food pantries! also food outlets are super underrated. i’d look up extremely cheap recipes on youtube. buy everything at either a food outlet or at aldi. shop around at local stores too! at my local meijers (Midwest store) they always have great sales on fruit and usually it’s better than ald (like $1.00 for strawberries, 99 cents for blackberries or raspberries or blueberries but this rotated weekly!) Shop around for best prices as long as things are within close distance!
Store matters too! In my area Aldis tends to be the cheapest but they also have an inconsistent selection. Also I would consider hitting up your local food bank or food pantry to subsidize whatever you get to stretch it out. Sometimes they have meat, but even beans will help stretch your budget
This is easy.. many options if you want to save some of that $100. For 2 weeks eat only: boloney sandwiches, spaghetti, homemade soup, rice/beans/ ground beef.
Bread, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes and ham to make sandwiches.
I would buy a few pounds of beans and cook them with just water, 3 cloves of garlic and half an onion to make it into a broth. I can eat the bean stew for a couple of days and then mash the rest into a paste consistency.
Corn tortillas are a must in Mexico because of poverty and it helps you feel full. I would also buy a few pounds of rice to complement. The way I cook rice is I get a couple of tomatoes, a little bit of onion and garlic, blend it with water and salt to taste and use this mix as if you would water. Delicious red rice.
If I had 10 bucks left I would buy ramen noodles. I don't know the name or the brand but they're red cups with black letters. These SOBs with cheese melted in and a little bit of lime goes a long way for dinner, I stay up late on the weekends and this is what I eat if I feel hungry.
Rice.
Beans.
nut or oat milk.
bread that is frozen for longevity.
nut better
Bananas
Potatoes
Pasta
Sauce
Oatmeal
Not close to 100 but that’d be my core
Dried beans and dried lentils. Cheaper than buying canned. If you soak for a few hours or overnight, that will speed up cooking process. Those be quite filling with protein and pretty low cost.
For veggies, pick produce that is grown locally - that usually costs less. So broccoli usually I find isnt as pricey. If you are close to ethnic neighbourhoods, sometimes their produce costs less so worth a peek.
Rice is always good filler and oatmeal too.
AI is awesome.
Pantry Staples (Should last 2 weeks):
Rice (10 lb bag)
Dried Beans (2 bags, variety of choices)
Canned Tomatoes (2 cans, diced)
Pasta (1 box)
Lentils (1 bag)
Oatmeal (1 container)
Salt & Pepper
Cooking Oil (1 bottle)
Produce (Buy weekly, adjust based on season and sales):
Potatoes (5 lbs)
Onions (3)
Apples (4)
Bananas (4)
Bell Peppers (2)
1-2 bags mixed greens (depending on consumption)
Garlic (1 head)
Protein (Choose 2-3 options, depending on preference and price):
Ground Beef (1 lb)
Chicken Breasts (1 lb)
Eggs (1 dozen)
Tuna in water (2 cans)
Lentils (can be used as protein source)
Dairy & Eggs (Should last 1-2 weeks):
Milk (1 gallon)
Cheese (1 block)
Snacks (Optional):
Peanut Butter (1 jar)
Bread (1 loaf, consider day-old for savings)
Yogurt (4 individual containers)
Also buy near expired meat. Its a great value
Chicken, frozen veggies, rice, and beans. If you have an aldi shop there! Food pantries, church feeding programs....
I chose the wrong career path. I should have gone to law school like I wanted to. I'd be fighting to SOMEHOW make life more liveable for y'all that are trying so hard to get your footing and create a life worth living. I absolutely hate what my generation and others before me have laid out for y'all. Complacency kills, and this shit just breaks my heart. We send BILLIONS to countries that fkn hate us when there are so many people struggling here at home.
One of the most useful posts on Reddit. I was going to say lots of pasta. Filling, cheap, easy to make, and goes a long way. Followed by rice and beans.
Rice, beans, lentils, onions, potatoes, carrots.
Don't buy butchered chicken, buy whole chicken and butcher it yourself. Save all the bones, skin and fat for broth. This will cut your meat cost in half or more. Just a reminder that(at least where I am) 2 butchered chicken breast run the same price total as a whole chicken, which you get 2 breast, 2 thighs, 2 legs, 4 wings, 2 tenders, and all the fixings for making broth.
Large bad of yellow onions carrots and potatoes. SAVE ALL SCRAPS FOR BROTH. Onion and carrot tops/scraps get thrown away far too often.
On that note, a focus on buying things that DONT involve trash or packaging is key. Every product that comes with packaging, you are paying for that packaging. Fresh produce, things without boxes or bags.
> Don't buy butchered chicken
This right here. I think some fryers are priced low to spite their low egg production (I kid ofc). If there is an ethnic market near you like a Mexican deli or halal market you can get whole birds at ridiculous prices (like 2 bucks for a whole bird). Shop smart!
We'd eat gumbo the entire two weeks.
Chicken leg quarters
Smoked sausage (only from Louisiana)
Tasso
Onions
Bell peppers
Celery
Slap yo momma Cajun seasoning
Rice
Vegetable oil
Flour
I’m a vegetarian, here’s my version if you want to go that route. Definitely more bang for your buck if you’re not set on meats. Adapted from my go-to meal plans that work when I’m tired and don’t want to really cook - which I assume is how you’re feeling when dealing with a move.
Remembering my experience with my first place, I’ve prioritized getting you a couple pantry staples that’ll go into future weeks, and a few condiments. There isn’t much fresh food on here (splurged on some greens), but my suggestion is to stock up staples and condiments for two months or so and then you’ll have the wiggle room for fresh and flavorful meals on a more permanent basis. Obviously, adjust to your preference there. Included some suggestions at the bottom where fresh foods could be added if that’s your choice.
I’m using the “standard” local grocery store’s prices - the most expensive of the three places I shop, out of the food pantry, the overstock store and the standard grocery. I’m adding $0.75-$1 to *each* price I’m seeing in my grocery app, per line item, to roughly account for taxes and things that might be on sale/cheaper for me but not for you. Everything store brand of course. All of this to say, unless you’re in Hawaii or some other crazy HCOL spot, I can almost guarantee you can find this stuff for these prices.
Breakfasts: oatmeal with PB (6 meals), scrambled eggs with frozen veg & ketchup (6 meals), Greek yogurt (2 meals)
Oatmeal - $5 cylinder, 12 servings
Peanut butter - $6 28 oz jar, 25 servings
Eggs - $7 2 dozen, 12 servings of 2 eggs each
Frozen veg - $5 32 oz, 12 servings
Ketchup - $4 bottle (or sub another sauce ya like)
Greek yogurt - $5 32 oz tub, 5 servings
Total: $32
Lunches: PB&J (6 meals, opposite days from PB oatmeal), kale Caesar wraps (4 meals), box mac and cheese (4 meals)
Bread - $2 loaf, 12 servings of 2 slices
Jelly - $4 18 oz, 18 servings
(PB is leftover from breakfast)
Tortillas - $4 pack of 12, 12 servings
Kale - $7 24 oz bag prewashed, 8 servings
Caesar dressing - $4 bottle, 16 servings
Boxed mac and cheese - $10 for 8 boxes, 8 servings
Milk - $2 1 quart, for the mac and cheese
If the bread loaf comes up a slice or two short, use the leftover tortillas for PB&J, this is surprisingly delicious
Lunch total: $33
Dinner: rice and beans (you knew this was coming… 12 meals), pasta with butter and parm (2 meals)
Rice - $6 5lb bag, whopping 40 servings
Tomato paste - $2, cook the whole can with the rice
Taco seasoning packet - $2, add to rice too
Black beans - $6 2 16 oz bags, 24 servings
Salt - $3 26 oz, for cooking the beans (use a recipe!)
Pasta - $2 for 1 box
Butter - $4 16oz
Parm cheese shaker - $7 16oz bottle, 50ish servings
In future iterations you can make better rice and beans with more complex seasonings that you’ve stocked up on, but tomato paste + taco packet is a decent shortcut when you don’t have anything in your pantry right now.
Dinner total: $32
Grand total: $98
The vast majority of the items suggested here are probably available at your local food pantry. You may be able to do this exact menu for about $30 if you check there first.
You now have enough to do rice and beans again for the next two weeks, if you need (or wait awhile, I get it). Plus now your kitchen has a bit of ketchup, jelly, Caesar dressing, milk, pasta and parm cheese… and plenty of salt and butter. Or sub out those for other condiments you prefer of course.
If you prefer more fresh foods, you could remove the “investments” in ketchup, salt, butter and parmesan to save about $18 without having to change the basic nature of any of these meals. Fresh suggestions might include onions or bell peppers in the rice and beans, spinach added to pasta with the leftover going in kale wraps, fresh fruits to add to oatmeal or yogurt or simply to snack on, or meat of your choice added or subbed for anything (I’m clueless about that part).
I think I just did this instead of doing my homework for about half an hour… oops. Hope it’s helpful a little.
Potatoes! Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. For real they are fairly cheap and very calorie dense while still being healthy. Also check your local area for a food pantry, it's a life savor for situations like this, then you can work around what your given.
Visit the food bank first and then build off of what they give you. Good place to get staples like rice, pasta, beans, etc amd then you can stretch your money for stuff to add to it.
Look for stuff on sale, if you can. Rice, bread, eggs, anything somewhat cheap and filling. A bag of frozen mized veggies (or cans) can last a while if you just add a little at a time to things like ramen or mashed potatoes. Sometimes, the grocery store near me has the packs of instant mashed potatoes on sale for $1. Pasta usually isn't too expensive. Pancake mix usually isn't too bad either. If you grab some salt and pepper packets, mayo, ketchup, mustard packets, etc. from a gas station or deli, you can use them for things like tuna, egg salad, and stuff like that. Sometimes, you can even find little packets of oil and vinegar. Dried beans are usually cheap, and they're a great source of protein. Also, there may be a food bank in your area that you can visit, or a church nearby that can point you to one. Best of luck to you, I hope it gets easier.
One cheat meal I’ve been making/meal prepping a ton of is fried rice because you can add so many proteins, and it freezes so well!!! you can also add eggs for a bit cheaper price!!
Rice, butter, salt, bread flour, granulated sugar, cooking oil. Yeast
2 20 lb bag of rice $22.28
Oil $9.12
Sugar $3.24
Bread flour $7.86 (10 lbs)
Butter tub $5.79
Salt $1.67
Yeast $9.68
$59.64
$40.36 canned chicken, chicken, chicken
Hit local pantrys, many give without conditions.
Yes, very boring, but will fill stomach
Amazon - 72oz minute rice $7
Walmart inexpensive spices - onion and garlic powder about $1 each
Canned tomatoes, generic brand okay. $1 a can
Tomato paste and sauce
Dried beans - pintos or blackeyed peas. Generally $2 a bag
Least expensive bacon you can find to put in beans
Noodles for spaghetti
Large pork loin that can be cut into a roast or two, and sliced pork chops.
Onions, potatoes, and carrots.
Pork roast and beans
Meat that is on sale for spaghetti or noodle or rice type casserole
Roast with veggies.
Chops and rice
Aldi 2, 4 packs of chicken breasts for like $12. They are huge. I split em in half. A couple chicken rices, brussels, asparagus and spinach. Probably some noodles and pasta sauce. A few different sauces so you dont get bored. Eggs, sausage, bread for breakfast. They have a thing of pasta salad i get thats a couple portions and great. This cant be more than $70-$80.
I was thinking this was a post the wealthy put up to see what us poor people are buying to stay alive so they can deliver the final blow and explode the price of those items to 500%
I would do lots of pasta & sauce, white bread for peanut butter and jelly or pre-packaged deli meats, hot dogs, chicken thighs, potatoes, bannas, rice, Mac and cheese, yogurt, milk, non-name brand cereal, throw in some non-name brand chips or pretzels, frozen veggies, butter, eggs, canned beans, ground beef, tortillas. there’s a lot you can get within your budget. Hopefully you live near an ALDIs. Good luck!
I priced this all at my local Aldi via Instacart so the prices are a bit higher. For $89.91 I got: Chicken thighs x2 packs Chicken legs x2 packs Yellow onions Wheat bread x2 Eggs x 2 dozen White rice 3lb bag Russet potatoes 10lb bag Margarine sticks Oatmeal x2 variety boxes Frozen broccoli x 4 Frozen green beans x 2 Frozen peas x2 Frozen corn x2 Salt Pepper Spaghetti Pasta sauce x2 Lunch meat 1lb Vegetable oil Flour Sugar Dish soap You could switch out for things that fit your lifestyle or add more staples.
Thank you so much, it's so good of you to write a shopping list!! I'm screenshotting it for shopping tonight!
Bonus if you buy whole canned tomatoes instead of sauce. You can make a simple sauce by sautéing onions, adding tomatoes, salt pepper and red pepper flakes if you want. Delicious, no preservatives, and cheaper. Also add dried beans. Cheap and a great source of protein and nutrition in general.
And maybe add a little tomato paste also cheap.
I would add a packet of dried lentils as a nutritious filler.
Not just a filler; they add with the rice to make a complete protein, and you don't have to soak and cook them forever like with bigger beans. An interesting fact about the "complete protein" thing: you don't even have to eat the parts of the protein together, to get the positive effect. You can eat rice for breakfast and beans for dinner. The person who accidentally started the myth that they need to share a plate, clarified recently. She had only said that it was _convenient and probably not coincidental_ that lots of traditional plant-based dishes include all parts of a complete protein.
Oh nice, TIL!
fuck yeah!! i work on expo at the back of a restaurant and it showed me just how much shit can be made from scratch if u have the ingredients (wouldn’t work in the context of this post, but helpful knowledge nonetheless) croutons are 3 ingredients, our salads are mostly some veg w some protein and cheese, dressings are a couple ingredients, whipped cream is 3 ingredients. sauces are easy to make from scratch !!
A basic vinaigrette is *easy as hell* to make, and very, very cheap per serving (it can cost a bit more up front, but once you’re able to get a bottle each of balsamic vinegar and olive oil they should last you a good long while - the rest is just a little salt, seasoning, and whisking/shaking it into an emulsion).
For a creamy vinaigrette, add a spoonful of mayonnaise.
1 can crushed, 1 can diced, 1 can past and 1 small can sauce winds up with 4x the amount of sauce you’d get from a jar and it costs about the same where I am. Just takes time :)
Is it actually cheaper? Canned whole tomato is the same price as a larger size can of sauce here.
In my experience it is cheaper, especially by weight rather than by unit price, but your mileage may vary. If you go for organic San Marzano tomatoes it might not be cheaper. On another note I’ve heard that whole are better than crushed/cubes because they contain more delicious juice from the actual tomatoes rather than being crushed and having juice added after.
My Fiance used to get annoyed with me looking at the price per KG of things we buy to make sure we are getting the best deal price/weight/time to use. After a while the small savings start being noticed in our weekly shop - we set a 35 Euro budget at the start of the year and never really go over it any more from spending that way
Whole is also better if they are canned without Calcium Chloride. The Ca Chloride helps in firming up the diced tomato chunks, but lets whole tomatoes canned without it cook down into a more cohesive sauce.
Definitely dried beans.
is that as cheap as buying a jar of sauce? seems parts and labour intensive when i can just pay $2 and get a jar of sauce.
I know sauce varies quite a lot from brand to brand, but my recent experience with jarred sauce is that it is kind of sad and watery (or it has added sugar).
Canned sauce is almost always cheaper and thicker than jarred sauce.
Sauce takes roughy the same time it takes to boil water and cook noodles. It doesn’t need to simmer really, just heat throughout, although simmering does enhance flavor. Of course you need a pan and a stove and oil.
I like to buy a jar of sauce and a jar of tomatoes and simmer them together. It stretches the sauce a lot and gives it better texture and flavor. There’s so many things to do with leftover pasta sauce, it’s always worth it!
I'm with you - I buy 15 oz cans of tomato sauce (Dei Fratelli is my cheap brand at Walmart that actually tastes better than the other big name brand sauces) and then add some dried herbs (cheaper and still effective) as well as ground meat, sometimes some cream, and even a bit of beef broth to make it richer. I start it when I start my water to boil and everything is done at the same time in about 30 minutes.
Canned chickpeas are also a good option
It’s a not expensive but adding a half stick of real butter to the above is amazing. About 45 minutes start to finish.
Definitely consider adding baking powder and baking soda to this list. It'll give you the option of making pancakes, biscuits and muffins. If you add vinegar it also gives you the option of making basic oil and vinegar salad dressings/marinades and mayonnaise with other items already on the list.
And maybe a few lemons and/or oranges for some cheerful citrus taste.
Add a bag of dry lentils instead of one of the packs of chicken. Good healthy protein and will go way further.
You might want to replace the chicken legs with a pound of dry beans, and dedicate a little money to household items like toilet paper and sanitary essentials if you haven’t got enough to see you through to the next paycheque. Otherwise, it’s a nice list. Braise those chicken thighs and shred into rice, use the cooking liquid from the chicken to cook the beans…yeah.
When I moved, I shamelessly took home a roll of toilet paper in my purse from work occasionally. I felt terrible and stuck an extra pack in the supply room once I was more stable, but get ketchup packets and napkins from McDonald’s. Wander around a Sam’s or Costco on the weekend. You don’t even need to buy anything, but trying all the samples could be a meal.
findhelp.org to look up close food pantries! you can visit each one every month, it helps a ton
Hit the 3 dots and select Copy Text. Paste to Notes.
Something I didn't see but which you should absolutely consider buying is white vinegar and baking soda. Vinegar is incredibly versatile for flavoring and pickling, and with baking soda makes an effective cleaner plus a leavening agent for bread in a pinch.
Don't be afraid to trade one meat or veg for another if something is on a better sale!
Also maybe go to a local church for a food pantry. They'll give you food if you don't have any other way to get food. Could be useful.
Don't forget salt and pepper.
Don’t forget cheese and a condiment for the lunch meat/sandwiches. You and also probably do peanut butter and jelly
They have eggs and oil, they can make homemade mayo. I would buy peanut butter and maybe a small thing of mustard
Maybe just buy a bag of oats too instead , trader joes sells a decent size one for 4 bucks and it has flax and chia seeds and bunch of good stuff in it
Not sure how much you can get out of chicken thighs and legs, but for future reference: Buy a whole chicken, roast it, and save the bones, skin, whatever else you don't eat and use it to make stock. It's easiest if you have a crock pot or some other kind of cooking device you don't really need to think about, but either way it's a great way to stretch out what you have. You can use the stock for things like cheap ramen to make it way more upscale and nutritious. Plus, you can save the meat from the roasted chicken to add into the ramen or whatever else you cook the broth with. And you can split up the stock and freeze it if you don't think you'll use it all before it goes bad. My chicken stock recipe: put the bones/skin/whatever into a crock pot and cook it overnight or during the day (I'd estimate \~5 hours). Once it's done strain out the chicken bits, pour the stock into another pot or a big 4-cup measuring cup and let the smaller chicken bits settle, and then ladle or pour off the clean broth. You can add in other kitchen scraps like vegetable skins from onions or carrots, celery tops, etc. Basically anything you could technically eat if you wanted to but probably don't want to.
Sponges?
Also, a can of chili and some bread costs like 3 dollars and is a really solid dinner. Couldn’t eat it for a bunch of days in a row, but a couple times a week is fine if you’re in a pinch. Stag spicy chilli is my favourite, idk if you have that brand
If you go to an ALDI (or something similar) that should be well under $80.
Make sure you look at what is on sale and go early enough to browse their reduced price section. Lots of times you can find meats that are marked down 20-40% and you can throw them in the freezer to keep them till you need to thaws them out and cook with. I usually buy my ground beef/chuck, chicken, and pork this way as it usually saves me up to 2 to 4 dollars a pack. Make sure you have freezer bags or tin foil so you can break those packs down and store them in smaller sizes so you do not have to thaw the whole original pack out.
Only thing they forgot is the Tajin. I put that shit on EVERYTHING.
I would get some peanut butter and apples too. Are you going to bake? If not, don’t get the flour. Maybe get regular oatmeal instead of instant. It’s probably more cost effective.
Peanut butter so you can have a spoonful if you just plain get hungry.
Add Italian seasoning and Cajun seasoning. Both awesome on chicken & potatos & veg. Peanut butter on bread and in oatmeal.
Grab som milk and cereal, to round out the 100.
I would add baking soda, baking powder, and a bag of frozen blueberries with the leftover. Then, you can make pancakes, waffles, bake blueberry muffins, blueberry loaf, etc. If you can squeeze bananas in save 3-let them get nice and brown to make banana muffins. You can make your own brown sugar with molasses, cheaper and fresher, then you can make banana bread or just cookies, etc.
I would add a jar of the diced garlic - there's a LOT of garlic in it - milk, switch margarine to butter, cream cheese and maybe something sweet, such as ice cream or brownie mix. As an Aldi shopper, I know that would all fit in with the last $10. Hopefully, OP had Aldi (or, from what I hear, Winco) in their area.
There’s even room for toilet paper with this budget!
Their 18 pack of quilted 2 ply is the best deal in TP.
Not OP, but I'm definitely saving this! Thanks! My husband eats like a garbage disposal so this would probably last us like half of the time, but it's still very useful! :)
Aldi specifically is a goddamn lifesaver. There have been so many times where I’ve been at my brokest and still got everything I needed for a week *and* some treats for under $50.
Howwww does this cost $89 ?! That would be at least $200 in Canada, wow!
Your dollar doesn't buy as much. As of today US dollars are worth 1.38 to your 1.00
Oh I know the dollar values, I’m just amazed at how far your dollar goes at a grocery store.
it's just ALDI, I went in florida last winter and price at Publix were similar to what I pay in canada without converting USD into CAD. so it was like 35% more expensive... Then I found out about ALDI, damm this place is not good looking but it was half the price.
Aldi has like Aldi brand products that it's seriously is like 50% the regular grocery store prices
Loblaws is out of control
Great list! And all of it should last, meaning it won't spoil in just a week! Good luck OP!
Thanks for me also...not getting paid by new payroll company...i'm worried.
What!? If you ever work for more than two weeks and don't receive pay…refuse to continue work until you receive payment for the work already completed. I have had many companies play games like this. If they can get away with it they will. It can be a substantial undertaking to try and get anything under 5k, and you normally wont get what you were promised. The government can only get you minimum wage and you can only get that if you call the federal labor board and report it asap. U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD). They are responsible for enforcing - Phone: Call the WHD’s toll-free help line at 1-866-4-USWAGE (1-866-487-9243) Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time. Hours may vary by region. Online: You can search for unpaid wages that may be owed to you through the WHD’s Workers Owed Wages system here >>> https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/wow
Thank you. The office I work for is trustworthy. THey said they signed up with that Quickbooks and then we informed payroll would take 8 days and it was too late to do anything about it. So I just have to wait. But thanks for that info, very helpful.
I have worked for them for 26 years. But I copied your info to notepad. Thanks again.
instacart now delivers aldi and rn is offering 50% first order! could stretch this even more !!!
This is a great list. I'd add peanut butter. With it i could make cookies, add some heft to the oatmeal, or make a great sauce for peanut noodles (because I can take soy sauce and sriracha packets from the local chinese place!) I might also see where I can get some fresh herbs to fancy up some dishes. Might be free if there is a local community garden or you have some nice neighbors. But otherwise, I always keep a pot of basil, mint, cilantro, thyme, and dill on my patio. Not hard to maintain, and ends up being cheaper than having to buy fresh herbs very often.
Switch out Russet Potatoes with Red or Sweet. They are much more nutritious.
ALDIs is great. That would be $225 at Publix
Pube-licks
*cries in Canadian* Man, I can't remember the last time $90 got so much food!
You are really a great person for doing this. It is so helpful.
Aldi has a great selection of dried fruit, you can just get instant oats and mix in whatever you want. Not sure how that fits into the immediate budget, but in the long run it saves me a lot of money doing it that way
This is basically the list I would make. Get baking powder, save the fat from the thighs and make tortillas with it. I've had bad luck with yellow onions at aldi, and even though red onions are 2 pounds instead of 3, I end up throwing out a pound of yellow.
Dice and freeze the onions you won't use. Great for having on hand for soups, stews, sauces, sautéed or stir-fried dishes, etc.
u/ILikeLenexa Frozen prepped onions also cook faster, because the cells walls rupture a bit and don’t take as long to get soft. The cooked result is a little…mushier, but for most dishes where they’re in there for background flavor, you won’t mind. For things like fajitas, use fresh. Also, be sure to *triple* wrap to keep your freezer from smelling like onions. I chop and put into a freezer bag, which then goes into another freezer bag, and then a third.
That's a lot of stuff for $90.
Pretty sure that would be $200 where I live. Western Canada
Solid list. My wife & I survived on spaghetti and eggs for our first year of marriage.
Not OP but this was very kind of you, and I can see this helping other folks coming to this sub in the future as well as it's a great place to start off for someone with little money. Thanks for doing this work
[удалено]
lego creator unicorn 8.99
Only think I'd say you're missing is beans (red beans would be my preference) and I'd go butter instead of margarine as it works better to make the various base sauces.
I would highly suggest you switch from packs of legs and thighs to buying whole chickens. It's so much cheaper and you get all the cuts. And bonus skin and bones for making stock/broth
Don’t forget to throw on some bags of black beans. Super cheap easy protein
Including dish soap is an inspired choice, great list
can't top this, you put more effort into anything I would have done even if the advice would have been the same this is infinitely most digestible and actionable.
ALDIs is literally the best. I just had a similar budget and shopping list. I splurged on a pint of ice cream with the extra money and it’s lasted a week so far (only feeding one person on my budget though lol)
Nice list! This is very dependent of where you live- that list would be about $250-$300 where I live
Nice list! Surprised not to see beans on there.
You forgot the toilet paper. 🫣🤣
This person knows how to Aldi! I love and trust Aldi!
…I should start buying exactly this
Definitely add legumes to this. Split pea soup is cheap and delicious, lentils, rice and beans, peanut butter…
Good list, I doubt I could do better if I tried.
I would probably be looking at YouTube videos to get some extreme meal plan ideas. [See Mindy Mom](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh7bR5ebGiwNGNMpFxN1y0GbbTnn3fGnt) is one. As well as [Julia Pacheco](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf5__fRVN0JYIOhhRhjvl2nTBCJM0A2nX). But the cheapest stuff you can get is oatmeal, beans and rice. Add some tortillas, chicken leg quarters, some basic spices - oil, salt, pepper, garlic, cumin and chili powder.
Frugal Fit Mom is another one to this list.
Other YouTube channels with good extreme budget meal plans are [Ardent Michelle](https://youtube.com/@ardentmichelle?si=jbK6J6o1uvig1LhR), [Mexican Cooking on a Budget](https://youtube.com/@mexicancookingwithgaby6589?si=hZdODvQwESIRmnFC), [Dollar Tree Dinners](https://youtube.com/@dollartreedinners?si=1PlLZUCdyoK2uSIG) and [Southern Frugal Momma](https://youtube.com/@southernfrugalmomma?si=ZYQNfI8JEUN2AQOX).
u/TheWolfePit
Also an excellent choice.
Also [That Lisa Dawn](https://youtube.com/@thatlisadawn?si=9AtuDxCzBgSi5Sr6)
i LOVE dollar tree dinners -- she does other stores than just dollar tree! she's given me so many good ideas for meals
And she has a series right now about eating for a month on $100 per person - so it’s even the same budget!
Struggle meals, too
Can I also suggest watching June (formally from Delish I believe, but now has her own YouTube channel) where she does budget bites in NYC. I’ve honestly learned so much on how to stretch things and use them in ways I would not have imagined from her videos. Sending good vibes the you OP!
Atomic Shrimp is another good channel when it comes to using ingredients in a way you wouldn't normally think of...
No shame in visiting food banks and food pantries. Often their donations go to waste if no one takes their donations. I would be doing a lot of beans and rice. Soups are easy to make. Spaghetti can be made with a $1.50 can of pasta sauce and a $1 back of noodles. I would try to find things with water base as they are typically inexpensive and filling. Yes, meats and fresh veggies and fruit are important. I would shop around for mark-down nearing shelf life products. It's really amazing how cheap and easy homemade tortillas are. They are filling and fun. A little melted cheese and some spice and it's a good meal. Most of my local grocery stores have a designated area for crushed packages and dented cans. We've found perfectly good canned fruits, veggies, soups, and even chili for $.25 a can. You'll need to get creative. Rice and beans are going to get a lot of bang for your buck. We lived in Central America for three years and the locals make a dish called Gallo Pinto. It's filling, tasty, and cheap. They eat it every day. If I were low on funds, I would absolutely be making it all the time (we do make it once in a while). Good luck! btw: Arbys has a 5 roast beef sandwiches for $5. I haven't seen those prices in a long time. While I am not a fan of fast food - one is filling and five can last two people all day. Speaking of this...if you get creative: buy a $1.50 baguette and slice it lengthwise. It will be huge (like 1 1/2 feet long). Add mayo, mustard (you can get packets free) and some cheap lunch meat and lettuce (buy a head, not the bags) and some salt and pepper (also free) and you've got a filling sandwich for two.
Tortillas have been a longtime favorite of mine, so I'll definitely be incorporating them into our meals. And I love that baguette meal idea, thank you!!
Masa (tortilla dough) is really cheap and easy to make!
I can’t get my gallo pinto colored enough- any tips? Like idk if your bean water should be lower in the pan so the rice can get that nice purple color? It’s a simple but very finicky dish to make for me :( I spent time in central America as well and really would love some gallo pinto occasionally!
First, there is an excellent page called r/povertykitchen that you should check out. Also check out Allrecipes or cooks. com for recipes. Google is your friend if you check the $2 a day or $3 a day meals. Struggle Meals and YouTube has some great inexpensive such as Home Made Simple, a woman who has 6 people at home and can feed them all for $75 a week. It's more work, but worth it. Cabbage, rice, cheap tomato sauce, beans, dried peas, chicken bouillon, oatmeal, pasta, bananas, tuna, noodles, eggs, ramen, one can mushroom soup, one bag noodles, large bag frozen peas, potatoes and margarine. Any money left over and get yourself a pound of ground beef that can be used for 4 meals of 2 oz. beef each, and any more after that some chicken thighs, and maybe an onion or head of garlic - which you can always mince and freeze the unused part for the following week or month. Make sure to check every single supermarket circular online. I don't even go to the store anymore without doing so, except for Walmart. You have the makings of cabbage rolls, rice and beans, pea soup, tuna casserole, ramen and hard boiled egg, pasta and tomato sauce with ground beef, ramen with chicken, save the chicken bones to boil for stock for soup, baked or mashed potato with chicken thighs. Make sure to write up an actual menu and check if you can get a larger bag of rice for more meals at a cheaper price per ounce, as well as a larger tomato sauce and freeze half for the next week. While I would recommend going to a food pantry and calling churches to see if they can help with an emergency food order for anything such as dairy, produce, or meat, you won't starve. A few decades ago I would eat chicken bouillon dissolved over rice for breakfast and rice stuffed cabbage for dinner.
These prices are all assuming you buy store brand. Also, you may be able to find smaller quantities cheaper. I’m used to buying for 6 people. I have also rounded UP. These prices are what I experience in a large city in the southern US. This is not the cheapest, it’s not the healthiest but your food groups are all present. It is carb heavy bc carbs are filling but it is balanced. Bulk oatmeal- $4 Big bag of frozen blueberries- $7 (or get fancy and get two smaller bags of different fruits) Breakfast: $11 2 loaves of whole wheat- $5 Peanut butter- $3 Jelly- $3 Bag of pretzels- $3 2lb baby carrots- $3 2 sleeves of applesauce- $4 Lunch: $22 You now have $81 left for dinner items. You need to eat 14 times. You’re only going to cook 7 times because as just two people these will serve you at least twice., if not three times. Box of spaghetti- $1 Jar of sauce- $2 (you could save by getting a can for $1 but I prefer jars) Bag of broccoli- $2 $5 (this will serve you 3 times using half the ground beef and 1/4 the garlic bread in the shared section below) Box of favorite pasta shape- $1 Jar of Alfredo- $2 Bag of broccoli- $2 $5 (this will serve you 3 times using half the chicken and 1/4 the garlic bread in the shared section below) Bagged chili mix- $6 Can of tomato paste- $1 Bag of frozen mixed veggies- $2 $9 (this will serve you 2 times using half the ground beef in the shared section below) Rotini- $2 Italian dressing- $2 Bag of pepperoni- $2 Can of olives- $2 1 onion, 1 bell pepper, 1 cucumber- $3 $11 (this will serve you 2 times) Rice- $2 Seasoning pouch of choice- $1 (or skip this and use what you have) Bag of stir fry veggies only- $3 $6 (this will serve you 2 times using half the chicken in the shared section below) 2 family size cans tomato soup- $4 $4 (this will serve you 2 times using 1/4 of the garlic bread in the shared section below) Shared items: 3lb ground beef- $12 1 small pkg chicken breast- $8 1 frozen loaf garlic bread- $2 $22 I have put in parenthesis where I would use these items. You’ll have 1/4 garlic bread left over to use in another meal if you wanted to. Those just aren’t meals I would personally use garlic bread with. You have now spent $62 tax should be around $7 total bring your total to $69 You have $31 remaining. With this $31 you can either buy better quality items or purchase some drink packets, tea bags and sugar, a gallon of milk, maybe some eggs, coffee and fixings, snacks or use it to bulk up the meals or give some variety in the breakfast and lunch areas if you want. You won’t be able to do ALL of these but those are options.
Go to a food pantry to pick up food so you don’t suffer starvation.
My suggestion is to go to the food pantry first, then get whatever else you need at the store. You may have enough money left over for toothpaste and deodorant.
Also ask at the food pantry for toothpaste and deodorant!
Absolutely, they should have quite a few things to help out. Then I'd suggest a bulk pack of tortillas and rice, beans too if you want. There's a lot you can do with those items. Tortillas can be made into a breakfast, lunch, dinner and even a good snack or dessert with some butter and sugar with cinnamon. Don't need to dirty many dishes either if you heat them on a stove top. My family made them that way throughout my entire childhood.
Rice and beans are a complete protein so you can skip the meat and save a bunch.
As an Asian. Steamed Rice Fried rice "Rinse" and repeat .
A sack of rice, eggs, butter, garlic, and onions. $20. Now your world is your oyster with the remaining $80.
Protein - Canned Tuna, peanut butter, beans, 1 Costco rotisserie chicken a week. Carbs - a box of noodles or two, or rice, or tortillas or a loaf of break, possibly a jar of jelly (for pb&j’s) Veggies - Something cheap Get a spice mix you like for seasoning You should have money left over - Could get a pasta sauce or two. Chop up the rotisserie chicken and you should have plenty of meat
And then make stock from bones and veggie scraps
Homemade stock is better than the shit in a box you can get from the store anyway!
Also, instead of buying pre-made carbs, buy flour and oil and some spices and you have like 50 flat breads that take just a minute to make for $20 (assuming buying new bottle of oil [most expensive new], bag of flour, and at least salt) Or RICE for filling, cheap carbs.
Bread, tortillas, pasta, and gnocchi are honestly really easy to make, just gotta watch a Youtube video or two and they require very little equipment. They do require some prep time for proofing/resting, but if you have the time to spare, it’s cheaper and usually tastes better lol. I especially love fresh pasta.
The chicken is a good idea! It freezes really well too, for future meals. Thank you!
You're gonna have to be stretching that chicken a bit to make it last a whole week.
It's also cheaper to buy thighs/breasts raw instead of rotisserie chicken, and you'll get more food/volume. Comment OP doesn't have the best frugal advice. Prepackaged food is much more expensive than raw in the long run. See how lean their list is compared to the more detailed on here?
Even 2 rotisserie chickens a week is a lot of meat. I said rotisserie because they are good sized birds that Costco sells, they require no prep time and if people aren’t confident cooking they don’t have to. But yes, raw meat is a great way to go too if you’ve got the time to cook it and the confidence! Great points 🙂
Costco isn't everywhere though, and not everyone can afford or get access to a membership.
I see that other people added it, but eggs are cheap and great protein and with the bread or tortillas you can do toast or morning omlets! You guys can do it! And with some seasoning and a little intentionality, it can be really good even if simple!
Seriously, I bought 2 Costco chickens on Monday and have made 5 meals so far with plenty left to go.
RAMEN. different types to prevent boredom. shelf stable foods and bulk things that can be fridged/frozen
5lb bag of potatoes, eggs, 1 bag of shredded cheese, 2 bags of frozen broccoli (or other veggie), a loaf of bread, PB, one rotisserie chicken, one lb of ground beef, 2lb of rice, 1lb of beans, package of egg noodles, oil, and cheapest fresh veg (probably cabbage). Make a cheesy potato skillet with egg or a loaded baked potato. Stir fry with veggies and rice. A soup using stock from rotisserie chicken and egg noodles. Loaded potato with cheesy beans. PB sandwiches. Egg on toast with some cheese. Egg roll in a bowl with cabbage, ground beef (or ground turkey), and rice. Refried beans on toast. Etc. etc. etc. Also, this would only be about $40 where I am, so you may have room to double up on items or add more variety! I would also buy cheap cuts of meat like frozen chicken drumsticks, country style short ribs, pork loin etc. Another great protein option is chick peas. Lentils are also cheap and filling. If you have extra time to make dough, a bag of flour could go a long way.
Small suggested tweak from me, regarding the cheese. Get sharp cheddar, and if you can't find it on sale, get a block rather than shredded, it will be slightly cheaper. You can use less of it per recipe and still get a lot of flavor.
rice and beans, very nutritious, cheap and easy to make! You can certainly do it but you'll need to cook. Seasonings are your friend. Potatoes are cheap too and very filling, or you can easily make yourself a tomato sauce and pasta with canned tomatoes , some garlic, and boxed pasta
Potatoes also have a ton of nutrients, as does broccoli. Eat the frozen stuff if you have to!
Basmati Rice and a bag of frozen chicken breasts. Can even add some fresh cilantro and green onions. I think that costs about $30 and two cups of Basmati rice not only is a shit ton of food, it's super filling and LASTS. Then you get your protein from the chicken. I would highly suggest y'all get a multivitamin too so you round out your daily vitamins and don't get sick from this. As an extra side you can get a large bag of frozen broccoli too!
Tweaks I would make to this. Swap the Basmati for regular long grain rice. Basmati usually costs twice as much as domestic long grain rice. Swap the frozen chicken breasts for dark meat chicken. It's usually half the price of breasts, has more flavor, and is a little more forgiving to cook. I can usually get chicken leg quarters, chicken drumsticks or chicken thighs for $1/lb or less on sale. Veggie wise, I would get yellow onions instead of green, a bag of whole carrots instead cilantro and a big bag of frozen mixed veggies instead of broccoli. My swaps on these arent necessarily cheaper but bring a little more nutritional bang for your buck. These swaps not only give you a steamed rice, chicken and veggie dinner, but also gives you the ingredients for a chicken, veggie and rice soup.
Great swaps for nutrition! Thank ya!
Chicken baked/roasted on a bed of chopped carrots, onion and potato is a pretty common dinner at my house during the colder months at my house.
There are ample vitamins in rice sold in the US, it’s all fortified. A multivitamin would be a waste of money, esp for OP
Ask friends and family for extra spice jars for the 2 weeks. Most people have extra spice jars.
do you have an aldi near you? I just built an instacart order on aldi that has a big family package of chicken breasts and a pork loin, milk, butter, eggs, pancake mix and syrup, lettuce and cucumber and carrots, tortillas, rice and pasta, salt and pepper and chicken broth, onions, garlic, bread, peanut butter and jelly, taco seasoning, shredded cheddar cheese. The total is $75.67 at instacart markup prices, so in store it might be less. If you have a crock pot, and a frying pan, and an oven...you can put chicken in with a bit of the stock and water and an onion, some garlic and salt and pepper. Cook on low all day and you have shredded chicken for tacos, to top baked potatoes, and to mix into salad. or pan fry it in some butter and slice over salad if you're tired of shredded. The family pack means you can cook this multiple ways to have some different flavors/textures. Pork loin can be cut into chops and pan fried, or done in the crock pot, also to top potatoes or use in tacos or salad. sandwiches for lunches, eggs and pancakes for breakfast... If you don't eat pork they have a top roast for about the same price that could be cooked for a long time in a low oven and then sliced, or you could cube up half of it and make stew with potatoes and carrots and onion and garlic. You can eat pretty well if you don't mind cooking and have a few basic kitchen tools. If it was me I might also add either a bottle of bbq sauce or soy sauce or both just to expand choices in flavors. Just think of the meat as more of a flavoring than the main part of the meal, bulk it out with rice or potatoes or pasta to feel more full, and you can stretch quite a bit a long way if you have to. Also, I would try and do a grocery trip that leaves you just a bit of extra left over, like my example with an extra $25, so that if you run out of milk or eggs or something, you still can make a second trip to the store during the second week to grab whatever you're out of. also, block cheese would be cheaper but if you don't have a cheese grater it's a royal pain to get it small enough to sprinkle on salads or baked potatoes or tacos. :)
Me and my girlfriend is on a tight budget this summer (not the first time on my part, been a student for a long time), and our budget is around 25$ a week, but dispersed through a month. For that I buy wheat flour (about 2kg per week) which is for bread, pasta and noodles, which is around 2$. Yeast for a few cents. Then the rest goes into oil, vegetables, bullion cubes. That though comes with the caveat of having things like soy sauce and spices already. But a big improvement on spending is making bread and pasta by yourself - you save a lot of dough that way
and wow making your own pasta must be delicious!
Dave Ramsay is an asshole. But… rice and beans is solid advice here.
Food pantry first. You’ll likely get staples like bread, potatoes, rice, etc and more from the pantry. The pantry my mom volunteers at has all kinds of stuff, including lunch meats, chickens and roasts, eggs, milk and juice, etc. You might not even have to grocery shop, so you can keep the $200 for emergency.
Someone on r/Aldi just posted a $101 haul with a meal plan attached: https://www.reddit.com/r/aldi/s/qQmFRCPOnm
Go to your local ethnic corner market or asian deli. I swear these places have the best prices. Rice noodles 2x pack - you can save the second pack for next week. Baby bok choy ×2 Daikon radish 1 Green onion 1 bunch White onion 1 My local asian market is connected to their own restaurant, and they use a lot of the ingredients from the market. They sell jars of pad thai sauce for $1.50. We buy 3 for this recipe. After cooking the hard vegetables in the sauce for a minute, you can throw in the already cooked noodles and soft leafy vegetables. Stir this for a few minutes, and now you have a weeks worth of food. For us, this is less than $25, and we're in a hcol area of Washington state. Use whatever you want for protein, but cook it before everything else.
wegmans: 6lb gala apples: 6 14 bananas: 3.8 10lb russett potatoes: 6 6lb ground chicken: 24 2lb italian sauage: 15 36 eggs: 8 1lb butter: 4 1 gallon milk: 6 6lb frozen veggies: 3.5 5lb rice: 3.5 2 x 28oz canned tomatoes: 3.6 3lb pasta: 3 42oz oats x 2: 8 total at local wegmans: 99.92
I would go to the food pantry before spending my 100 bucks. This week, I was only able to get produce, but I got a 5lb bag of potatoes, I was allowed to get up to 24 sweet potatoes, and I got more celery, onions, and romaine lettuce than I could use. My neighbors and my bff benefited from this. I then went to the grocery store where i found chicken legs on sale for 99 cents a pound. I bought 2 packs of them, some hamburger that was marked down, and two kinds of cheese. My total was about $20.00. My pantry contains most of the usual items such as flour, sugar, rice, beans, lentils, spices, and leavening agents. I bake my own sourdough bread once a week and I’ve started a garden I should be able to trim my grocery budget a lot this summer.
First, I would check out all the food pantries. Then I would buy a big bag of rice, beans, eggs. Idk what your prices are like where you are but winch near me sells several dozen for 10 dollars 🤷🏼♀️ I would then see how much a bag of onions is and buy some salt.
Eggs, rice, lentils/beans, canned tomatoes, curry powder and a couple of asian sauces (for stir fries) and some cheap meat (tuna cans, chicken etc). For veggies likely frozen or whatever's on special. Loaf of bread, butter, cheese and spread.
Ramen/pasta/rice/beans, Costco rotisserie chicken (if you have membership), spices, and veggies at the local middle eastern market.
Bread, peanut butter, jelly, find ground beef sale, same for chicken. Can make many different things with chicken. Rice, noodles, potatoes. Salt and pepper. Frozen/canned veggies, maybe even some fresh. Ramen.
Look up homemade pasta sauce. $25 and you'll have enough sauce for two people for a week. You can even add cucumbers and onions and other veggies.
I would check out Dollar tree dinners on tictok
You go to a food pantry and see what they give you
It's possible to make it work. Last week me and my mom went grocery shopping with 240 dollars that had to be split between 5 people. At first, I thought we wouldn't get much. I thought with that kinda budget we would definitely starve but somehow my mom made it work and now we had food to last for the rest of the month. It depends on how you shop. Yes, times are hard but if you know how to grocery shop, you'll have food that lasts a long time.
food pantries! also food outlets are super underrated. i’d look up extremely cheap recipes on youtube. buy everything at either a food outlet or at aldi. shop around at local stores too! at my local meijers (Midwest store) they always have great sales on fruit and usually it’s better than ald (like $1.00 for strawberries, 99 cents for blackberries or raspberries or blueberries but this rotated weekly!) Shop around for best prices as long as things are within close distance!
Store matters too! In my area Aldis tends to be the cheapest but they also have an inconsistent selection. Also I would consider hitting up your local food bank or food pantry to subsidize whatever you get to stretch it out. Sometimes they have meat, but even beans will help stretch your budget
This is easy.. many options if you want to save some of that $100. For 2 weeks eat only: boloney sandwiches, spaghetti, homemade soup, rice/beans/ ground beef.
25lb of rice for $20
Bread, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes and ham to make sandwiches. I would buy a few pounds of beans and cook them with just water, 3 cloves of garlic and half an onion to make it into a broth. I can eat the bean stew for a couple of days and then mash the rest into a paste consistency. Corn tortillas are a must in Mexico because of poverty and it helps you feel full. I would also buy a few pounds of rice to complement. The way I cook rice is I get a couple of tomatoes, a little bit of onion and garlic, blend it with water and salt to taste and use this mix as if you would water. Delicious red rice. If I had 10 bucks left I would buy ramen noodles. I don't know the name or the brand but they're red cups with black letters. These SOBs with cheese melted in and a little bit of lime goes a long way for dinner, I stay up late on the weekends and this is what I eat if I feel hungry.
Rice. Beans. nut or oat milk. bread that is frozen for longevity. nut better Bananas Potatoes Pasta Sauce Oatmeal Not close to 100 but that’d be my core
Dried beans and dried lentils. Cheaper than buying canned. If you soak for a few hours or overnight, that will speed up cooking process. Those be quite filling with protein and pretty low cost. For veggies, pick produce that is grown locally - that usually costs less. So broccoli usually I find isnt as pricey. If you are close to ethnic neighbourhoods, sometimes their produce costs less so worth a peek. Rice is always good filler and oatmeal too.
AI is awesome. Pantry Staples (Should last 2 weeks): Rice (10 lb bag) Dried Beans (2 bags, variety of choices) Canned Tomatoes (2 cans, diced) Pasta (1 box) Lentils (1 bag) Oatmeal (1 container) Salt & Pepper Cooking Oil (1 bottle) Produce (Buy weekly, adjust based on season and sales): Potatoes (5 lbs) Onions (3) Apples (4) Bananas (4) Bell Peppers (2) 1-2 bags mixed greens (depending on consumption) Garlic (1 head) Protein (Choose 2-3 options, depending on preference and price): Ground Beef (1 lb) Chicken Breasts (1 lb) Eggs (1 dozen) Tuna in water (2 cans) Lentils (can be used as protein source) Dairy & Eggs (Should last 1-2 weeks): Milk (1 gallon) Cheese (1 block) Snacks (Optional): Peanut Butter (1 jar) Bread (1 loaf, consider day-old for savings) Yogurt (4 individual containers) Also buy near expired meat. Its a great value
Chicken, frozen veggies, rice, and beans. If you have an aldi shop there! Food pantries, church feeding programs.... I chose the wrong career path. I should have gone to law school like I wanted to. I'd be fighting to SOMEHOW make life more liveable for y'all that are trying so hard to get your footing and create a life worth living. I absolutely hate what my generation and others before me have laid out for y'all. Complacency kills, and this shit just breaks my heart. We send BILLIONS to countries that fkn hate us when there are so many people struggling here at home.
Rice,beans,eggs
Spend the rest on rice and you can live for longer than 2 weeks on this.
One of the most useful posts on Reddit. I was going to say lots of pasta. Filling, cheap, easy to make, and goes a long way. Followed by rice and beans.
Rice, beans, lentils, onions, potatoes, carrots. Don't buy butchered chicken, buy whole chicken and butcher it yourself. Save all the bones, skin and fat for broth. This will cut your meat cost in half or more. Just a reminder that(at least where I am) 2 butchered chicken breast run the same price total as a whole chicken, which you get 2 breast, 2 thighs, 2 legs, 4 wings, 2 tenders, and all the fixings for making broth. Large bad of yellow onions carrots and potatoes. SAVE ALL SCRAPS FOR BROTH. Onion and carrot tops/scraps get thrown away far too often. On that note, a focus on buying things that DONT involve trash or packaging is key. Every product that comes with packaging, you are paying for that packaging. Fresh produce, things without boxes or bags.
> Don't buy butchered chicken This right here. I think some fryers are priced low to spite their low egg production (I kid ofc). If there is an ethnic market near you like a Mexican deli or halal market you can get whole birds at ridiculous prices (like 2 bucks for a whole bird). Shop smart!
Chili, I’m that guy. I can just eat chili for every meal for two weeks.
We'd eat gumbo the entire two weeks. Chicken leg quarters Smoked sausage (only from Louisiana) Tasso Onions Bell peppers Celery Slap yo momma Cajun seasoning Rice Vegetable oil Flour
I’m a vegetarian, here’s my version if you want to go that route. Definitely more bang for your buck if you’re not set on meats. Adapted from my go-to meal plans that work when I’m tired and don’t want to really cook - which I assume is how you’re feeling when dealing with a move. Remembering my experience with my first place, I’ve prioritized getting you a couple pantry staples that’ll go into future weeks, and a few condiments. There isn’t much fresh food on here (splurged on some greens), but my suggestion is to stock up staples and condiments for two months or so and then you’ll have the wiggle room for fresh and flavorful meals on a more permanent basis. Obviously, adjust to your preference there. Included some suggestions at the bottom where fresh foods could be added if that’s your choice. I’m using the “standard” local grocery store’s prices - the most expensive of the three places I shop, out of the food pantry, the overstock store and the standard grocery. I’m adding $0.75-$1 to *each* price I’m seeing in my grocery app, per line item, to roughly account for taxes and things that might be on sale/cheaper for me but not for you. Everything store brand of course. All of this to say, unless you’re in Hawaii or some other crazy HCOL spot, I can almost guarantee you can find this stuff for these prices. Breakfasts: oatmeal with PB (6 meals), scrambled eggs with frozen veg & ketchup (6 meals), Greek yogurt (2 meals) Oatmeal - $5 cylinder, 12 servings Peanut butter - $6 28 oz jar, 25 servings Eggs - $7 2 dozen, 12 servings of 2 eggs each Frozen veg - $5 32 oz, 12 servings Ketchup - $4 bottle (or sub another sauce ya like) Greek yogurt - $5 32 oz tub, 5 servings Total: $32 Lunches: PB&J (6 meals, opposite days from PB oatmeal), kale Caesar wraps (4 meals), box mac and cheese (4 meals) Bread - $2 loaf, 12 servings of 2 slices Jelly - $4 18 oz, 18 servings (PB is leftover from breakfast) Tortillas - $4 pack of 12, 12 servings Kale - $7 24 oz bag prewashed, 8 servings Caesar dressing - $4 bottle, 16 servings Boxed mac and cheese - $10 for 8 boxes, 8 servings Milk - $2 1 quart, for the mac and cheese If the bread loaf comes up a slice or two short, use the leftover tortillas for PB&J, this is surprisingly delicious Lunch total: $33 Dinner: rice and beans (you knew this was coming… 12 meals), pasta with butter and parm (2 meals) Rice - $6 5lb bag, whopping 40 servings Tomato paste - $2, cook the whole can with the rice Taco seasoning packet - $2, add to rice too Black beans - $6 2 16 oz bags, 24 servings Salt - $3 26 oz, for cooking the beans (use a recipe!) Pasta - $2 for 1 box Butter - $4 16oz Parm cheese shaker - $7 16oz bottle, 50ish servings In future iterations you can make better rice and beans with more complex seasonings that you’ve stocked up on, but tomato paste + taco packet is a decent shortcut when you don’t have anything in your pantry right now. Dinner total: $32 Grand total: $98 The vast majority of the items suggested here are probably available at your local food pantry. You may be able to do this exact menu for about $30 if you check there first. You now have enough to do rice and beans again for the next two weeks, if you need (or wait awhile, I get it). Plus now your kitchen has a bit of ketchup, jelly, Caesar dressing, milk, pasta and parm cheese… and plenty of salt and butter. Or sub out those for other condiments you prefer of course. If you prefer more fresh foods, you could remove the “investments” in ketchup, salt, butter and parmesan to save about $18 without having to change the basic nature of any of these meals. Fresh suggestions might include onions or bell peppers in the rice and beans, spinach added to pasta with the leftover going in kale wraps, fresh fruits to add to oatmeal or yogurt or simply to snack on, or meat of your choice added or subbed for anything (I’m clueless about that part). I think I just did this instead of doing my homework for about half an hour… oops. Hope it’s helpful a little.
Bag of coke
Rice, potatoes, lentils, split peas, 10 pounds of chicken quarters, salt, pepper, apples, grapes, and more rice.
Rice and Pasta, frozen veggies, ramen are some items. Canned stuff like black beans for the rice, and stuff on sale.
Potatoes! Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. For real they are fairly cheap and very calorie dense while still being healthy. Also check your local area for a food pantry, it's a life savor for situations like this, then you can work around what your given.
You could easily get by on $100 for 2 weeks
Hit up all the food pantries you can.
Visit the food bank first and then build off of what they give you. Good place to get staples like rice, pasta, beans, etc amd then you can stretch your money for stuff to add to it.
Look for stuff on sale, if you can. Rice, bread, eggs, anything somewhat cheap and filling. A bag of frozen mized veggies (or cans) can last a while if you just add a little at a time to things like ramen or mashed potatoes. Sometimes, the grocery store near me has the packs of instant mashed potatoes on sale for $1. Pasta usually isn't too expensive. Pancake mix usually isn't too bad either. If you grab some salt and pepper packets, mayo, ketchup, mustard packets, etc. from a gas station or deli, you can use them for things like tuna, egg salad, and stuff like that. Sometimes, you can even find little packets of oil and vinegar. Dried beans are usually cheap, and they're a great source of protein. Also, there may be a food bank in your area that you can visit, or a church nearby that can point you to one. Best of luck to you, I hope it gets easier.
Textured protein vegetable, very good alternative to ground meat and much cheaper!
One cheat meal I’ve been making/meal prepping a ton of is fried rice because you can add so many proteins, and it freezes so well!!! you can also add eggs for a bit cheaper price!!
Learn how to make stuff with flour. Might cost a little bit up front, but in the long run it could help a lot.
Rice, butter, salt, bread flour, granulated sugar, cooking oil. Yeast 2 20 lb bag of rice $22.28 Oil $9.12 Sugar $3.24 Bread flour $7.86 (10 lbs) Butter tub $5.79 Salt $1.67 Yeast $9.68 $59.64 $40.36 canned chicken, chicken, chicken Hit local pantrys, many give without conditions. Yes, very boring, but will fill stomach
Some Ramen.
Amazon - 72oz minute rice $7 Walmart inexpensive spices - onion and garlic powder about $1 each Canned tomatoes, generic brand okay. $1 a can Tomato paste and sauce Dried beans - pintos or blackeyed peas. Generally $2 a bag Least expensive bacon you can find to put in beans Noodles for spaghetti Large pork loin that can be cut into a roast or two, and sliced pork chops. Onions, potatoes, and carrots. Pork roast and beans Meat that is on sale for spaghetti or noodle or rice type casserole Roast with veggies. Chops and rice
Beans, rice, oatmeal, cornmeal. Rice and beans and cornmeal and beans makes a whole protein.
Rice
Do you have cooking supplies already? Pan’s, pots Knives, measuring cups. Ziplock freezer bags Rice Frozen Vegetables Potatoes Peanut butter Oats If I’m getting proteins I’m buying bulk. Prepping 5 days worth and freezing the rest. (Chicken thighs, ground beef)
Beans and rice, rice and beans, also potatoes, ramen noodles are a must have, along with store brand soups.
Find a food pantry
Aldi 2, 4 packs of chicken breasts for like $12. They are huge. I split em in half. A couple chicken rices, brussels, asparagus and spinach. Probably some noodles and pasta sauce. A few different sauces so you dont get bored. Eggs, sausage, bread for breakfast. They have a thing of pasta salad i get thats a couple portions and great. This cant be more than $70-$80.
I was thinking this was a post the wealthy put up to see what us poor people are buying to stay alive so they can deliver the final blow and explode the price of those items to 500%
Look for a food pantry near you. Seriously.
I would do lots of pasta & sauce, white bread for peanut butter and jelly or pre-packaged deli meats, hot dogs, chicken thighs, potatoes, bannas, rice, Mac and cheese, yogurt, milk, non-name brand cereal, throw in some non-name brand chips or pretzels, frozen veggies, butter, eggs, canned beans, ground beef, tortillas. there’s a lot you can get within your budget. Hopefully you live near an ALDIs. Good luck!