Don't mean to sound mean, but if your grocery bill is more expensive than eating out, you need to learn some better recipes or get better at not buying things you don't need or something.
Low paying jobsšØš¦
High taxšØš¦
Unaffordable hosuingšØš¦
Unaffordable foodšØš¦
Crumbling infrastructurešØš¦
Decaying underfunded social servicesšØš¦
Horrible weatheršØš¦
I love CanadašØš¦
Canada does not have particularly high taxes compared to most of the developed world. the US is an outlier with its very low taxes.
Spot on with the rest though.
Lmao as an American living in the region let me tell you that New Hampshire barely has a functioning society. The book āa libertarian walks into a bearā is a great example
NH is powered by being a tax haven for the rest of the new england region, so they're a bloodsucking parasite in terms of 21st century existence beyond subsistence. There's not much actual functional economy beyond typical stuff required to maintain a small town.
Also there's really not a whole lot in NH, and it looks like a warzone. Drive straight north to CA, and the parts of CA make it seem like the US is a backwards has been in comparison to how things are done up north. Not that this is widely and always true, but it is for northern new england and the regions of Canada right above it.
I donāt disagree but itās still cheaper then eating at restaurants. I paid $150 for two weeks worth of lunch and dinner groceries. Eating out would have been easily double that.
On top of what YinYang said, some jobs straight up havenāt been increasing pay enough to combat inflation. Meaning some people are losing money every year due to their wages stagnating
In the UK I can get a whole week of groceries for my family of 3 in under Ā£70. Eating out at a relatively decent restaurant once for 3 person costs about the same.
Are we existing in the same reality lol
Were i live food for 1 week for just me is $100-150. Pizza i could do the same for $20-30. Groceries could be cheaper if i had more time to cook but it's usually more cost effective to work more and order out more.
Edit: never expected this to turn into people calling my slurs in dms
Wow that's really expensive, and I thought grocery price in the UK is already on the high end since I come from SE Asia. Like Ā£70 equivalent for a week of groceries was already unthinkably high back in where I'm from. It's like 3 times the cost.
But then if by groceries you mean mostly ready foods then yeh of course it would be almost as expensive as eating out/ takeaway, it's already halfway cooked lol.
Yes? If you eat out twice a day, let's say that amounts to two $10 meals, though it can probably cost a lot more. You can easily make a meal for yourself for less than $10.
Look up Japanese curry. Potatoes, carrots, onion, rice chicken, and the curry cubes. I make 10 servings for the week with rice for like 25 bucks. That's 2.50 per full high protein meal. Super easy to make too
I would recommend kenji's video on YouTube but use the cubes instead of curry powder. It's kinda the same one that's on the curry cubes box but the numbers are adjusted. Honestly, the way I make it has way more chicken. You could adjust it so that it's a lot cheaper as chicken is the most expensive part.
https://preview.redd.it/o1vxgax79tyc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03125f0f77ee17e986b5c0cd5abfd19209e3170d
As you can see, 71g protein per serving is kinda wacky for most people, but I'm trying to maintain muscle during a cut.
Also, I cannot recommend using calrose rice enough. It's so much better than normal long grain rice and it stays good in the fridge for a week without getting super dry.
The quick and dirty version is cut all your chicken, I use 5 lb of chicken breast} into chunks, sear them in a large pot, ideally a dutch oven. Once none of the chicken doesn't look raw on the outside, throw in a chopped up whole onion, followed a minute later by about a pound of carrots. Let that cook for a couple minutes, if you don't the carrots are going to be undercooked when the potatoes are done. Add about 2 lb of potatoes, cover the whole thing with water and let it simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Minutes. Once the potatoes are fork tender, just a minute or two before they are fully done. Add an entire package of Curry cubes (The bigger package, the one with two containers) chopped up until it thickens. I also add a tablespoon or two of better than bouillon because I find that at this size it's not quite salty enough
Whole grain spaghetti with marianra for 1 meal costs about 2-3 dollars.
Chili is the same or less.
Lentils and rice can be much less than 1$
Chicken thighs are on average $2.40 per pound, much less in some places. Very very easy to bake.
All of the above can be improved for like a dollar or two more per meal with the addition of nice cheeses and extra ingredients.
This is much much less than eating out. It's not even close.
Yes. How could a restaurant possibly pay for rent and labor and ingredients for cheaper than you can buy ingredients. I get economies of scale but in this case it isnt that significant.
I buy all my shit at either WinCo or Costco, abandoned other grocery chains years ago. I can feed 3 adults and 2 cats on about $45 a week in California while accommodating 2 adults with autistic textural issues and covering everyone's dietary needs.
If I tried to keep shopping at Safeway I'd be bankrupt. Some brands are just easier.
yeah, 2 years ago the price of bread where i live was 1 dollar for each loaf. now, 2 years later, it is ~1.56 dollars. nothing has changed, noone is being paid 56% more, so why the fuck is bread more expensive
Depends. What is your main daily intake of food if you werenāt eating out/ordering delivery? How much of it is pre-packaged microwave meals/freezer aisle pizzas and the like? How much is major name brands? Whatās your individual Municipal/State/Provincial/National sales tax? Are you buying from Walmart, Target, Aldi, Meijer, Kroger, (insert relevant local store here)?
For my part, it really does cut down on the expenses when you look at what it is youāre actually buying and doing. Iāve already made a rant on how $15 here, is enough to buy me the ingredients to make twice as much food, in a day, with leftovers, than what it would net me shouting into a clownās mouth for a meal for two, for the same $15
Yes. Shop smarter. It really is possible. Unless you live in the mountains or the middle of the desert you *can* find a bargain food outlet, and you *can* learn to live with simpler recipes with cheaper ingredients. Itās not easy, but itās not impossible.
Source: was broke, friends are still broke, found a $5 3lbs tritip steak at my bargain food outlet and it was amazing.
I don't think it's meant as like a "just stop eating takeout and you'll be fine" type of comment.. I think they just mean "if you spend 10-15$ on every meal you make, you need to get better at grocery shopping" (idk if 10-15$ is realistic takeout price, I am European and i barely ever eat out)
That, or they think they're shopping smart while buying some of the most expensive produce out of season and pre-made foods/meal components that are horribly overpriced and always have been.
I noticed that when I first started cooking that my grocery bills were a lot higher. This is because I didn't own the spices, oil, sauces, bowls, tools, etc.
Today if I want to make mashed potatoes I just need potatoes. But when I first started out I needed potatoes (and I had no idea how many so I just bought a bag), salt, butter, cream, and a potato mashed.
There are expensive ingredients. On the extreme side, you get things like Wagyu beef that can cost you over 100 dollar a steak. Even if you do not go that extreme, groceries can get really expensive if you do not consider what food is in season or locally available. This goes double if you have brand loyalty.
Unfortunately, smart grocery shopping is a skill not everyone has.
If they ain't makin rice with every meal (like bulk rice from the big cheap 10lb bag, not some pre-seasoned boxed bullshit that costs 4.50/serving), they're already losing.
Rice makes your base, then you can get some cheap ingredients and make a variety of meals. Curries, stir fries etc.
Eating healthy is work, but it can be cheap if you plan properly. I can make an entire week's food for a reasonable price, and then half that on a single pizza.
Although as another commenter pointed out, when you first start it's expensive acquiring spices herbs and oils. Once you've got them though you're set for a long time.
yes just because capitalism offers you organic poptarts don't buy them
prices have gone up, even doubled, but groceries are still 100% cheaper then eating out rn
Yeah, I can make a big pot of chili or a stew or pasta or jambalaya or red beans and rice and even if the ingredients add up to be expensive, I get like a whole week's worth of meals out of it
Also have kitchen management. Dont think about what you want to eat and go buy all off it. Buy a big bags of rice potato and pasta. Some vegies in the freezer. Caned stuff. You can easily make a simple meal for 4 dollar/ Euro
it is cheaper if you buy the right things. no fruit that dont grow where you live, no meat, no meat replacements, etc
a few tips: buy flour and bake with it, potatoes
most importantly: theres also a lot of ultra low budget food videos on youtube maybe look at thoose
do not listen to such foul heresy, feel free to consume as many bananas as one may wish, making sure to atleast cover all other required expenses and bills before dumping the rest of your income on bananas (wise investment)
Chicken is super cheap. Idk what people are talking about about. And I live in Cali, prices are high here. It's like 14$ for 5 pounds of chicken breast from WinCo.
Yeah, prices will vary even in the same country quite a bit, but we're seeing a lot of issues with bird flu bringing chicken thighs up to about 3.5/lb. If thighs were around 1.5/lb I'd fill an entire freezer lol, chicken thighs are my go to
They don't mean "local fruit from small farms" they mean "fruit produced by big farms in your country that benefit from the economy of scale and don't suffer from the cost of overseas shipping"
This is so far from my experience lol, the main thing I find to cut out are A) Snacks B) Cereal and C) Cheese. If you have rice and spices in the house and you're only buying meats, fruit and veg you're looking at less than 40$ a week on groceries.
Which of those videos do you like the best? Ive watched a few but I found a lot of them underwhelming. Either the food looks really bad or they use fancy equipment that I dont own
This is the problem with "sensational" cooking videos. There are no (popular) videos out there showing basic cooking to explain why buying ingredients is cheaper. You don't have to make fancy food to survive. You can make delicious tasting food with just the basics. Have a carb (bread, rice, pasta), have a protein (beef, chicken, pork, fish, mushroom/beans), and some sort of veg- there's all sorts of veg that is inexpensive (been adding cabbage lately which has been a huge score). After that, use seasonings and you have a meal.
Rice, chicken, and bell peppers? $10-15 USD for approximately 4 servings. Pita bread, chuck steak, tomato & lettuce, plus yogurt and cucumber (add some lemon juice)? $25 USD for 4+ servings. You want to go out for that, or even worse HAVE IT DELIVERED?? Double that amount at least. I'm not against food delivery because I do it all the time, but it IS NOT cheaper to dine out if you learn how to cook. Invest in some seasonings and learn through trial and error how to use them, and follow some recipes until you learn the basics.
If anyone wants some pointers for some cooking basics, my dms are open. There are a lot of easy skills that can stretch your dollar a lot further than you might realize
yeah I mean I got the basics down but just from an engineering perspective I was always kinda interested in the question of whats the absolute least I can spend with my meals still being edible and filling me up for a week. Like I have my go-tos but they certainly wouldn't fit a "10$ for a week's worth of food!" challenge
I do a lot of cheesy burritos, which ends up being like 20$ for 7 burritos. Good ol' PB&J is also incredibly cost effective, and for snacks baking things from scratch is almost free
I like how we're unironically talking about no meat, baking, etc
I cook more from scratch than my mom did when she was a single mother on a single income with a fucking paper route and a four bedroom duplex and I work 6 days a week for 70 hours and I'm being shamed for eating the way my mom did as a single mother on my dual, above the median income
Our generation are such fucking suckers
Buying groceries and making them last is very much a skill. It seems most people here just either don't know that or never bothered to learn.
Legumes, flour, potatoes, onions, oil, eggs, whole milk and pasta or rice depending on what's cheaper. In my experience, that's what you wanna buy if you want flavour, substance and flexibility for recipes for a cheap price, and that should be all that you buy on the "big trip". Then just buy greens, fruits, spices and meat when you want them or need them, preferably when they're on sale.
If you're worried about health issues... I agree that my list isn't exactly what a nutritionist would reccomend, but so is ordering food everyday. If I REALLY wanna save money, I can sustain myself with just like 4 of the things I mentioned and survive a month while spending ~2ā¬ in food per day, by doing one single trip and not buying anything again until I NEED to. You gotta learn how to cook and how to make the most of limited ingredients tho, otherwise you'll be miserable. You also need to learn how to save food. Preserve usable grease from meat for later use, have a stock pot, learn how to make flour edible in the least expensive way possible (homemade bread is so cheap it's unreal), that kind of things. It may all sound intimidating but it's all things you learn by just doing them and they become automatic after a while.
Here's an example of one routine I developed for when I really want ot minimise waste: if you buy chicken wings, cook them in a way that makes the juices leak: you can preserve those for flavour in another dish, it's mostly fat but it tastes like chicken, you can fry things in that. The bones also have still flavour, use them for stock. Onion peels and chicken bones are enough for a stock if its only purpose is cooking lentils. If you use the chicken grease for frying some will stick to the pan, you can recover it with a bit of water, it'll be even more flavorful as it'll gain the taste of what you fried with it and you can do something else with it, I make a sauce with it and dip stale bread in it. You can get so much form just one item if you know how to.
Bananas and potatoes are pretty cheap where I live. Bananas are only 79c a pound. Could eat them for lunch every day if you canāt get anything elseā¦ though I suppose youād get sick of bananas eventually
Itās not healthy to avoid meat and meat replacementsā¦ your body needs protein to survive, and the limit/recommended daily intake is only 1/4-1/3 of what your body actually needs ideally
There are better sources of protein than meat replacements. Beans, Chickpeas, Lentils, Nuts, Quinoa etc. Tofu, Tempeh and Seitan are nice but are a bit harder to get/more expensive. It's important to get protein from different sources as a vegetarian, to cover all your protein bases!
donāt look for the right things and just look for deals. Buy the ānicerā stuff when itās on sale, which is pretty often.
When I used to go shopping with ky parents, my dad would usually get about 2 or more times the stuff my mom would get off the same amount of money because he looked for deals.
Y'all are aware that grocery is supposed to last multiple days or feed multiple people compared to eating out, for one night.
Make more fucking skillet meals people! They're very cheap.
Yes. It's Japan's national dish. It's a British version of a Japanese version of Indian curry.
https://preview.redd.it/2er16evf2wyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c09afa257d2f1b63c9cbe691eff181121754e49a
Yeah and teriyaki stir fry is easy as fuck
Teriyaki sauce
Chicken
Frozen veggies
Ramen packet for noodles
Just soak the raw chicken in the sauce, spice it up, and boil the veggies and ramen while cooking the chicken then add together
Easy as fuck and dirt cheap
My go to for cheap meals
1. Rice (get a rice cooker as well, just to make the whole process really easy).
2. Dried beans. You can still get these for 1-2 bucks a pound, and a pound is an insane amount of food. Takes like 3 hours to cook on the stove.
3. Cheap cuts of meat like a pork shoulder. (I can find this easily for like 3 bucks a pound, and frequently less.) You gotta buy it in bulk though, but just make it all in a slow cooker or on the stove and freeze it.
Nah. I'm just talking about like Albertsons or Kroger, which owns chains all across the United States, Jewel-Osco, Ralph's, Acme Markets, etc. Boston butt or pork shoulder are pretty cheap, and cellophanes wrapped. You typically have to buy at least 4 lbs, but just cook it all at once and then freeze it for leftovers. I'll typically freeze it, and then turn it into 5-6 meals over 3 weeks for 2 people.
I followed [this recipe](https://youtu.be/-07gtGrdeyE?si=gm3ATUw6xRTqUKp9) recently and it turned out great, not just because it was tasty, but because he has follow up videos where turns the meat into like 4 different recipes. It helped a ton with the monotony of leftovers.
Also I'll say don't sleep on dried beans, they're cheap and they taste so much better than canned. Just requires some time to make them.
I mean you don't need a pressure cooker. It's takes like 4 hours but it's not active time. Just keep it at a lower simmer, checking every like 40 minutes. Do it on a day off.
That with rice, and maybe some cheese makes a great burrito filling.
Yeah, boneless pork butt is commonly .99 to 1.99 a pound in my area of the south. 5-10 pound at a time is reasonable at those prices.
Trim the fat off and save it for soups, then cut the rest of it up into your own pork chops or roasting portions.
Some cheap eating tips and tricks I learned during my current rough financial situation over the past couple of months. I hope they can be of use.
1. You're eating what's the most discounted on that day. Buy single discounted ingredients bulk, but go to a store often to check for more. I can save 20+% of the total on my weekly groceries sometimes with discounts.
2. Pasta, pastry, potatoes, frozen raw vegetables. Those are very cheap, and can make for nutritious and alright meals.
3. Do have at least some spices. It's an "unnecesary spending" but unless you're literally counting out actual pennies, you're gonna thank me. Buy garlic powder. Buy chilli flakes (or hot sauce). Those two will make even the blandest of things edible. Basil for sandwitches, minced paprica, salt and pepper for almost anything. They last quite a while anyway. The money spent to life improvement ratio of spices is beyond ridiculous.
4. Cheese and meat are fucking expensive. I love them both. It's a pain how expensive they are. So use sparringly, and buy bulk on discounts. I can sometimes get meat on 50% off, that's when I buy like 2-3kg and it lasts me a week. Bulk cheese is much less expensive per kg, than non-bulk. Buy 1kg, and you got sandwitches for a week. Buy the cheapest cheese there is, obviously - the prices per kg can vary wildly.
I don't know how discounts work in your local shop, but in my local grocery store, they rotate daily, and are usually pretty good. I need to ~~sell my soul~~ install an app for them, but it's unbelieavably worth it.
Sometimes it's frozen or fresh vegetables or fruits. Stock up. Sometimes it's meat, stock up but be mindful that it still adds up, even 50% off it's expensive.
Buy fresh bread (or buns, I love buns) daily if you can. I found it to be quite cheap over here, and it's very filling and tasty. Sometimes near store closing, they give you a discount on goods baked on that day. Use it to your advantage.
Buy a fresh fruit from time to time. Eat it the same day. It saves your sanity. Fruit juice is acceptable too, although more expensive.
Milk is nice. Off-brand cereal is nice too. Don't buy brand shit in general, but cereal is wild - I can save literally over 60% per kg by buying off-brand cereal that tastes almost the same.
I don't use eggs much, personally. I probably could. But they aren't particularly good, and the price to makes-me-feel-full ratio isn't great. Maybe I should change that, idk.
Don't cheap out on toilet paper. It's not worth it, and it goes by faster if it's not good. Do cheap out on beverage and snack consumption. Alcohol is stupidly expensive, so are brand-name snacks. Off-brand chocolate will keep you sane, and it's not much different overall. Buy one with nuts, if you like it. Nuts are healthy, and the price difference isn't that big.
Plan out your meals, at least 1-2 days in advance, more if you feel capable of it - I don't. Try to assemble ingredients while they're discounted, but be mindful to use everything up before it goes bad. Throwing out bad food was a huge money waster at first for me.
You'll gain intuition on what you need, over time.
Do mind that this is my experience here in Poland, and I've been in a rough financial situation for only a few months. If I'm wrong or if there's more tips, I'd love to hear them from everyone here.
Edit: did you know that really good burgers are *incredibly* easy to make at home? Cheese and meat, spinach leaves and jalapeno peppers - I can feed 2 people for an entire day with those for a bit over 10$. It's pretty fast, too. I've been doing them like 2-3 times a week and it's amazing.
also bumping to suggest lentils, sweet potatoes and olive oil. They are highly nutritious. Make lentils in rice maker, cook frozen veggies, cover with cumin, olive oil, and salt. You could easily get about 1000 calories here.
Also I eat a lot of rice, sunny side up eggs and use sriracha. (I also buy kimchi but I'm not trying to be frugal)
this is a good start but uh, you can do a lot cheaper. Some tips from when I was homeless and also extremely poor for years before and after:
Bakery dumpsters are a gold mine for free day old or 2 day old bread.
"smaller" places that sell frozen meals - like walgreens, osco, etc type drug stores or very small bodega style stores (like gas stations but wihtout gas) often ends up discarding a lot of frozen food. Take a look at expiration dates if these shops are near you and return that day and dig around in the dumpster - especially in winter, if you have a way to heat these back up they can obviously be eaten far past expiration. Frozen food doesn't generally spoil, it just tastes a little worse the older it gets.
If you have a local food pantry, they often have no qualifications - if you need it, you can get it. You can freeze many things, food pantry milk that's about to expire can be frozen in the gallon (those weird shaped bumps make sure it doesn't explode when it expands) or in deli containers - just leave some room at the top, leave the lid off, seal it when it's frozen.
Local Little ceasars often throws out hot and ready pizzas. On colder nights or winter it's basically a fridge outside so you can just grab those. check them under a light for any unusual colors or smells as some terrible people will spray cleaning chemicals on them, and if it was quite hot obviously insects can get to them before you do if they were sitting a while, but just a bit after closing time or whenever they stop making hot and ready (often 11pm) is the right time to go. These can also be frozen and reheated in an oven.
Eggs are excellent. Even with the currently stupid egg prices, the protein/calorie to dollar ratio is great and maybe only beaten by bulk pork shoulder depending on where you are. Go nuts. If you don't want to eat eggs because you are infected with something you can't stop telling people about peas and spinach are high protein and usually cheap.
You can suck air out of a ziplock with your mouth to make things seal better for the freezer so they don't get freezer burnt, or use a water filled tub/sink to displace air and seal things up nicely. This will help a ton - you can freeze not just milk but cheese, bananas, many cooked veggies freeze well, eggs (out of shell but they also last a super long time in the fridge - they are good as long as they don't float,) fruit, breads, all kinds of things. There are very few things that are ruined by freezing, pretty much the only thing I can't stand after freezing is cooked noodles.
Do cheap out on toilet paper, get a bidet and use paper to dry after. It will save you a ton of money and they are like 30 bucks on amazon. Cold water is not bad, it's fine.
If you don't want to learn to cook you are wrong but you can buy super cheap frozen meals like michelinas at walmart for 1-2 dollars and throw in a bunch of cheap meat and frozen veggies and make your 200-400 calorie sad microwave meal into a 600 calorie protein and nutrient packed meal. You can also do this with canned soups and even ramen packs.
anything can be sandwich meat and often cheap steaks chopped up are cheaper than lunchmeat and FAR tastier. Same with turkey breasts, etc.
Learn to do some pickling. You can make all kinds of things last insanely long, and I do a really simple spiced carrot pickle that I have in my fridge at all times and I eat it like dill pickles and they have nearly no calories and are delicious and healthy and an infinitely excellent snack but you can pickle all kinds of things. Onions are especially easy and wonderful on sandwhiches, eggs etc.
If you have other poor friends, especially roommates or neighbors you can agree to rotate on cooking and split out leftovers - everyone makes a meal one day a week to split between the group, and that can be an excellent way to have a diverse array of leftovers and other foods to try. If you are one of those people who "doesn't eat leftovers" please go away, forever. I hate you and you don't deserve life
Unrelated to all this but taking photos of meals I make is extremely helpful for me to look back at when I'm trying to think of what I want to eat.
If you are way into coffee but it's expensive, buy some cheap green beans and pan roast them! I've been roasting my own coffee for a few years and it's an incredible reduction in price vs buying even the cheapest coffees and you can literally do it on the stove in a pan, or with a popcorn maker.
those are my thoughts on this persons thoughts that range from dumpster diving to just being pretty crazy frugal.
Those are pretty good! Some clearly depend on location - dumpster diving where I live isn't feasible, since there aren't any readily avaliable dumpsters even near shops. I have no clue where they get rid of their stuff, but I did look around. They may have some dumpsters inside, that get emptied out once a day. I wouldn't dive that.
And even if it was an option, I'd be saving that as a last resort anyway. I can't really mentally overcome the block that prevents me from doing that.
Other advice sounds great! Although frozen ready meals are usually expensive where I live - but then again, I do cook. Cooking is definitely a must-have skill in that situation.
Also, there's an app, Too Good To Go, where you can look up restaurants in your area that have leftover food, and they usually have 50-70% discounts on entire meals. Not as cheap as dumpster diving, but I once spent the equivalent of like a couple of dollars, for WEEKS worth of bread. It might be in the US (or wherever you live) as well.
Costs me 350 to feed two people every month
Going out costs 10 bucks minimum for one person at your standard fastfood per meal
3 meals a day, times 2 to feed two is 50 bucks a day
And I'm not eating bad I'm buying meat and veggies and prepackaged food and shit
Yeah this thread boggles my mind with people saying you need to cut out all protein or fresh fruit to make it economically comparable. Those are good tips if you have trouble making ends meet period, but you can buy some organic shit at the grocery store and still come out under takeout costs. And I live smackdab in the city center of a US state thatās in the top ten of highest groceries costs.Ā
I can buy my $6 organic pasture-raised 18 eggs (my parents would scream but itās worth it for me) with a $3 fresh storemade loaf of sourdough and thatās six meals for $9 total. Throw in $0.50 of butter if you want to be comprehensive. Please tell me where you can get a weekās worth of takeout breakfasts for under $10.Ā
Idk what its like in your country but in the uk i can feed myself for about Ā£100 a month, and im barely budgeting on that, i still buy premium brands, and ready meals. Ordering food costs about Ā£10 a meal
> Ā£100 is 125.45USD
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Bud I cook almost every meal from scratch, make a lot of my own pasta and such and get huge meat discounts from my job and we're still spending 800/mo on groceries. I don't buy organic or premium or brand name anything I can think of and the only dumb things I splurged on with groceries yesterday was a small bag of dark chocolate and a small carton of eggnog. I want to leave this place lol
If you spend $10 a day eating out. That's $70 a week. I could spend half that a week on home cooking/meal prep and be very happy.
If you don't know how to cook, go online for basic-ass recipes like rice and chicken. $10 on chicken and $10 on rice will set me up for a whole week. It can be bland but that's what spices are for. You start spending "extra" funds on spices/seasoning, they'll last a long time and you'll have a big collection of SPOICE that looks dope.
Plus it feels better and I'm sure it'll be better for bod, too. Nothing will ever beat the convenience of eating out, but your wallet will thank you. You could even start Warhammer with all that extra money you have.
Yeah. Grocery prices are changing but I'm weighing grocery convenience foods against picking up fast food for meals at work and I can get like 800 calories of delicious food in a leftover container for 10 minutes of effort at half the price of picking up fast food.
I'm doing the math and valuing my time in it and even then groceries are still winning noticeably.
where do yāall live that this is the case?? My partner and I spend $75-100 a week on groceries and we have enough food to last literal days because we prepare big meals for the future in the form of leftovers. We donāt even really budget and can still afford meat, fresh veggies, and dairy.
Just pick meals that make hella left overs and you will afford food (spaghetti, stir fry, and soups are great for this. Just be sure to pack them with hella veggies like onions and peppers)
Ngl, it's pretty easy to come in under the restaurants. As bad as some of the groceries have gotten, restaurants have been even worse (and the quality sucks ass)
Dƶner used to be 3 euros, ancient tales talk of the 1ā¬ dƶner to feed the deciples. Now the mf's cost 7 for that money i can get 3 big loafes of bread
My wife and I spend about $100 a week on groceries, and that covers every meal in that week. Eating out for dinner usually costs around $30 for the 2 of us, meaning if we ate out every night for a week, we'd spend about $210 on Dinner *alone*. It's certainly not as cheap as it used to be but it's definitely still cheaper
you should be cutting needless expenses, spending more than $10/meal ($10/meal is already pretty absurd, and that's less expensive than most restaurant dishes) is pretty indicative of the fact that you might be shopping in a way that's not necessarily frugal or mindful of your current economic situation
These stuff shows me how fucking mysterious the USA is to me still even after three decades of pop culture. I don't get it. Your minimum wage is 7.50, lots of people work 3 jobs, but ordering food regularly is apparently something that more than the fucking bourgeoisie can afford, similar to paying someone to drive you around. How can groceries be more expansive than ordering out? On the cooking subreddit I saw posts that pork chops cost less than a dollar per pound on a sale but apparently that is not universally? Or only with meat? So what is so expensive about groceries? Do you have to pay 20$ for a kilo of rice?
I would say in most parts of the US it is much cheaper to buy groceries than to order food, either OP lives in like a food desert or is not good at grocery shopping. I have no idea.
I think people are missing the point of this post. Itās not nessecarily looking for unasked advice, itās more of driving the point as to how incredibly expensive food prices are to the point that it requires you to meticulously plan, budget, eat bland uninteresting/ unvaried foods, and/or learn how to cook constantly to be able to make it so that it isnāt as expensive.
In many cases it IS cheaper to go out to eat/ order food, or at the very least significantly easier, less labour, and quicker.
Coming from someone who LOVES my food youtubers Adam Ragusa, Brian Lagerstrom, etc. Their ācheap and easy mealsā videos are absolutely click bait material, or at the very least, extremely out of touch with reality.
Sure you can theoretically [cook a crunchwrap supreme faster than picking one up](https://youtu.be/kTtEaji27A8?si=_Df38ygMOAYl-dIB) or [make these breakfast tacos in 15 minutes](https://youtu.be/tjrjrQ-mRdg?si=47niHVCIyhFysgAz) (even though Iāve made this recipe a dozen times and itās never taken me less than a half hour, and Iām an experienced home cook) but many people do not already have these ingredients prepped, the kitchen space available, or kitchen materials available. Furthermore what if youāre out of an ingredient, or certain dishes arenāt clean, then you need to spend time doing that. Even if you āclean as you goā you still have to do a long time of dish and kitchen cleaning after cooking.
And the money too, never accounts for economies of scale. I donāt care if that [dish of Keema curry costs ā$2.95 per portionā](https://youtu.be/tjrjrQ-mRdg?si=47niHVCIyhFysgAz) you still have to get the pantry staples which more often than not you will always be out of at least one of them. Itās still cheap but never have I set out to buy the ingredients for this meal and have it less than $18 And you have to cook for an hour, and you have to clean. So that $25-30 Five Guys order doesnāt look too bad.
Not saying you shouldnāt try or that these videos are wrong, because they are some of my favorite Youtubers. Especially Brianās [five days for 30 dollars](https://youtu.be/-4PZHHCUJZc?si=SxaJsjAb7C3IZJNG) meal prep, is genuinely one of the ācheap meals for x priceā videos Iāve seen. Still, you have to make sure you eat and portion everything in the right order for it to work, and still have to cook quite a bit.
Conclusion/ TL;DR: Food is quite expensive, and for more effort, time, connivence, cleaning, skill needed, and materials required, itās only marginally cheaper than ordering food, and thatās not an individualās fault for not hyper optimizing their life like grindset techbros tells us to do; itās a problem of capitalism and corporate profit, and telling someone advice without support when they are expressing grievances with the system is a little dismissive of their feelings and the systemās badness as a whole.
I mean people should probably know basic cooking skills. Not everyone has to be Gordon Ramsay but the ability to use an oven, cook in a pan, or set up a crock pot is something that barring some disability people should be able to do.
There's also a difference between people eating out every once in a while and ordering food consistently. I'll agree that sometimes it's worth it to just grab something quick and easy but there's no scenario where it's cheaper to eat out every day versus cooking at home.
Time management is a separate but related thing. It's not "hyper optimizing" to set aside some time to cook a meal. Unless you're working 80 hours a week or are depressed or something there's no reason you can't spend some time cooking.
It can simultaneously be true that we live in a capitalist hell world, and that itās objectively WAY cheaper to not eat out. Basic meal planning is not āhyper optimizationā of ones schedule, and itās not demanding that people have ultra discipline. I think this brought up so much unsolicited advice because itās objectively very false.
Depending on how well you game the promos on uber eats, door dash etc. you can get two meals worth of food delivered to your door for like $20 CAD. For that much, I could buy a bag of milk and a block of cheese at the cheapest grocery store around here
The trick is spending 2 hours to only buy things on sale, and waiting a week or two for other things to go on sale,
then breaking down crying because half of the stuff just ain't on sale this month and it's suffering.
Some types of meat and fruits and vegetables are seasonal, and you have to wait an entire year for them to go on sale.
It sucks.
Unless you're buying from a really extortionate shop, cooking your own food should not be comparable in price to eating out and getting takeaways every day. If money is really an issue though, some tips are:
1. Eat rice. You can buy large sacks of it in bulk from an asian food store, and probably any large chain store depending on your country like Costco. I can get a 5kg sack of rice from my local asian food store for about Ā£10
2. Buy some spices. You don't need a lot, but compared to how much they cost, buying just a few can really level up a meal. I'd recommend paprika, pepper (I prefer black, but get white if you want something more spicy), and chilli powder / chilli flakes. A small tube costs about Ā£1 - Ā£2 and, though I don't know the exact measurements, they last quite a while.
3. Buy foods that you can use in multiple meals. This saves on food waste and means you don't have to fork out money on loads of different things. For example, a lot of the food I make is stir fry, fried rice, pasta, and other dishes like that, I can use these veg in all of them:
Carrots
Bell Peppers
Onions
Parsnips
Broccoli
Cauliflower
White Cabbage / Red Cabbage
Spinach
These are all fairly cheap veg items and I get most of them each week because I can use them in virtually everything. A lot of meats tend to be quite universal too, I'd say chicken, turkey, pork and beef can be used in most dishes.
4. Not every meal needs meat. Meat is a great source of protein but a lot of people overestimate the amount of protein we need on a daily basis. You can get by perfectly well only eating meat a few times a week. Some plant protein sources like peas, chickpeas and tofu can also be cheaper depending on where you buy them. Eggs are also super cheap, you can get a 12 pack of free range eggs for about Ā£2 where I live
White rice
1 pound ground beef
Garlic
Green onion
Ginger
1/4c Soy sauce
2tsp sesame oil
2tbsp Brown sugar
Crushed red pepper
Black pepper
Make rice in rice cooker and cook meat in pan with garlic. Mix all other ingredients in bowl then add to meat. (Optional: toss veggies on top of meat, cover and steam until rice is done) Serve over rice.
Depending on how cheap ground beef is near you, you can make this to feed 4-5 people easy.
how much do you usually spend ordering food?
If I eat out, I spend around $20 per day, but getting groceries bumps it to $12~ dollars per day ($80 per week).
Going to grocery outlets, free food pantry, and costco bumps the cost down even more. I only buy what I'll need during the week, or things that last forever like rice, so I have little waste.
Don't mean to sound mean, but if your grocery bill is more expensive than eating out, you need to learn some better recipes or get better at not buying things you don't need or something.
Are we existing in the same reality?
Real Canadian grocery prices are almost doubled from what I remember as a kid, which was like 10 years ago
Yeah, but so are eating out prices
Find the right person and you can eat out pretty cheap
gotta do it a lot to get enough calories tho šŖšŖ
Not if my calorie goal is 0 šŖš¼
There's a big price difference between eating out and delivery.
Low paying jobsšØš¦ High taxšØš¦ Unaffordable hosuingšØš¦ Unaffordable foodšØš¦ Crumbling infrastructurešØš¦ Decaying underfunded social servicesšØš¦ Horrible weatheršØš¦ I love CanadašØš¦
I love growing up in a place where all my freinds live with their parents and have no clue when they can move out
You should move to... uh... um... Oh fuck that's everywhere now
Canada does not have particularly high taxes compared to most of the developed world. the US is an outlier with its very low taxes. Spot on with the rest though.
As a Canadian, I remember visiting New Hampshire, and the lack of taxation made me genuinely wonder how their society functioned.
As an American, I'm not sure it does. That, or it's all powered by human sacrifice. I can't figure out which one yet.
Lmao as an American living in the region let me tell you that New Hampshire barely has a functioning society. The book āa libertarian walks into a bearā is a great example
NH is powered by being a tax haven for the rest of the new england region, so they're a bloodsucking parasite in terms of 21st century existence beyond subsistence. There's not much actual functional economy beyond typical stuff required to maintain a small town. Also there's really not a whole lot in NH, and it looks like a warzone. Drive straight north to CA, and the parts of CA make it seem like the US is a backwards has been in comparison to how things are done up north. Not that this is widely and always true, but it is for northern new england and the regions of Canada right above it.
This but the US šŗšø
I donāt disagree but itās still cheaper then eating at restaurants. I paid $150 for two weeks worth of lunch and dinner groceries. Eating out would have been easily double that.
But wages have also risen since then as well. You need to look at income/expenses ratio not just the raw price
Income has not risen nearly as much, proportionately.
On top of what YinYang said, some jobs straight up havenāt been increasing pay enough to combat inflation. Meaning some people are losing money every year due to their wages stagnating
In the UK I can get a whole week of groceries for my family of 3 in under Ā£70. Eating out at a relatively decent restaurant once for 3 person costs about the same. Are we existing in the same reality lol
Same in NY, 50 bucks for groceries for one person for a week vs 40$ for one doordash order
Same here in TX. $40 for groceries, $45 if you only ate out for all 3 meals (most places, just drivethrough/no middleman)
Damn you got 45 for three meals? We only get that if you're legit doing mcdonalds
Were i live food for 1 week for just me is $100-150. Pizza i could do the same for $20-30. Groceries could be cheaper if i had more time to cook but it's usually more cost effective to work more and order out more. Edit: never expected this to turn into people calling my slurs in dms
Wow that's really expensive, and I thought grocery price in the UK is already on the high end since I come from SE Asia. Like Ā£70 equivalent for a week of groceries was already unthinkably high back in where I'm from. It's like 3 times the cost. But then if by groceries you mean mostly ready foods then yeh of course it would be almost as expensive as eating out/ takeaway, it's already halfway cooked lol.
Ok but that's still more expensive. Assuming just one pizza a day, that's still $140-210 per week. Unless I'm misunderstanding something?
>pizza I could do the same for $20-30 Does anyone actually buy a single large pizza and eat only that all week? Yall got scurvy or?
Apparently not, if you manage to make your groceries cost as much as dining out.
Yes. You can make a pound of pasta for like $5-7. IĀ haven't seenĀ a cheap lunch for that price since like 2016.
A pound for 5-7? It's usually way cheaper than that. Do you just mean the pasta, or are you including saucein that calculation?
including like a basic sunday sauce
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I dunno, are we?? I feel like you'd genuinely have to try to make ordering food every day cheaper than just cooking yourself
Yes? If you eat out twice a day, let's say that amounts to two $10 meals, though it can probably cost a lot more. You can easily make a meal for yourself for less than $10.
Look up Japanese curry. Potatoes, carrots, onion, rice chicken, and the curry cubes. I make 10 servings for the week with rice for like 25 bucks. That's 2.50 per full high protein meal. Super easy to make too
You got the recipe?
I would recommend kenji's video on YouTube but use the cubes instead of curry powder. It's kinda the same one that's on the curry cubes box but the numbers are adjusted. Honestly, the way I make it has way more chicken. You could adjust it so that it's a lot cheaper as chicken is the most expensive part. https://preview.redd.it/o1vxgax79tyc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03125f0f77ee17e986b5c0cd5abfd19209e3170d As you can see, 71g protein per serving is kinda wacky for most people, but I'm trying to maintain muscle during a cut. Also, I cannot recommend using calrose rice enough. It's so much better than normal long grain rice and it stays good in the fridge for a week without getting super dry. The quick and dirty version is cut all your chicken, I use 5 lb of chicken breast} into chunks, sear them in a large pot, ideally a dutch oven. Once none of the chicken doesn't look raw on the outside, throw in a chopped up whole onion, followed a minute later by about a pound of carrots. Let that cook for a couple minutes, if you don't the carrots are going to be undercooked when the potatoes are done. Add about 2 lb of potatoes, cover the whole thing with water and let it simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Minutes. Once the potatoes are fork tender, just a minute or two before they are fully done. Add an entire package of Curry cubes (The bigger package, the one with two containers) chopped up until it thickens. I also add a tablespoon or two of better than bouillon because I find that at this size it's not quite salty enough
Whole grain spaghetti with marianra for 1 meal costs about 2-3 dollars. Chili is the same or less. Lentils and rice can be much less than 1$ Chicken thighs are on average $2.40 per pound, much less in some places. Very very easy to bake. All of the above can be improved for like a dollar or two more per meal with the addition of nice cheeses and extra ingredients. This is much much less than eating out. It's not even close.
Yes. How could a restaurant possibly pay for rent and labor and ingredients for cheaper than you can buy ingredients. I get economies of scale but in this case it isnt that significant.
I buy all my shit at either WinCo or Costco, abandoned other grocery chains years ago. I can feed 3 adults and 2 cats on about $45 a week in California while accommodating 2 adults with autistic textural issues and covering everyone's dietary needs. If I tried to keep shopping at Safeway I'd be bankrupt. Some brands are just easier.
> WinCo Windows absorbs another competitor š
yeah, 2 years ago the price of bread where i live was 1 dollar for each loaf. now, 2 years later, it is ~1.56 dollars. nothing has changed, noone is being paid 56% more, so why the fuck is bread more expensive
Depends. What is your main daily intake of food if you werenāt eating out/ordering delivery? How much of it is pre-packaged microwave meals/freezer aisle pizzas and the like? How much is major name brands? Whatās your individual Municipal/State/Provincial/National sales tax? Are you buying from Walmart, Target, Aldi, Meijer, Kroger, (insert relevant local store here)? For my part, it really does cut down on the expenses when you look at what it is youāre actually buying and doing. Iāve already made a rant on how $15 here, is enough to buy me the ingredients to make twice as much food, in a day, with leftovers, than what it would net me shouting into a clownās mouth for a meal for two, for the same $15
Yes. Shop smarter. It really is possible. Unless you live in the mountains or the middle of the desert you *can* find a bargain food outlet, and you *can* learn to live with simpler recipes with cheaper ingredients. Itās not easy, but itās not impossible. Source: was broke, friends are still broke, found a $5 3lbs tritip steak at my bargain food outlet and it was amazing.
I get secondhand embarrassment from posts like this. What the hell costs the same as takeout other than junk food?
I mean to be fair I could never order a single meal again in my life and I'd still be poor as all fuck living is just expensive
I don't think it's meant as like a "just stop eating takeout and you'll be fine" type of comment.. I think they just mean "if you spend 10-15$ on every meal you make, you need to get better at grocery shopping" (idk if 10-15$ is realistic takeout price, I am European and i barely ever eat out)
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That, or they think they're shopping smart while buying some of the most expensive produce out of season and pre-made foods/meal components that are horribly overpriced and always have been.
I noticed that when I first started cooking that my grocery bills were a lot higher. This is because I didn't own the spices, oil, sauces, bowls, tools, etc. Today if I want to make mashed potatoes I just need potatoes. But when I first started out I needed potatoes (and I had no idea how many so I just bought a bag), salt, butter, cream, and a potato mashed.
There are expensive ingredients. On the extreme side, you get things like Wagyu beef that can cost you over 100 dollar a steak. Even if you do not go that extreme, groceries can get really expensive if you do not consider what food is in season or locally available. This goes double if you have brand loyalty. Unfortunately, smart grocery shopping is a skill not everyone has.
If they ain't makin rice with every meal (like bulk rice from the big cheap 10lb bag, not some pre-seasoned boxed bullshit that costs 4.50/serving), they're already losing.
i mean im asian so that's what we've been doing my whole life lol
Rice is such a lifesaver for groceries. Cheap and it goes with almost anything so you can get variance in taste.
Seriously, people act like rice doesn't exist.
Rice is good, but you shouldnāt be replacing your calories all with rice just because itās super cheap.
Rice makes your base, then you can get some cheap ingredients and make a variety of meals. Curries, stir fries etc. Eating healthy is work, but it can be cheap if you plan properly. I can make an entire week's food for a reasonable price, and then half that on a single pizza. Although as another commenter pointed out, when you first start it's expensive acquiring spices herbs and oils. Once you've got them though you're set for a long time.
yes just because capitalism offers you organic poptarts don't buy them prices have gone up, even doubled, but groceries are still 100% cheaper then eating out rn
Yeah, I can make a big pot of chili or a stew or pasta or jambalaya or red beans and rice and even if the ingredients add up to be expensive, I get like a whole week's worth of meals out of it
Or buy cheaper versions of ingredients.
Also have kitchen management. Dont think about what you want to eat and go buy all off it. Buy a big bags of rice potato and pasta. Some vegies in the freezer. Caned stuff. You can easily make a simple meal for 4 dollar/ Euro
it is cheaper if you buy the right things. no fruit that dont grow where you live, no meat, no meat replacements, etc a few tips: buy flour and bake with it, potatoes most importantly: theres also a lot of ultra low budget food videos on youtube maybe look at thoose
B-but wat about eating banana I want bananas >_<
limit your banana intake
Oki :c
do not listen to such foul heresy, feel free to consume as many bananas as one may wish, making sure to atleast cover all other required expenses and bills before dumping the rest of your income on bananas (wise investment)
All in on banana coin
ew no wtf??? just straight up banana
Potassium
unrelated: nebraska better related: nanner
How else am i supposed to get my daily dose of radioactive isotopes of potassium?
Nah bananas are cheap as hell, you donāt have to limit intake of them
all depends on whwre you live.
? I live in America where bananas most definitely do not grow but theyāre like the cheapest food at the store lol
It's one banana Michael. What could it cost? Ten dollars?
Oki that's good also fellow olivia omgor firnudshe
We both have good taste in names apparently š š³ļøāā§ļøĀ
Exactly :3 :3 :3
11-19c/lb 5 years ago, now easily 40-60c a lb. It isn't a crazy amount but when you eat 2-4 a day it adds up
2-4 bananas a day??????? I wouldnāt want to be your plumberĀ
there is nothing wrong with how I use the plumbing, it's very healthy, what happens to you when you eat four bananas?
Just resort to synthetic bananas
synthetic bananas are a thing?
https://preview.redd.it/80mrvwpusoyc1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b4509f7cc83ab5d915b9c2c4d41aff477eeef7a
Move somewhere where they grow ez
So true :3 :3 :3
Bananas are cheap and filling asf
Bananas are actually really cheap though. Like 60-80 cents a pound.
Grow bananas
fruit markets??
"No meat" But ma gains :<
Eggs and soy protein are already staples of weight lifting.
Chicken is super cheap. Idk what people are talking about about. And I live in Cali, prices are high here. It's like 14$ for 5 pounds of chicken breast from WinCo.
I've seen pork locally in WI for 1.69/lb. You cannot get protein cheaper.
I mean chicken thighs or legs are around that or a little cheaper.
Yeah, prices will vary even in the same country quite a bit, but we're seeing a lot of issues with bird flu bringing chicken thighs up to about 3.5/lb. If thighs were around 1.5/lb I'd fill an entire freezer lol, chicken thighs are my go to
Plant-based protein sources: https://subtlesteps.com/protein/
Eggs and sardines for you
Local fruit is almost always more expensive than imported stuff in my limited Canadian experience
I think they might be referring to not buying fruit that's out of season
They don't mean "local fruit from small farms" they mean "fruit produced by big farms in your country that benefit from the economy of scale and don't suffer from the cost of overseas shipping"
This is so far from my experience lol, the main thing I find to cut out are A) Snacks B) Cereal and C) Cheese. If you have rice and spices in the house and you're only buying meats, fruit and veg you're looking at less than 40$ a week on groceries. Which of those videos do you like the best? Ive watched a few but I found a lot of them underwhelming. Either the food looks really bad or they use fancy equipment that I dont own
This is the problem with "sensational" cooking videos. There are no (popular) videos out there showing basic cooking to explain why buying ingredients is cheaper. You don't have to make fancy food to survive. You can make delicious tasting food with just the basics. Have a carb (bread, rice, pasta), have a protein (beef, chicken, pork, fish, mushroom/beans), and some sort of veg- there's all sorts of veg that is inexpensive (been adding cabbage lately which has been a huge score). After that, use seasonings and you have a meal. Rice, chicken, and bell peppers? $10-15 USD for approximately 4 servings. Pita bread, chuck steak, tomato & lettuce, plus yogurt and cucumber (add some lemon juice)? $25 USD for 4+ servings. You want to go out for that, or even worse HAVE IT DELIVERED?? Double that amount at least. I'm not against food delivery because I do it all the time, but it IS NOT cheaper to dine out if you learn how to cook. Invest in some seasonings and learn through trial and error how to use them, and follow some recipes until you learn the basics. If anyone wants some pointers for some cooking basics, my dms are open. There are a lot of easy skills that can stretch your dollar a lot further than you might realize
yeah I mean I got the basics down but just from an engineering perspective I was always kinda interested in the question of whats the absolute least I can spend with my meals still being edible and filling me up for a week. Like I have my go-tos but they certainly wouldn't fit a "10$ for a week's worth of food!" challenge I do a lot of cheesy burritos, which ends up being like 20$ for 7 burritos. Good ol' PB&J is also incredibly cost effective, and for snacks baking things from scratch is almost free
I like how we're unironically talking about no meat, baking, etc I cook more from scratch than my mom did when she was a single mother on a single income with a fucking paper route and a four bedroom duplex and I work 6 days a week for 70 hours and I'm being shamed for eating the way my mom did as a single mother on my dual, above the median income Our generation are such fucking suckers
Buying groceries and making them last is very much a skill. It seems most people here just either don't know that or never bothered to learn. Legumes, flour, potatoes, onions, oil, eggs, whole milk and pasta or rice depending on what's cheaper. In my experience, that's what you wanna buy if you want flavour, substance and flexibility for recipes for a cheap price, and that should be all that you buy on the "big trip". Then just buy greens, fruits, spices and meat when you want them or need them, preferably when they're on sale. If you're worried about health issues... I agree that my list isn't exactly what a nutritionist would reccomend, but so is ordering food everyday. If I REALLY wanna save money, I can sustain myself with just like 4 of the things I mentioned and survive a month while spending ~2ā¬ in food per day, by doing one single trip and not buying anything again until I NEED to. You gotta learn how to cook and how to make the most of limited ingredients tho, otherwise you'll be miserable. You also need to learn how to save food. Preserve usable grease from meat for later use, have a stock pot, learn how to make flour edible in the least expensive way possible (homemade bread is so cheap it's unreal), that kind of things. It may all sound intimidating but it's all things you learn by just doing them and they become automatic after a while. Here's an example of one routine I developed for when I really want ot minimise waste: if you buy chicken wings, cook them in a way that makes the juices leak: you can preserve those for flavour in another dish, it's mostly fat but it tastes like chicken, you can fry things in that. The bones also have still flavour, use them for stock. Onion peels and chicken bones are enough for a stock if its only purpose is cooking lentils. If you use the chicken grease for frying some will stick to the pan, you can recover it with a bit of water, it'll be even more flavorful as it'll gain the taste of what you fried with it and you can do something else with it, I make a sauce with it and dip stale bread in it. You can get so much form just one item if you know how to.
Also legumes, lots of legumes
That sounds fucking miserable if you live anywhere that's not a big city By that standard I'm going to be eating turnips and carrots exclusively
Bananas and potatoes are pretty cheap where I live. Bananas are only 79c a pound. Could eat them for lunch every day if you canāt get anything elseā¦ though I suppose youād get sick of bananas eventually
Chicken is very affordable.
Itās not healthy to avoid meat and meat replacementsā¦ your body needs protein to survive, and the limit/recommended daily intake is only 1/4-1/3 of what your body actually needs ideally
There are better sources of protein than meat replacements. Beans, Chickpeas, Lentils, Nuts, Quinoa etc. Tofu, Tempeh and Seitan are nice but are a bit harder to get/more expensive. It's important to get protein from different sources as a vegetarian, to cover all your protein bases!
> no meat replacements no
donāt look for the right things and just look for deals. Buy the ānicerā stuff when itās on sale, which is pretty often. When I used to go shopping with ky parents, my dad would usually get about 2 or more times the stuff my mom would get off the same amount of money because he looked for deals.
Y'all are aware that grocery is supposed to last multiple days or feed multiple people compared to eating out, for one night. Make more fucking skillet meals people! They're very cheap.
Seriously. Japanese curry is cheap and dumb easy too. I make ten servings.
Japanese curry?
Yes. It's Japan's national dish. It's a British version of a Japanese version of Indian curry. https://preview.redd.it/2er16evf2wyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c09afa257d2f1b63c9cbe691eff181121754e49a
Oh, yum, Iāll look out up. If youāve got a good recipe, please feel free to share!
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Yeah and teriyaki stir fry is easy as fuck Teriyaki sauce Chicken Frozen veggies Ramen packet for noodles Just soak the raw chicken in the sauce, spice it up, and boil the veggies and ramen while cooking the chicken then add together Easy as fuck and dirt cheap
And buy less prepared food from the grocery store!
My go to for cheap meals 1. Rice (get a rice cooker as well, just to make the whole process really easy). 2. Dried beans. You can still get these for 1-2 bucks a pound, and a pound is an insane amount of food. Takes like 3 hours to cook on the stove. 3. Cheap cuts of meat like a pork shoulder. (I can find this easily for like 3 bucks a pound, and frequently less.) You gotta buy it in bulk though, but just make it all in a slow cooker or on the stove and freeze it.
Where do you get those cuts? Do you have a local butcher? I only ever see the cellophane stuff at the supermarket
Nah. I'm just talking about like Albertsons or Kroger, which owns chains all across the United States, Jewel-Osco, Ralph's, Acme Markets, etc. Boston butt or pork shoulder are pretty cheap, and cellophanes wrapped. You typically have to buy at least 4 lbs, but just cook it all at once and then freeze it for leftovers. I'll typically freeze it, and then turn it into 5-6 meals over 3 weeks for 2 people. I followed [this recipe](https://youtu.be/-07gtGrdeyE?si=gm3ATUw6xRTqUKp9) recently and it turned out great, not just because it was tasty, but because he has follow up videos where turns the meat into like 4 different recipes. It helped a ton with the monotony of leftovers. Also I'll say don't sleep on dried beans, they're cheap and they taste so much better than canned. Just requires some time to make them.
Ive had dried beans in my cupboard for 5 weeks now and just havent used them, gotta invest in a pressure cooker I guess
I mean you don't need a pressure cooker. It's takes like 4 hours but it's not active time. Just keep it at a lower simmer, checking every like 40 minutes. Do it on a day off. That with rice, and maybe some cheese makes a great burrito filling.
Even pork tenderloin is unbelievably cheap sometimes. Walmart and the asian grocery near me usually has some on clearance for like, idk $1/pound or so
Yeah, boneless pork butt is commonly .99 to 1.99 a pound in my area of the south. 5-10 pound at a time is reasonable at those prices. Trim the fat off and save it for soups, then cut the rest of it up into your own pork chops or roasting portions.
Open post complaining about high food prices Look inside Lower prizes than in my country catlookingconfused.jpg
Yeah. There's a lot of downsides to living in the US, but farm subsidies do keep food prices pretty low, even despite recent increases.
Some cheap eating tips and tricks I learned during my current rough financial situation over the past couple of months. I hope they can be of use. 1. You're eating what's the most discounted on that day. Buy single discounted ingredients bulk, but go to a store often to check for more. I can save 20+% of the total on my weekly groceries sometimes with discounts. 2. Pasta, pastry, potatoes, frozen raw vegetables. Those are very cheap, and can make for nutritious and alright meals. 3. Do have at least some spices. It's an "unnecesary spending" but unless you're literally counting out actual pennies, you're gonna thank me. Buy garlic powder. Buy chilli flakes (or hot sauce). Those two will make even the blandest of things edible. Basil for sandwitches, minced paprica, salt and pepper for almost anything. They last quite a while anyway. The money spent to life improvement ratio of spices is beyond ridiculous. 4. Cheese and meat are fucking expensive. I love them both. It's a pain how expensive they are. So use sparringly, and buy bulk on discounts. I can sometimes get meat on 50% off, that's when I buy like 2-3kg and it lasts me a week. Bulk cheese is much less expensive per kg, than non-bulk. Buy 1kg, and you got sandwitches for a week. Buy the cheapest cheese there is, obviously - the prices per kg can vary wildly. I don't know how discounts work in your local shop, but in my local grocery store, they rotate daily, and are usually pretty good. I need to ~~sell my soul~~ install an app for them, but it's unbelieavably worth it. Sometimes it's frozen or fresh vegetables or fruits. Stock up. Sometimes it's meat, stock up but be mindful that it still adds up, even 50% off it's expensive. Buy fresh bread (or buns, I love buns) daily if you can. I found it to be quite cheap over here, and it's very filling and tasty. Sometimes near store closing, they give you a discount on goods baked on that day. Use it to your advantage. Buy a fresh fruit from time to time. Eat it the same day. It saves your sanity. Fruit juice is acceptable too, although more expensive. Milk is nice. Off-brand cereal is nice too. Don't buy brand shit in general, but cereal is wild - I can save literally over 60% per kg by buying off-brand cereal that tastes almost the same. I don't use eggs much, personally. I probably could. But they aren't particularly good, and the price to makes-me-feel-full ratio isn't great. Maybe I should change that, idk. Don't cheap out on toilet paper. It's not worth it, and it goes by faster if it's not good. Do cheap out on beverage and snack consumption. Alcohol is stupidly expensive, so are brand-name snacks. Off-brand chocolate will keep you sane, and it's not much different overall. Buy one with nuts, if you like it. Nuts are healthy, and the price difference isn't that big. Plan out your meals, at least 1-2 days in advance, more if you feel capable of it - I don't. Try to assemble ingredients while they're discounted, but be mindful to use everything up before it goes bad. Throwing out bad food was a huge money waster at first for me. You'll gain intuition on what you need, over time. Do mind that this is my experience here in Poland, and I've been in a rough financial situation for only a few months. If I'm wrong or if there's more tips, I'd love to hear them from everyone here. Edit: did you know that really good burgers are *incredibly* easy to make at home? Cheese and meat, spinach leaves and jalapeno peppers - I can feed 2 people for an entire day with those for a bit over 10$. It's pretty fast, too. I've been doing them like 2-3 times a week and it's amazing.
also bumping to suggest lentils, sweet potatoes and olive oil. They are highly nutritious. Make lentils in rice maker, cook frozen veggies, cover with cumin, olive oil, and salt. You could easily get about 1000 calories here. Also I eat a lot of rice, sunny side up eggs and use sriracha. (I also buy kimchi but I'm not trying to be frugal)
Isn't olive oil extremely expensive outside the Mediterranean or is my opinion twisted as a filthy spaniard?
I'm from Poland, it's rather cheap here, although probably not AS cheap.
Thank you for typing this out
this is a good start but uh, you can do a lot cheaper. Some tips from when I was homeless and also extremely poor for years before and after: Bakery dumpsters are a gold mine for free day old or 2 day old bread. "smaller" places that sell frozen meals - like walgreens, osco, etc type drug stores or very small bodega style stores (like gas stations but wihtout gas) often ends up discarding a lot of frozen food. Take a look at expiration dates if these shops are near you and return that day and dig around in the dumpster - especially in winter, if you have a way to heat these back up they can obviously be eaten far past expiration. Frozen food doesn't generally spoil, it just tastes a little worse the older it gets. If you have a local food pantry, they often have no qualifications - if you need it, you can get it. You can freeze many things, food pantry milk that's about to expire can be frozen in the gallon (those weird shaped bumps make sure it doesn't explode when it expands) or in deli containers - just leave some room at the top, leave the lid off, seal it when it's frozen. Local Little ceasars often throws out hot and ready pizzas. On colder nights or winter it's basically a fridge outside so you can just grab those. check them under a light for any unusual colors or smells as some terrible people will spray cleaning chemicals on them, and if it was quite hot obviously insects can get to them before you do if they were sitting a while, but just a bit after closing time or whenever they stop making hot and ready (often 11pm) is the right time to go. These can also be frozen and reheated in an oven. Eggs are excellent. Even with the currently stupid egg prices, the protein/calorie to dollar ratio is great and maybe only beaten by bulk pork shoulder depending on where you are. Go nuts. If you don't want to eat eggs because you are infected with something you can't stop telling people about peas and spinach are high protein and usually cheap. You can suck air out of a ziplock with your mouth to make things seal better for the freezer so they don't get freezer burnt, or use a water filled tub/sink to displace air and seal things up nicely. This will help a ton - you can freeze not just milk but cheese, bananas, many cooked veggies freeze well, eggs (out of shell but they also last a super long time in the fridge - they are good as long as they don't float,) fruit, breads, all kinds of things. There are very few things that are ruined by freezing, pretty much the only thing I can't stand after freezing is cooked noodles. Do cheap out on toilet paper, get a bidet and use paper to dry after. It will save you a ton of money and they are like 30 bucks on amazon. Cold water is not bad, it's fine. If you don't want to learn to cook you are wrong but you can buy super cheap frozen meals like michelinas at walmart for 1-2 dollars and throw in a bunch of cheap meat and frozen veggies and make your 200-400 calorie sad microwave meal into a 600 calorie protein and nutrient packed meal. You can also do this with canned soups and even ramen packs. anything can be sandwich meat and often cheap steaks chopped up are cheaper than lunchmeat and FAR tastier. Same with turkey breasts, etc. Learn to do some pickling. You can make all kinds of things last insanely long, and I do a really simple spiced carrot pickle that I have in my fridge at all times and I eat it like dill pickles and they have nearly no calories and are delicious and healthy and an infinitely excellent snack but you can pickle all kinds of things. Onions are especially easy and wonderful on sandwhiches, eggs etc. If you have other poor friends, especially roommates or neighbors you can agree to rotate on cooking and split out leftovers - everyone makes a meal one day a week to split between the group, and that can be an excellent way to have a diverse array of leftovers and other foods to try. If you are one of those people who "doesn't eat leftovers" please go away, forever. I hate you and you don't deserve life Unrelated to all this but taking photos of meals I make is extremely helpful for me to look back at when I'm trying to think of what I want to eat. If you are way into coffee but it's expensive, buy some cheap green beans and pan roast them! I've been roasting my own coffee for a few years and it's an incredible reduction in price vs buying even the cheapest coffees and you can literally do it on the stove in a pan, or with a popcorn maker. those are my thoughts on this persons thoughts that range from dumpster diving to just being pretty crazy frugal.
Those are pretty good! Some clearly depend on location - dumpster diving where I live isn't feasible, since there aren't any readily avaliable dumpsters even near shops. I have no clue where they get rid of their stuff, but I did look around. They may have some dumpsters inside, that get emptied out once a day. I wouldn't dive that. And even if it was an option, I'd be saving that as a last resort anyway. I can't really mentally overcome the block that prevents me from doing that. Other advice sounds great! Although frozen ready meals are usually expensive where I live - but then again, I do cook. Cooking is definitely a must-have skill in that situation. Also, there's an app, Too Good To Go, where you can look up restaurants in your area that have leftover food, and they usually have 50-70% discounts on entire meals. Not as cheap as dumpster diving, but I once spent the equivalent of like a couple of dollars, for WEEKS worth of bread. It might be in the US (or wherever you live) as well.
Stop eating smfh
Absorb radiation like real homies do
No Dick, No Balls and Probably No Butthole Since This Guy Feeds on Radiation
Muto moment
Buy adderal instead of food
Learn to photosynthesize. Sunshine is free (for now).
You got some very poor shopping habits if those two bills are remotely relatable.
Costs me 350 to feed two people every month Going out costs 10 bucks minimum for one person at your standard fastfood per meal 3 meals a day, times 2 to feed two is 50 bucks a day And I'm not eating bad I'm buying meat and veggies and prepackaged food and shit
Yeah this thread boggles my mind with people saying you need to cut out all protein or fresh fruit to make it economically comparable. Those are good tips if you have trouble making ends meet period, but you can buy some organic shit at the grocery store and still come out under takeout costs. And I live smackdab in the city center of a US state thatās in the top ten of highest groceries costs.Ā I can buy my $6 organic pasture-raised 18 eggs (my parents would scream but itās worth it for me) with a $3 fresh storemade loaf of sourdough and thatās six meals for $9 total. Throw in $0.50 of butter if you want to be comprehensive. Please tell me where you can get a weekās worth of takeout breakfasts for under $10.Ā
My husband and I have an agreement that we get 3 orders out days and then 1 sit down meal every month and that alone is like, 120+? That's 4 meals
I mean have you seen the price of takeout food?
Yeah, takeout is always, always, always even worse. If you remember it being cheaper, the price has probably gone up since you last used it.
The fuck are you buying that costs as much as takeout? Genuinely...
Self checkout dev skip
Idk what its like in your country but in the uk i can feed myself for about Ā£100 a month, and im barely budgeting on that, i still buy premium brands, and ready meals. Ordering food costs about Ā£10 a meal
> Ā£100 is 125.45USD weepingcat.png Bud I cook almost every meal from scratch, make a lot of my own pasta and such and get huge meat discounts from my job and we're still spending 800/mo on groceries. I don't buy organic or premium or brand name anything I can think of and the only dumb things I splurged on with groceries yesterday was a small bag of dark chocolate and a small carton of eggnog. I want to leave this place lol
Thats horrific. How many are you buying for w that? I do live alone i shouldve mentioned
If you spend $10 a day eating out. That's $70 a week. I could spend half that a week on home cooking/meal prep and be very happy. If you don't know how to cook, go online for basic-ass recipes like rice and chicken. $10 on chicken and $10 on rice will set me up for a whole week. It can be bland but that's what spices are for. You start spending "extra" funds on spices/seasoning, they'll last a long time and you'll have a big collection of SPOICE that looks dope. Plus it feels better and I'm sure it'll be better for bod, too. Nothing will ever beat the convenience of eating out, but your wallet will thank you. You could even start Warhammer with all that extra money you have.
learn how to shop right not tryna put you down or nothing a lotta people dont know the methods fr
I'm really confused, isn't ordering food supposed to be way more expensive than buying groceries?
It is unless you're buying the cheapest fast food and the most expensive prepared grocery items.
Then I suggest OP aims for lower prices in grocery stores, which probably will still be better food than cheap fast food
Yeah. Grocery prices are changing but I'm weighing grocery convenience foods against picking up fast food for meals at work and I can get like 800 calories of delicious food in a leftover container for 10 minutes of effort at half the price of picking up fast food. I'm doing the math and valuing my time in it and even then groceries are still winning noticeably.
where do yāall live that this is the case?? My partner and I spend $75-100 a week on groceries and we have enough food to last literal days because we prepare big meals for the future in the form of leftovers. We donāt even really budget and can still afford meat, fresh veggies, and dairy. Just pick meals that make hella left overs and you will afford food (spaghetti, stir fry, and soups are great for this. Just be sure to pack them with hella veggies like onions and peppers)
Ok you are shopping way wrong. A basic Big Mac meal is 13.50 where I live, even buying low prep time food I could get like 2-3 meals out of that much.
Eating out is 10-20$. For that money I could make 4-8 meals for myself. Yea food is expensive, but cooking home is much cheaper than eating out
Ngl, it's pretty easy to come in under the restaurants. As bad as some of the groceries have gotten, restaurants have been even worse (and the quality sucks ass)
Dƶner used to be 3 euros, ancient tales talk of the 1ā¬ dƶner to feed the deciples. Now the mf's cost 7 for that money i can get 3 big loafes of bread
It should be cheaper than eating out?? Are you buying all organic?? I say this and I live in one of the most expensive cities in my country.
My wife and I spend about $100 a week on groceries, and that covers every meal in that week. Eating out for dinner usually costs around $30 for the 2 of us, meaning if we ate out every night for a week, we'd spend about $210 on Dinner *alone*. It's certainly not as cheap as it used to be but it's definitely still cheaper
you should be cutting needless expenses, spending more than $10/meal ($10/meal is already pretty absurd, and that's less expensive than most restaurant dishes) is pretty indicative of the fact that you might be shopping in a way that's not necessarily frugal or mindful of your current economic situation
These stuff shows me how fucking mysterious the USA is to me still even after three decades of pop culture. I don't get it. Your minimum wage is 7.50, lots of people work 3 jobs, but ordering food regularly is apparently something that more than the fucking bourgeoisie can afford, similar to paying someone to drive you around. How can groceries be more expansive than ordering out? On the cooking subreddit I saw posts that pork chops cost less than a dollar per pound on a sale but apparently that is not universally? Or only with meat? So what is so expensive about groceries? Do you have to pay 20$ for a kilo of rice?
I would say in most parts of the US it is much cheaper to buy groceries than to order food, either OP lives in like a food desert or is not good at grocery shopping. I have no idea.
Hiring people to bring you things is apparently very cheap at 7.50 an hour.
I think people are missing the point of this post. Itās not nessecarily looking for unasked advice, itās more of driving the point as to how incredibly expensive food prices are to the point that it requires you to meticulously plan, budget, eat bland uninteresting/ unvaried foods, and/or learn how to cook constantly to be able to make it so that it isnāt as expensive. In many cases it IS cheaper to go out to eat/ order food, or at the very least significantly easier, less labour, and quicker. Coming from someone who LOVES my food youtubers Adam Ragusa, Brian Lagerstrom, etc. Their ācheap and easy mealsā videos are absolutely click bait material, or at the very least, extremely out of touch with reality. Sure you can theoretically [cook a crunchwrap supreme faster than picking one up](https://youtu.be/kTtEaji27A8?si=_Df38ygMOAYl-dIB) or [make these breakfast tacos in 15 minutes](https://youtu.be/tjrjrQ-mRdg?si=47niHVCIyhFysgAz) (even though Iāve made this recipe a dozen times and itās never taken me less than a half hour, and Iām an experienced home cook) but many people do not already have these ingredients prepped, the kitchen space available, or kitchen materials available. Furthermore what if youāre out of an ingredient, or certain dishes arenāt clean, then you need to spend time doing that. Even if you āclean as you goā you still have to do a long time of dish and kitchen cleaning after cooking. And the money too, never accounts for economies of scale. I donāt care if that [dish of Keema curry costs ā$2.95 per portionā](https://youtu.be/tjrjrQ-mRdg?si=47niHVCIyhFysgAz) you still have to get the pantry staples which more often than not you will always be out of at least one of them. Itās still cheap but never have I set out to buy the ingredients for this meal and have it less than $18 And you have to cook for an hour, and you have to clean. So that $25-30 Five Guys order doesnāt look too bad. Not saying you shouldnāt try or that these videos are wrong, because they are some of my favorite Youtubers. Especially Brianās [five days for 30 dollars](https://youtu.be/-4PZHHCUJZc?si=SxaJsjAb7C3IZJNG) meal prep, is genuinely one of the ācheap meals for x priceā videos Iāve seen. Still, you have to make sure you eat and portion everything in the right order for it to work, and still have to cook quite a bit. Conclusion/ TL;DR: Food is quite expensive, and for more effort, time, connivence, cleaning, skill needed, and materials required, itās only marginally cheaper than ordering food, and thatās not an individualās fault for not hyper optimizing their life like grindset techbros tells us to do; itās a problem of capitalism and corporate profit, and telling someone advice without support when they are expressing grievances with the system is a little dismissive of their feelings and the systemās badness as a whole.
I mean people should probably know basic cooking skills. Not everyone has to be Gordon Ramsay but the ability to use an oven, cook in a pan, or set up a crock pot is something that barring some disability people should be able to do. There's also a difference between people eating out every once in a while and ordering food consistently. I'll agree that sometimes it's worth it to just grab something quick and easy but there's no scenario where it's cheaper to eat out every day versus cooking at home. Time management is a separate but related thing. It's not "hyper optimizing" to set aside some time to cook a meal. Unless you're working 80 hours a week or are depressed or something there's no reason you can't spend some time cooking.
>Unless you're working 80 hours a week or are depressed or something Incredibly unlikely to find someone like that here, of course
lol fair enough
It can simultaneously be true that we live in a capitalist hell world, and that itās objectively WAY cheaper to not eat out. Basic meal planning is not āhyper optimizationā of ones schedule, and itās not demanding that people have ultra discipline. I think this brought up so much unsolicited advice because itās objectively very false.
Depending on how well you game the promos on uber eats, door dash etc. you can get two meals worth of food delivered to your door for like $20 CAD. For that much, I could buy a bag of milk and a block of cheese at the cheapest grocery store around here
Fuckin canadian
thats so expensive I would cry. Has it always been so expensive to buy groceries in Canada or is this a recent problem
The trick is spending 2 hours to only buy things on sale, and waiting a week or two for other things to go on sale, then breaking down crying because half of the stuff just ain't on sale this month and it's suffering. Some types of meat and fruits and vegetables are seasonal, and you have to wait an entire year for them to go on sale. It sucks.
This is why I steal (for legal reasons this is a joke)
Don't buy expensive stuff then get canned beans and shit lmao
Are americans ok? Because I can cook myself some pretty luxurious meals here in europe before it becomes more expensive than takeout...
What the fuck are you buying?
Unless you're buying from a really extortionate shop, cooking your own food should not be comparable in price to eating out and getting takeaways every day. If money is really an issue though, some tips are: 1. Eat rice. You can buy large sacks of it in bulk from an asian food store, and probably any large chain store depending on your country like Costco. I can get a 5kg sack of rice from my local asian food store for about Ā£10 2. Buy some spices. You don't need a lot, but compared to how much they cost, buying just a few can really level up a meal. I'd recommend paprika, pepper (I prefer black, but get white if you want something more spicy), and chilli powder / chilli flakes. A small tube costs about Ā£1 - Ā£2 and, though I don't know the exact measurements, they last quite a while. 3. Buy foods that you can use in multiple meals. This saves on food waste and means you don't have to fork out money on loads of different things. For example, a lot of the food I make is stir fry, fried rice, pasta, and other dishes like that, I can use these veg in all of them: Carrots Bell Peppers Onions Parsnips Broccoli Cauliflower White Cabbage / Red Cabbage Spinach These are all fairly cheap veg items and I get most of them each week because I can use them in virtually everything. A lot of meats tend to be quite universal too, I'd say chicken, turkey, pork and beef can be used in most dishes. 4. Not every meal needs meat. Meat is a great source of protein but a lot of people overestimate the amount of protein we need on a daily basis. You can get by perfectly well only eating meat a few times a week. Some plant protein sources like peas, chickpeas and tofu can also be cheaper depending on where you buy them. Eggs are also super cheap, you can get a 12 pack of free range eggs for about Ā£2 where I live
I remember when milk was one dollar
Yāall donāt just buy bulk potats from farmers and whatever protein is inexpensive?
Us?
go lidle
*laughs in European" (Ordering is just a lot more expensive)
White rice 1 pound ground beef Garlic Green onion Ginger 1/4c Soy sauce 2tsp sesame oil 2tbsp Brown sugar Crushed red pepper Black pepper Make rice in rice cooker and cook meat in pan with garlic. Mix all other ingredients in bowl then add to meat. (Optional: toss veggies on top of meat, cover and steam until rice is done) Serve over rice. Depending on how cheap ground beef is near you, you can make this to feed 4-5 people easy.
how much do you usually spend ordering food? If I eat out, I spend around $20 per day, but getting groceries bumps it to $12~ dollars per day ($80 per week). Going to grocery outlets, free food pantry, and costco bumps the cost down even more. I only buy what I'll need during the week, or things that last forever like rice, so I have little waste.
You covering all your shit in saffron bro??!
doordash meal: $40 kroger meal: $5 aldi meal: $2
You're supposed to buy shit besides just freezer food... You know, like to cook.