eating cheaply help

[elspeilbergo]

I'm a broke student and I'd like to be able to eat for, like $20 a week. Any tips? suggestions?

Thanks.

[topazdude]

buy mac n cheese? or boxes of instant noodles :dunno:

[theken]

you need nutritional value, give up something else besides eating

[Kloubek]

$20 a week? I'm not too sure that's possible... is it?

[colinxx235]

well you could eat for 20 a week, but eventually you are going to get sick from malnurished diet...

[TomcoPDR]

Pending on your income, look into qualifying for low income food places. (i.e. interfaith food bank, etc...)

[bulaian]

you might be able to do it if you made all of your meals at home...

but if you're going out to eat, stick to the dollar menus

[Kloubek]

Well, say you at mac and cheese three times a week for a week. You're still looking at about $21. And that is the absolute CHEAPEST you could possibly eat...

Brutal - I feel for you dude. It's been forever since I was a starving student!

[Meback]

Man, the way your thinking your gonna end up in epic failure. I understand that you are broke, but eating 20 dollars worth of food a week is gonna cause major health issues in the future for you. Its virtually impossible for your body to function normally on 2.85 cents a day, you will deprive your body of its nutrients over time, your immune system will be compromise, and you will become sicker more often, plus your penis will lose the ability to become erected (the last one was for the lulz).

I'm assuming that you are taking a full semester of courses, if that is truly the case, for next semester I would recommend you take only 3 classes, and free up sometime for yourself to bring in additional income.

Perhaps you can sacrifice something other than food to save some money. IE. Purchasing things that you really don't need, getting a cheaper cell phone plan or get rid of it all together, cancel cable/internet, surf the web at school.

All suggestions, but please don't deprive yourself of food in hopes of saving a couple of bucks.

[arian_ma]

Man are you serious? When I was broke while travelling I set my budget at 20 euros per DAY. I realize it is different and that I couldn't buy cheap food at bulk from a market but man my budget was 7x more than yours and I was still malnourished as fuck!

[Tik-Tok]

Rice and Multivitamins.


But as said, you WILL get sick eventually.

[Proboscis]

Instant Kimchi soup bowls, loaf of bread, powdered milk.

[GTS Jeff]

Dine and dash.

[malcolmk14]

$20 a week? seriously? I could barely survive on $20 a day.

$10 a day is pretty realistic for a student. You MIGHT be able to whittle it down to $50 a week. but $20 a week is absolutely ridiculous.

[elspeilbergo]

Admittedly $20 a week might be asking a bit much.

Though, I'd still appreciate any help in eating cheap and healthy.

Cheers.

[JWL]

$20/wk?? That's brutal!

Well, The Dollar Store up by the Beddington Coop has a lot of cheap canned and boxed foods. They have bags of pasta, rice, canned tuna, tomato sauce, KD, etc. all for a buck each. I think instant noodles were $1 for two. Anyway, you should look into the interfaith food bank. Not sure if you're at the UofC, but I think they have a program for starving students. The farmer's market is also cheaper than the Safeways/Superstores for fresh produce.

The one thing that I used to eat a lot of was KD w/ a can of tuna and some hot sauce or a plate of rice and make a sauce with a can of cream of mushroom soup with some browned ground beef and onion.

[badatusrnames]

You need more than $20 dollars a week in food to live. Seriously think about where you can cut out. Do you have a car? What kind of bills do you have? Internet, cellphone, cable? If you can't cut anything out, there is the campus foodbank.

I remember reading an article about starving students that were making use of the campus foodbank, they interviewed one of the students who described how difficult it was to afford food when she had to pay her cellphone bill - talk about priorities :facepalm:

[ianmcc]

Read this-
http://hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/
it can be done for cheaper (at least in the US).
It's in reverse chronological but hey you're a student you can figure it out!

[civiclvr]

Get a job cooking.... all the snacking will keep your food bill low.
or just get a better paying job that still works with your student schedule.. there's lots.

[Dave P]

the safeway brand ichiban is like $0.33 a pack.

then buy a bag of frozen veggies for like $5

and some eggs for like $5

then mix em all together.

[badatusrnames]

Originally posted by civiclvr
Get a job cooking.... all the snacking will keep your food bill low.
or just get a better paying job that still works with your student schedule.. there's lots.

Good suggestion.

[nonlinear]

http://www.bloglander.com/cheapeats/

[7thgenvic]

I live in fucking Denmark....I would be lucky to eat cheaply on 20 dollars a day....Plus I drink too much. Fail

[A790]

I'll tell you right now, based on my personal experience, that eating due to low funds will sink your mentality beyond squalor and into something much more dangerous. Believe me when I say that the effects of food are much more than to simply nourish your body and provide energy: there's the psychological benefit as well.

Food is a necessity, yes, but it's also a comfort. Food is something that you instinctively reach out to whenever your chips are down (comfort food), you're having a good time (pizza + wings with the buddies), or are celebrating (birthday cake, champagne, etc.).

Depriving yourself of those psychological benefits plays with your overall attitude. Suddenly things that seemed so insignificant, such as splitting an ice cream Sunday with your spouse, are no longer an option and you'll find yourself missing out on those experiences.

I don't want to lecture you, but I'd rather budget $20/day for food and have no cable/phone/internet, than have those things and spend $20/wk on food.

If you're doing this because your budget is forcing you to, well, I've been there and the best piece of advice I can give you about it is to ditch the "life is shit" attitude that often accompanies it and simply go out and make more money. There are so many different ways to make extra cash- get a part time job, write content for people's websites online, work a few more hours at your current job, work odd jobs for friends/family/neighbours to supplement your income... whatever it is, make more money. It might not be a lot of money, but you'd be surprised how far an extra $100 every two weeks can go in rounding out a food budget.

If, after everything that I (and the other posters in this thread) have said, you're still determined to eat for $20/wk I would get rid of all notions of what food is and should be. Learn to love rice, cheap soya sauce, and bargin-bin prepackaged vegetables. Ramen noodles, which provide absolutely zero nutritional value, are so damn cheap that it's almost guaranteed they'll become a staple of your diet.

[buh_buh]

learn to cook.
You can survive on $20 a week and not be malnurished.

[BigDannyCool]

go back to your parents house.

[elspeilbergo]

Originally posted by buh_buh
learn to cook.
You can survive on $20 a week and not be malnurished.

I can cook, I just don't know a lot of recipes. Any suggestions on cheap dishes?

[momofan]

I would be checking into the food bank.

There is also a program called Neighborhood Link, they have a food program. I don't know what the conditions are that you can apply.

http://www.storehouse39.ca/content/view/19/

Freecycle people give away food.

I think it can be done, just won't be the best food. Dollar sales are your friend. Superstore gets rid of bakerd goods in the mornings for about 1/2 price.

But it also depends on your location in Calgary. I have seen a few ads for apples for free on Craigslist.

[adam c]

go fishing since you live on the coast?

[Stunt66]

Go down to the food bank if it's that bad. I had to do some community service there a while back and some of the food they get is actually pretty good quality.

[Euro838]

I don't think you can do this without supplements or vitamins which would could put you over the $20/week budget. Well, here's my attempt at this challenge.

$10 - 300 kirkland multi-vitamins = 3.3 cents/day so over the long run these vitamins won't really put a dent in the budget.

$6 - 3 pack SPAM at Costco (Max of 2 5 mm thick slices per meal)

$8 - Box of noodles or 9 kg bag of rice. Who knows, the 9 kg of rice could last you 2 weeks or more.

$4 - 2 kg of NN mix veg

$2 - 12 Large eggs.

Only problem with this diet is you're going to have to find a way to get some dairy in there but I know some people who don't go with dairy so if you are one of those people, then good for ya.

Good thing about all this is that it is very simple to make (Please refer to the Rage2 thread about SPAM-noodles-egg thread). You only need a frying pan (Optional as you can just dump everything into a pot), pot/rice cooker.

If you could find a healthier and equally priced replacement for SPAM, this diet will be better for you than eating fast food. Anyways, good luck to you and hopefully land you at a job better than Starbucks!

[SilverGS]

Get a costco membership and go for free samples all the time

[Vagabond142]

Originally posted by Euro838
Please refer to the Rage2 thread about SPAM-noodles-egg thread
Edit: nevermind!

http://forums.beyond.ca/st/187965/rage2s-spam-luncheon-meat-super-review/

:thumbsup:

[Meback]

man, I find it hard to believe that some of the guys here are acutally supporting the dude. Recommending the dude freaking soysauce, itchband noodles, and kd, and other garbage.

What we should really be doing is getting him to cut back on other area of spending or as some of you guys have already mentioned to obtain food from food banks.

Or you can just pm 89coupe to give you some money, the word on the street is that he spends 100.00 on lunch a day!

[adam c]

Originally posted by Meback
man, I find it hard to believe that some of the guys here are acutally supporting the dude. Recommending the dude freaking soysauce, itchband noodles, and kd, and other garbage.

What we should really be doing is getting him to cut back on other area of spending or as some of you guys have already mentioned to obtain food from food banks.

Or you can just pm 89coupe to give you some money, the word on the street is that he spends 100.00 on lunch a day!

old

[Euro838]

Originally posted by Meback
man, I find it hard to believe that some of the guys here are acutally supporting the dude. Recommending the dude freaking soysauce, itchband noodles, and kd, and other garbage.

What we should really be doing is getting him to cut back on other area of spending or as some of you guys have already mentioned to obtain food from food banks.

Or you can just pm 89coupe to give you some money, the word on the street is that he spends 100.00 on lunch a day!

Never said that he should or should not do it. OP asked a question with tips/suggestions.

People have choices and not everyone can live the way you think they should.

[Amysicle]

Originally posted by elspeilbergo
I'm a broke student and I'd like to be able to eat for, like $20 a week. Any tips? suggestions?

Thanks. What school do you go to? At SAIT they have this Good Food Box or whatever and it's fairly cheap veggies and fruits for a broke student like yourself. It's done once a month and you pay upfront, pick up about 10 days later. It's healthy and cheap. See if your school has anything like that.

[black_2.5RS]

$20/week is totally possible. I survive on $80-100/month and think I eat a balanced meal. The key is to learn to cook and buy things in bulk and on sale - and freeze what you can (like bread). $40 sack of rice has lasted me about year - so it's possible to do it.
If you go out and eat, $80 a month is not possible and you'll turn into a fat bastard on Wendy's, McDonalds and such.

[samo147]

yea big bag of rice cook a cup or two a day could last u a year

steamed veggies and some meat like beef or chicken

or the restaurant job idea suggested above would be good. free food and money too

[Alterac]

Good Food Box, from the Community Kitchen
http://www.communitykitchenprogram.com/goodfoodbox.htm

Its not quite $20 / week, but its a good deal.

[msommers]

At the risk of being nosy, how are you so limited in funds? I mean friends of mine have students loans and pay rent with 4 other people, eat totally fine and work. Did you not qualify for student loans or are you spending your money on foolish things? I'm not trying to be your Mom but something just doesn't add up here.

[LongCity]

Originally posted by A790
I'll tell you right now, based on my personal experience, that eating due to low funds will sink your mentality beyond squalor and into something much more dangerous. Believe me when I say that the effects of food are much more than to simply nourish your body and provide energy: there's the psychological benefit as well.

Food is a necessity, yes, but it's also a comfort. Food is something that you instinctively reach out to whenever your chips are down (comfort food), you're having a good time (pizza + wings with the buddies), or are celebrating (birthday cake, champagne, etc.).

Depriving yourself of those psychological benefits plays with your overall attitude. Suddenly things that seemed so insignificant, such as splitting an ice cream Sunday with your spouse, are no longer an option and you'll find yourself missing out on those experiences.

I don't want to lecture you, but I'd rather budget $20/day for food and have no cable/phone/internet, than have those things and spend $20/wk on food.

If you're doing this because your budget is forcing you to, well, I've been there and the best piece of advice I can give you about it is to ditch the "life is shit" attitude that often accompanies it and simply go out and make more money. There are so many different ways to make extra cash- get a part time job, write content for people's websites online, work a few more hours at your current job, work odd jobs for friends/family/neighbours to supplement your income... whatever it is, make more money. It might not be a lot of money, but you'd be surprised how far an extra $100 every two weeks can go in rounding out a food budget.

If, after everything that I (and the other posters in this thread) have said, you're still determined to eat for $20/wk I would get rid of all notions of what food is and should be. Learn to love rice, cheap soya sauce, and bargin-bin prepackaged vegetables. Ramen noodles, which provide absolutely zero nutritional value, are so damn cheap that it's almost guaranteed they'll become a staple of your diet.

Hmm Ramen noodles! Floyd Mayweather's favourite!

[bball2]

Here read this:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/08/how-to-feed-yourself-for-15-a-week/

You'll still have $5 left over every week to treat yourself :thumbsup:

[szw]

Lot of ppl here are idiots. What's your bean situation like? Got any beans on you?

[elspeilbergo]

Originally posted by szw
Lot of ppl here are idiots. What's your bean situation like? Got any beans on you?

Canned beans yes.

[szw]

BTW I dont mean those baked beans.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/driedbeantip.htm

dried beans are cheap and good for you. I think if you want to pull this off, lots of beans will be necessary.

[sillysod]

push your shopping cart with all your earthly belongings down to the mustard seed.

There you can eat for free and spend your $20.00 on mouthwash and lysol to drown your worries.

[reno97637]

Get a job at Joey's restaurant. The servers get paid really good for 4 hours of work plus they come home with boxes of cooked goods.

[Tik-Tok]

^^^

yeah, a job at any restaurant is decent.

I worked as a cook at a curling club while at SAIT, worked 4 evenings a week, and full saturdays, ate like a king while I worked. Never had breakfasts, and usually only had rice or ichiban when I wasn't working.

[snoop101]

I agree with a lot here in saying that theres got to be something else you can take out of your daily spending.

Other then that making a big batch of chili and freezing it into little containers that you can then microwave everyday. When I was young my mom used to do that for me. Its not to expensive and very healthy.

[no_joke]

Don't let these guys discourage you. $20 won't be easy but not impossible (and you don't have to get a job at restaurant). Some good, informative links in here. I don't think you have to sacrifice healthy foods either. Don't eat out and avoid buying things in boxes. Eat rice and produce. Protein might be difficult. Eggs, beans, chicken, tofu, fish might be good options. Learn how to cut a chicken- cheaper by the pound than buying say, precut chicken breasts. A big thing is to shop around- peruse the supermarket flyers, compare prices, and look for sales. You might have to go to 3 different places to buy 3 different things but if budget is what you're going for...

[A790]

Originally posted by no_joke
You might have to go to 3 different places to buy 3 different things but if budget is what you're going for...
If he's driving that defeats the whole point of saving money.

[R!zz0]

Keep eating junk food and not only will you get sick...Your farts will smell really bad. :rofl:

[no_joke]

Originally posted by A790

If he's driving that defeats the whole point of saving money.

:rolleyes: Take the bus, ride a bike, bum a ride, snowshoe.

[Scope951]

know your priorities, food is a necessity, cable or even many other things in your life is purely luxuries.

[Redlined_8000]

20 bucks a week....

30 pack eggs - around $3.50 - $4
Club pack regular ground beef $7-$8
Ramen noodles - cheaper then generic cool aid.

depending on your size... most anyone can live off 20 bucks a week if they REALLY had too.

BTW dont strain out the fat in the ground beef, your just throwing out much needed calories :thumbsup:

[gqmw]

Originally posted by Euro838
I don't think you can do this without supplements or vitamins which would could put you over the $20/week budget. Well, here's my attempt at this challenge.

$10 - 300 kirkland multi-vitamins = 3.3 cents/day so over the long run these vitamins won't really put a dent in the budget.

$6 - 3 pack SPAM at Costco (Max of 2 5 mm thick slices per meal)

$8 - Box of noodles or 9 kg bag of rice. Who knows, the 9 kg of rice could last you 2 weeks or more.

$4 - 2 kg of NN mix veg

$2 - 12 Large eggs.

Only problem with this diet is you're going to have to find a way to get some dairy in there but I know some people who don't go with dairy so if you are one of those people, then good for ya.

Good thing about all this is that it is very simple to make (Please refer to the Rage2 thread about SPAM-noodles-egg thread). You only need a frying pan (Optional as you can just dump everything into a pot), pot/rice cooker.

If you could find a healthier and equally priced replacement for SPAM, this diet will be better for you than eating fast food. Anyways, good luck to you and hopefully land you at a job better than Starbucks!

Honestly I think out of all the replies, that's the best possible response to eating for $20 a week.

Or at least that's a good starting place for you. For sure though I'd go for the rice - it's cheap and if you're not full you can eat more of it.

If you get bored of spam, you can always throw in a ground beef or pork meal somewhere in there just for variety. Perhaps you can justify spending a few extra dollars for a 4L jug of milk?

[copynpaste]

Go to the homeless shelter, they will give you free meals lol.

I couldnt live off $20 in a day for food! I spend at least $500 a week on food.

[Rocky]

One thing to check out, lots of campus activities offer free food for just attending. Go there and get some pancakes and pizza or whatever else they're eating.

I don't know how other students do it. There's no way I could survive on that kind of income.

Good luck

[frozenrice]

You can lurk around the cafeteria and eat the leftovers people leave on the table.
When I went to SAIT there was this Asian kid that did that. A bunch of us went down for lunch and pushed all the garbage left over from the group before us to the end of the tables. Within a few minutes, there he was chowing down. Needless to say it was quite amusing to watch when he was found out.

Joking aside, I feel for you. I was a starving student at one time too. I got so sick of instant noodles, KD and eggs that it took about 10 years before I'd touch that stuff again.

[Kobe]

Get rid of the internet, and u will have $40 extra a month for food, get rid of the t.v and have another extra $40/m

[pinoyhero]

You need more buck, but save up and hit costco for bulk ...

[vipstyle2]

Id say pasta pasta pasta.
Cheap and easy.

[liquidboi69]

Eat:

Breakfast
-oatmeal
-eggs
-milk
-a good multi vitamin

Lunch/dinner
-rice
-tuna
-broccoli
-salad with no dressing
-beans

-water with all food to help fill you up (lol)

All very cheap and healthy.

Eat Mac&Cheese & instant noodles and it will be cheap, but you'll be very malnourished (i have tried and it sucks...you'll get so bored of it...)

[badatusrnames]

Go to your local park and trap some squirrels.

[92teg1]

Originally posted by badatusrnames
Go to your local park and trap some squirrels.

quote of the month. sheer brilliance.

[lelalong]

Originally posted by badatusrnames
Go to your local park and trap some squirrels.


this has been posted before but it applies:

7RlK0Xd4c2c

[bignerd]

You probably need to start with some cheap basics, they might cost you a little to buy bulk in the start but will go far-i.e. rice and dry pasta.

You can get some produce, a large bag of carrots, large bag of potatoes these are both versatile and cheap, both will last more than a week if you do not use them all. (you can have a baked potatoe, roasted potatoes, mashed, roast carrots, boiled/steamed etc...). Buy a family pack of ground beef and freeze it into small portions-you can use it to add to pasta, make hamburger patties, hamburger helper, meatloaf.

You could make a stir fry or pasta, these should feed you for two meals and you can add as much or as little to them as you can afford. You may have to do without the fancy sauces and eat your baked potato plain but I think it could be done for *close* to your budget. Even spaghetti can be made cheaply, dry pasta, a can of tomato sauce, a little ground beef(obviously you would have to buy no-name items to keep costs down).

I agree though you will have to forgo much of the prepared items-pre-made sauces, processed foods and do that yourself, that is where most of the savings are. Clip coupons, keep an eye on sales-on grocery store flyers the biggest ads on the front page are the big sale items that the store makes no money on but uses to get you in to buy.

I have also found planning your weeks worth of meals ahead of time helps so then you are not buying items you don't need at the store. Try to find a plan where you can use tuesdays leftovers to make part of wednesdays meal etc...

[Isaiah]

Originally posted by Amysicle
What school do you go to? At SAIT they have this Good Food Box or whatever and it's fairly cheap veggies and fruits for a broke student like yourself. It's done once a month and you pay upfront, pick up about 10 days later. It's healthy and cheap. See if your school has anything like that.
Most campuses have a program like this. You can usually get a mixed produce box super cheap. It's a great way to go and it's good for stews, soups, veggie drinks, smoothies, roasted vegetables, etc.

Next step is to go to Costco (find a friend at campus with a membership if you don't have one) and pick up large bulk size cereal boxes and 4L milk containers so you can always have a cheap, hearty breakfast. Cut some fresh fruit into it to give you some extra energy and change it up a bit. While you're at Costco, buy an economy size tray of chicken breasts, separate into individual portions when you get home and shove em in your freezer.

As long as you have a few staples in your fridge, different sauces (which you only replenish once/year), and a $25 spice rack (also available at Costco) you should be good to go my friend.

EDIT: as mentioned in previous post, RICE is a terrific, versatile, and healthy filler/accompaniment and very inexpensive so always keep a few kilos on hand.

[Idratherbsidewayz]

Originally posted by lelalong



this has been posted before but it applies:

7RlK0Xd4c2c

LOL, thank you!!!

That was the single best video ive ever watched on Youtube.