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You need to figure a way to share a kitchen and pantry with someone who knows how to scratch cook (and likes to). Cook good and tasty food in larger batches, freeze extras, use up the trimmings and scraps, utilize leftovers etc.
Gee fir $0.25 / box at aldi's or trader joes, you can add mac and cheese. Slice up a couple of hot dogs in while you boil the water and its a different use of both.
I shop primarily at aldis and Wally world. I cook for two of us.
It DOES HELP if you know how to cook, do you?
I get a rotisserie chicken on sale for $3.50. I get 2 good leg and thigh meals, 2 good breast meals, then i debobe the chicken for chicken salad or soup, and then i boil the bones for chicken broth for flavoring rice or for making soup.
A head of lettus is about $0.50, a bag of shredded carrots are $1.25, an onion or two is cheap, so you can have a salad a day for a week cheaply enough. Walmart ( Wally world ) has a selection of $0.85 salad dressings, including greek salad dressing, which is healthy.
Buy whole non package and fresh as much as possible.
When we want a pizza, i get the $2.19 frozen one at aldis, or the 2.25 one at Wally, and add extra onion, mushrooms and diced tomatoes from a can. A little extra mozzarella cheese and voila an everything pizza, eith some healthy veggies.
A jar or can of sauce and a 1/3 of a box of pasketti ( spaghetti ) will do you for a meal x 3. Buy the pasta on sale for $0.50 /box, and the sauce a dollar or less.
A pound of burger on sale for $2.50/pound , mixed with 2 eggs, 2 or 3 slives crumbled bread, some garlic and onion powder, some minced garlic, a splash or two of steak sauce and Worcestershire sauce mixed together and baked about 40 minutes at 350° will give you several meals of very tasty meatloaf.
A few appkes or pears on sale sliced, and a few sweet potatoes sliced, alternate slices in a small glass dish doused with a splash of juice till the bottom is covered by a 1/2" baked at 375° for an hour until tender is great side dish and fairly cheap.
If you need more ideas search the frugal forum for any manner of threads on reducing food costs.
I mamge to feed tge 2 of us on about $40/week, or $160/month, surely you can do good on less.
I second the motion to cut back to $75/w first, stock up on staples like white and brown long cook rice in the 5 pound bags, dry beans can be soaked overnight and cooked with seasonings or in a soup or stew, the seasoning bottles are available for $1 @ aldi. Wally or dollar tree stores .
Once you have a pantry of stock items your actual costs will be lower.
I'm female and spend about $100/week on groceries- that includes cleaning products but not alcohol. I eat a piece of meat or fish maybe once or twice a week and it's an actual serving size dietitians recommend (about the size of a deck of cards)- not a giant steak or a 1.5- inch thick pork chop. The rest of the time- lots of stir-fried vegetables, mixed in with healthy carbs (bulghur, quinoa, barley, beans, wheat berries) and spices. I eat plain Greek yogurt sweetened with honey that I add for occasional snacks. I rarely eat out at restaurants unless I'm traveling, so that's pretty much what I spend all-in. Almost nothing gets thrown out. I use things in stir-fries or freeze them and I like leftovers.
It helps to have a Costco membership and a generously-sized freezer, but I can go through Costco-sized bags of brussels sprouts and sweet peppers, no problem.
I don't buy chips, cookies, breakfast cereals, or the sort of fresh/sort of prepared stuff they offer in the stores (beef and veggies already on skewers, cut-up veggies or fruits) - those are all budget-killers. What have you stopped buying to get your budget down so low? That might be a good place to start in figuring out why you spent so much before.
Bonus to all this: I'm extremely healthy even though I just turned 66 and my BMI, at 19.1, hovers near the "underweight" end of the scale. I'm on one prescription, which deals with a symptom of menopause, so nothing I can change with diet and exercise.
Even if you upped your food budget to eat healthier and saved $400/month. that's a lot of after-tax money.
Don't have a weekly budget. Look at the longer view. Buy what's on sale. Eat it, store it, or freeze it. Eggs are pretty cheap and a good bang for the buck.
In order to eat both well and cheaply, you cook at home, you buy in bulk, and you use portion control.
Beans, rice, oatmeal, sugar are under 50 cents a pound bought in bulk. A pound of beans is 8- 10 meals. Brown sugar and oatmeal, you can make granola. A serving of granola is 1/3 cup. A pound of oatmeal goes a long way.
Eggs are about 10 cents each. Multigrain buns or English muffins are 20 cents each. 30 cents for a fried egg sandwich. Add a few cents more if you want mayonaise on it.
Buy a bag of frozen broccoli. When you cook ramen, toss in 3-4 pieces of broccoli. Or a bit of frozen green beans.
I just bought good burger ( on sale ) for $2.79 a pound. Divide that pound into four servings and you can have a quarter pounder burger on a Multigrain bun for 85 cents. But you have to limit your burger intake and not eat the whole pound at one sitting.
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