Cuban beans and rice are very delicious and very affordable.
Onigiri, or, since I’m Korean, Jumeokbap(주먹밥). Dirt cheap, literally put anything you want.
When very low on money, it’s what’s in the cupboard,.which is oil, butter and pasta. Cheese is a bonus but the fridge will be empty before the cupboard.
You should always have rice and pasta available. Cheep and quick. So good for when tired or lazy, as well as when broke. Lots of people recommend beans but I don’t like them so much.
Look at the specials in your supermarket. Many please discount heavily for stuff that is close to expiry date. If you shop daily you’ve less waste and get food deals.
You do not need to be broke for: noodles made in herb water
Once you try it you may never go back to only salted waterHerb water? As in tea? Never heard of this
Its probably some kind of herb tea
I put herbs like oregano into the noodle water before even adding salt. Mostly i use some ready made mix
Soup with lots of root vegetables, cabbage, lentils etc. whatever is in season (a tip is to roast the veg in the oven first for better flavour and mouth feel). I always have some good sausages in the freezer that I buy for 50% off because they’re close to expiration. Thaw them and fry them pretty hard before joining the soup. I can easily feed myself and my gf for a week from one batch. A boring week for sure but you do what you gotta do. Mix it up with some different toppings or other flavourings during the week.
If putting a pizza in the oven qualifies as cooking then that.
10 minute farro from Trader Joe’s. $2 a bag.
https://traderjoesrants.com/2022/04/20/trader-joes-10-minute-farro-whole-grain/
When I was literal piss-broke, there was a college campus near me with an open food court. Couldn’t afford the actual shops selling food there, but in that food court was a condiments station that randomly had one of those electric hot water dispensers for making tea, and styrofoam cups. It also had ketchup packets, saltine crackers, and pepper.
Turns out you can make a pretty passable tomato soup with ketchup and hot water. Bit of pepper and a handful of saltine cracker packets, and I had myself a hot meal for exactly $0.00
With some money to spend, rice is where it’s at. Hitch a ride to Costco or Sam’s with someone who has a membership, and they have iirc 50 lb bags of that short grain fortified rice for like… $15? That’s well over 100 meals worth of rice.
Cook that up with literally almost anything that has some flavor or nutrients - whatever’s cheap. Or just eat it straight… bland, but it’ll fill you up. Eggs go great with rice.
Fair warning, you’ll get fat. Cheap food is NOT usually healthy.
I hope you’re better off now ❤️ !
The rice comment is 100% spot on BTW, you know you’re in dire straits when you can’t afford rice…
Things are way better now! I was getting pretty depressed, and struggled with suicidal ideation. Had a plan, and a redundant backup plan in case the first one didn’t turn out to be fatal, but then randomly to try an extreme change in lifestyle so I enlisted into the Air Force on kind of a whim. Was always opposed to military cuz of the whole killing innocent people thing… figured I’d they put me that kind of position I’d just refuse (gave absolutely zero fucks back then) or worse case I’d just go back to plan A and kill myself instead.
Didn’t have to find out though: got lucky and they made me a medic (surgical tech specifically). And hugely: acres to actual healthcare, to include mental!
Got the fuck out as soon as my enlistment was up, and I’ve been working as a civilian surgical tech ever since, which has me up to $24/hr. Actually not broke anymore, which still feels kinda weird. Using my GI Bill to go nursing school right now, so soonish I’ll looking at another income bump, but I’m already making enough to all least eat healthy… you don’t realize how shitty you just always feel at baseline when your diet consists of carbs and whatever you can find on the clearance rack.
I see a lot of my classmates with that with that same kind of “aw fuck” expression on their face when they see the price tag on the hospital cafeteria food at our clinical rotations, so I’ve been pretty quick to buy their meal and tell em to pay it forward when they’re a ‘rich’ nurse lol. 😝
But yeah, it sucks absolute balls to be poor. I will never let myself forget what that’s like.
Thanks for sharing your story. I’m glad is going better now, and wish you luck for the next pay bump too! (God, what a horrible system, having to bet on joining the military… sorry you had to go through that)
First off, holy hell that last comment was absolutely obliterated by auto-correct and brain-farts. I am so sorry you had to suffer that before I noticed and made some desperately needed edits, lol.
…and yeah military was definitely a risk, that I honestly didn’t expect to end well, but at that point, “what’s the worst that could happen?” didn’t really phase me, cuz I was actively planning for the worst to happen.
I got super lucky.
Thanks for the history and glad you’re on a good track! Good luck you seems to be a sincerely good person!
Beans shouldn’t be much more pricey, give you less worry about arsenic and contain a fair amount more protein than rice.
If affordable, I’d pick beans over rice any day.
Big bags of dried beans it is!Beans are also fantastic. More expensive and more work than rice though, so my cheap and lazy ass usually went for the white stuff. Didn’t even know arsenic was a concern… nor would I probably have cared when I was that broke - all I really cared about was price.
But 100% beans will keep you full without breaking the bank!
Also, for variety, there are a lot of kind of beans, plus there’s chickpeas and lentils which can be made in the same way.
For even more variety, one can eat beans with rice 😁
Agreed! Pulses in general allow for a healthy and affordable diet.
I’m not a proponent of rice mainly for the way it gets produced (lots of water needed and methane emitted in the process) and the fact it’s a hyperaccumulator of arsenic. About all these things I don’t need to worry when picking pulses.
But each to their own and some variety rarely is a bad idea.How much of a concern is arsenic? A lot of Asian cultures have rice with every meal and they have some of the healthiest people on the planet.
So far wasnt in the situation, buuut:
Cheap and easy spaghetti salad: A big bowl
1 piece of garlic, finely chopped or sliced
2-3 big tomatoes or appeopiate amount of smaller tomatoes, small pieces
Basil, finely chopped
Spices (rosemary, Oregano, etc. for other pizza and pasta appropriate spices)
Olive oil, a healthy amount. The ingredients should be moderately covered in a small pool of oil (dont drown it.)
Pepper and chili flakes as much as you like
Let it rest for >60min. But you can be impatient and eat it earlier)
Salt to taste (should be a bit saltier than you like)Cook as much spaghetti as you like.
Remove from water and add to the bowl with the oil mix.
Mix all ingredients hntil everything is covered.Enjoy :)
That sounds amazing! And really simple, and even affordable. Some chunks of cheese would make it even better, if there’s cheap cheese to be had. Will definitely try this, maybe try adding some lentils as a meat substitute. Thanks for the suggestion!
Your suggestions arent what I’d use it with but feel free to modify as you please :)
Take a look into the asiasn kitchen.
Some stuff can be made very easy with few ingredients there.For example I made a duck breast broth udon bowl.
But it’s
200 g (7 oz) duck breast fillet
1 leek
1 teaspoon sunflower oil
500 ml (2 cups) water
100 ml (7 fl oz) soy sauce
50 ml (3½ fl oz) sake
50 ml (3½ fl oz) water
100 ml (7 fl oz) mirin
5g (¼ oz) dried kombu
5 g (¼ oz) katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
UdonYes, the ingredients require upfront cost and are usually more costly (for example in Asian supermarkets) but the broth was amazing for those few ingredients.
And they could probably be substituted with cheap version (in comparison to mid-quality products) or swapped.
Maybe not the same taste but similar enough to still taste well. :)(If someone wants the recipe, the epub can be found online.
This book (EN version under the same title) https://www.dorlingkindersley.de/buch/maori-murota-wiebke-krabbe-japan-home-kitchen-9783831046881
Page 14Tried only one recipe but so far it’s a good book.
Back when I was in the US like 5 years ago, I’ve been able to stretch my meals out to about $40 per month.
You can make a flavourful cheesy-pasta (not actual mac-and-cheese) with some pasta, some chicken bouillon, a tablespoon of butter or margarine, and a slice of processed cheese. For protein you can buy cheap chicken franks and chop it up, and for veggies I like frozen peas and frozen broccoli. Get store-brand for the cheapest possible options.
I was so stingy that I was able to stretch one box of pasta out to 11 meals, and I still looked forward to each meal.
To keep myself from going insane, every grocery run (every three weeks) I rewarded myself with a gallon bucket of store-brand ice-cream and two packs of store-brand chocolate sandwich cookies, all of which I completely devoured within one week.
I lost hella weight and felt really good about it. Unfortunately, I’ve gained it all back now.
In a beat boxing tone:
Beans 'n rice (repeat as many times as needed).
Also do pasta with tomato sauce a lot, add whatever I have or what I can find on sale (mostly lentils, beans, frozen vegetables (kinds that have protein)).
I’ve always loved lentils but I’ve kinda rediscovered them lately, it’s crazy how good they are in every way. Cheap, somehow always makes more food than you think, easy to cook and extremely versatile, makes you feel full with less and keeps you going for longer. Truly a superfood IMO.
Beans, rice, potatoes - the holy trinity.
Adds nicely to the beatboxing too
Even easier:
Rice with broth of joice + pureed (blended?) tomatoes.
Add a solid spoon of sour cream and parsley.Easy tomato soup with rice. (also works with pasta)
A can of lentils. Straight from the can with a spoon.
When I was poor I ate boiled chicken and rice for every dinner. Breakfast was either cereal+milk (you can try ringing up multiple boxes at the self checkout using a “small” box but bag the bigger boxes), or yogurt+granola (I’d steal granola by ringing up bulk granola as cheaper bulk items and ring up the single yogurt cup in a 6 pack and pay >1/6 the actual cost).
Petty theft rings too true. Had a friend that worked at one of those bulk ingredient shops who’d regularly just take home like a kilo of rice or flour. They don’t check anyway and it hardly affects their bottom line.
I braise a whole bag of onions and use it the base for a big pot of Turkish-ish red lentil soup. This then gets portioned into 10 or so meals and frozen so it lasts till i have money again.
West African peanut stew but you’d need a place to get a huge bag of berebere spice.
