OK, Give me your CHEAPEST meals.

We eat lots of pasta. We always buy lots when it is BOGO and have an entire cabinet as our pasta cabinet. Sometimes we have it with salad and bread, other times with green beans/bacon. But with a big family, pasta helps us feed a crowd on little money.

My 5yo son would live off of mac and cheese w/hotdogs (I cut them up and add them to the mac as it's boiling so they get cheesed too) if I let him.

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SWF 46

broiled catfish filet boiled poke and mashed cattail roots total cost an hour and a half and some salt .
If ya dont like catfish you can always sein some crawdads or catch bluegill instead ya might also grab some wild garlic or onions

hot dog gravy over toast must have been the absolute bottom of the barrel cheapest meal I ever made in college. YUK!

Did they have small cartons of milk and butter necessary to make it according to directions on box. Or do you just eat the cheese-like chemical soup mixed with water?

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

pasta alot here, too. you can do so much with it to change it without much cost. when I see pasta on sale, I buy alot. we also get alot of mileage out of a good pot of thick chili or soup. I'm not sure I could make a meal for a dollar, but we're really good at stretching the food around here. adding hunks of cabbage to a pot of potatoes, then what meat I have. ham is the best, but pork or sausage works. corned beef is great, and sometimes I've bought it REALLY cheap on sale, along with the cabbage & potatoes I make some homemade noodles. I keep veggie broth (after cooking, pureed then frozen) for the base. those big pots of food give us a few meals. I love that on a cold winter day with hot bread. yum for 'cheap', I do best making alot and then dividing.

With no foraged foods and just dollar in your pocket, you are very limited. Packet of raman noodles and can generic condensed soup? Especially at store like Aldis probably can find several items for under $1 but be hard to buy more than one thing and you arent going to come close to a balanced diet. Now if you have access to either natural foods coop or other bulk foods store, guess you can buy a tablespoon of this and thimble of that. Face it, one dollar just doesnt have much buying power any more. Pound of dry lentils is around a dollar now. You can keep body and soul connected on a single dollar bill handed to you each and every day but may involve scurvy and other such diseases without being able to forage any wild foods. Of course guess you could sprout various seeds to make available more vitamins/nutrients but that does require time.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

A form of pasta that most Americans arent aware of is couscous. Its a middle east form of pasta. It can be made from scratch but the commercial stuff is fairly cheap and as close to instant as it gets. Also doesnt require milk and butter like mac&cheese. And you can get more nutritious whole wheat version for not much more. WW couscous somewhere around $3 a pound. Unless you get it at bulk store, wont be able to buy it for that single dollar though.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

I know we're really fortunate to live among good neighbors, especially when times are tough. Last night, the next door neighbor brought us a big bag of tomatoes and we gave him some bluegill fillets and a bag of apples. DH is canning tomato juice today.

I get really concerned when I see eating cheap cause most times it's not eating healthy. Especially when I see children being fed this way.

Ramen noodles? Cheap, yes. Filling, yes. Healthy? NO! Carbs like noodles are cheap, food stretchers & tummy fillers with little nutrition.

What's going to happen in years to come? diabetes, poor teeth, high blood pressure, fragile bones ... you name it. It'll be paid for in some way.

Yes, I do understand. I've eaten more than my share of mac & cheese.

Maybe that's why, at my age, I'm concerned. PLease think about it.

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

For me it is all in HOW I spend the money.

I go to the salvage food store. Smells bad, but very cheap. Canned veggies etc.. .50
bread.. .75 a loaf for Pepperidge Farm.. 100% juices..2 qt..$1.50-$2.. etc..

I go to the regular grocery in the early morning. 8 am. I do not have a "set" menu in mind before hand.
I go straight to the meats and only buy the closeout meats. If I pay more than $4 for a package of meat I get annoyed. That is not $4 a lb, that is total! Pork chops, cubed steak, chuck steak, chicken thighs.
Once I have my meat for the week I go to produce, then frozen veggies or veg aisle to fiond the cheapest ways to fix the meats.
Do not buy the bags of spinach!! Go to the salad bar and fill up the little plastic box with spinach there. We can get enough spinach (when I do not have any in the garden) for taco salads etc.. for less than a dollar!! and no waste!
Or buy the frozen spinach boxes for a dollar for quiches and pastas and casseroles.
I do not buy cereal etc... ever~!~ I do buy pasta and rice and such. No processed spaghetti sauce. Cheaper to buy the cans of crushed tomatoes and do it at home by far.
In the meat dept. they have turkey neck etc.. for next to nothing. Buy it and take it home for turkey soup.
When you are cutting up fresh veggies, do not throw out the onion skins, carrot tops, celery ends etc.. put them in a jar in the freezer. When you get turkey necks break out that jar and add to the stewpot! Turkey broth like that, a few potatoes and carrots and a sweet potato or an old soft apple and a handful of rice or some broken pasta noodles is a yummy and filling and health dinner for almost nothing!
Buy flour, not bread. Get up a little early or go to bed a little late and bake some bread or muffins or biscuits. Cornmeal is cheap and cornbread is good.
Don't buy ice cream.. buy pudding packets and some milk and make popsicles. chaep and portion controlled
If big hams etc are on sale.. splurge and buy one. Cook and freeze tons of it. Put the bone in freezer for beans etc.. Same goes for pork roast. Big and cheap. Can be turned into many different things.
If chicken packages are on super sale.. buy more than one. Go straight home and cook them all. That stuff is old and will not last. Freeze the pieces and they are there if you need them for something.
I think that is about all I can think of for how to eat very, very well and healthy for durn near nothing!

Most times it's not, because most people don't know how to buy groceries.

I manage healthy, balanced, and mostly organic, for very cheap.

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A loaf of bread and a dozen eggs are about 4 bucks, and makes a dozen egg sandwiches. 33cents each. When I was 19 or so I lived off egg sandwiches and my other favorite meal. A box of noodles and a can of soup for sauce (today about 1.50-2.00 depending on name brand or store brand) would make about 3 or 4 meals, my favorite soups were cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, and cheddar cheese. Always threw in a little hot sauce for tang too.

Homemade chicken and noodles, or chicken and dumplings. This feeds several people and ends up being around $1 each if you make the noodles or dumplings from scratch.

Chickenista, but your chickens would starve! LOL! Mine would miss the "goodies" in the compost pail. I agree about the soups, though.

Jennifer

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-Northern NYS

My cheapest meals.
1.) Wilted dandelion greens, fresh caught fish, rice and cornbread.
2.) Veggies from the garden, and brown rice.
3.) Beans and brown rice with corn fritters.
4.) 1 pkg Ramen noodles, 1/2 cup dehydrated mixed veggies, 1/4 cup tvp. All boiled together.
5.) Poorman's Meal= 2-3 potatoes , diced , 1/2 onion , diced, 2 T. coconut oil. Turn on heat Stir constantly til brown. Add 2 all beef hot dogs sliced. add to potatoes. Stir-fry til cooked. Add 1 cup water bring to boil cover turn off heat. Let rest 20-25 minutes WITHOUT lifting the lid.
6.) Stir-fried veggies from the garden with beans sprouts served with brown rice.
7.) OUR FAVORITE: okra and tomatoes from the garden served over brown rice with homemade cornbread or biscuits.
8.) Oatmeal with raisins or any fruit and a teaspoon of sweetner.
9.) Pancakes with syrup.
10.) Bannock, rice and beans or bannock rice and veggies.

Not sure as to how it breaks down exactly. But I usually end up buying rice, flour, coconut oil, Ramen noodles. But since many meals can come from the 2 lb. bag of brown rice, ditto with the flour, and coconut oil. Even at $2.89 for 10 all beef hot dogs I use 2 so that's about 58 cents for the meat.
These are typical weekday meals here. Sorry but we do eat from the garden all spring, summer and fall and in the winter eat what I have home canned from the garden.
In winter when it gets lean we have eaten condensed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and those Michelena frozen meals when/if the canned veggies give out.



tamilee

I can buy a bag of pinto beans for $2 and 2 boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix for $1. Add an egg and some milk to the mix to make cornbread, and I have about 12 servings for about .45 each.

At Save-a-lot I can get a roll of frozen ground turkery for .99. I make it into four patties and fry it, then add a can of green beans .39 and make 4 baked potatoes in the microwave. Add a little butter and salt and pepper, and maybe ketchup for the burger and the whole family of four can eat for maybe .50 each.

I also get hot dogs for less than $1 for a 10 count package at Save-a-lot, buns for about .79, a can of carrots for .39, and maybe a can of mixed fruit for .89. This will feed all of us a meal, then I will use the leftover hotdogs to put in mac and cheese (less than .50 a box) for another meal.

I do this when things are really tight. As a rule I'm trying to stay away from prepackaged foods and nitrates and just cook from scratch if I can. Still, this sure helps in a pinch.

Our cheapest and quickest meal is probably spagetti.
When sauce went on sale .69 cent I got ten cases.
Noodles 4 8oz boxes for $1.00.
Also sweet potatoes and brown rice are good and cheap.
Or hambuger meat cooked with onions and steamed cabbage. yum.
Shelly

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You can't soar with eagles in a turkey pen.

My birds won't eat those things until AFTER they are simmered and seasoned

My son could live on ramen noodles if I'd let him, but the smell makes me want to puke.

One of our cheapest healthful meals is refried bean soup with homemade cornbread. Delicious!

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God bless,
Bonnie
Opportunity Farm
Northeast Washington

"While we have the opportunity, let us do good to all." Galatians 6:10