Wait, what? If you’re hungry, nutritious food (canned beans and such) will cost less than $5 a day. And that’s without cooking. If you can boil water, you can save some money and increase the variety of food available to you.
i was grew up in a bottom 50% household. most of my childhood diet was sugary snacks, canned/boxed foodstuffs, and frozen meat/vegetables. fresh food was largely reserved for holidays. my mother used to spend about 60/week to feed a family of four, and this was after coupons and in the 1990s
I like how some Americans aren’t even pretending to strive to be the best nation anymore but just saying “eat like people in impoverished countries”.
Like, people in Mongolia or for example my parents when they lived in El Salvador didn’t eat beans every single day because they wanted to or enjoyed it - it’s because there literally was no upward mobility and the oligarchy kept it that way.
You’re the person who centuries ago would be defending the king as you ate only oats for the 10th day in a row because some other kingdom had minor starvation.
When milk of $5+ a gallon in most of the country, the solution isn’t as simple as “cook at home” for those of us with a family to feed. Young Americans don’t mean just 24 year olds.
I have a toddler and cook at home. What exactly is your point here, I don’t understand. Rice, beans, meat, produce call all be had for cheap. Milk IS one of the more expensive foods but it’ll last two weeks, is probably a poor example when you can also buy 2lbs of pork for $6.
Your claim of two pounds of pork for $6 does not line up with Kroger’s meat pricing.
You could easily do this if you buy on sales or close dated and freeze. Last time I bought pork it was pork loin on sale from a Piggly Wiggly at $1.89/lb. Buy several, ask the meat dept to cut them into chops if they will (or do it yourself if they won’t) separate into single meal for the household portions, bag and freeze. They’ll last even longer if you use a vacuum sealer.
We do basically the same with ground beef - buy a bunch when there’s a sale, pre-prep some of it into taco meat, meatloves, chili, etc then portion, bag and freeze.
I guess that’s true. I don’t think we should be buying so much meat (if any) to begin with… I wouldn’t ban it or anything, but Kroger or whoever selling nearly-expired meat for very low prices is not going to help matters. The only thing I can say for it is that at least they’re attempting to avoid just throwing it out.
For most things expiration dates are bullshit that’s more about profits or product flow than safety. Most things are usually more than fine for at least a few days after, and freezing meat extends it’s safe life by months.
To give you an idea how much expiration dates are bullshit, if you’ve ever been to a Sam’s they sell these enchiladas, pasta and the like that are just throw in the oven for a bit and eat and they’re all made with shredded chicken. They make these things in house, and they’re all chicken because the chicken comes from unsold rotisserie chickens that have been out too long that they pick all the meat off and shred. Because the expiry on them isn’t actually about food safety, and pulling them off the shelf, shredding and repackaging as chicken enchiladas or chicken pasta alfredo or whatever lets them invent a new mostly bullshit expiry date for the same chicken.
Toddlers don’t eat very much. I feeding a family of four including two teens. My point is that while individual foods are cheap, a balanced diet is still expensive, especially the foods for growing children. Milk, eggs, fresh produce, unprocessed meats, all are significantly more expensive than they were 5 years ago. Hell, even uncooked rice is up to $1/pound.
Ah yes, surely the issue must be that people aren’t eating enough poverty meals of canned beans and rice. Meat is obviously only for wall street investors
When you need to cut your food budget and still want meat, you watch for meat sales, buy a bunch and freeze it. A vacuum sealer is fantastic for this since it lets you split stuff into single meal portions and seal it. Most grocery store meat departments will also willing to cut roasts and the like into pieces for you if you ask and that doesn’t change the price - usually buying a pork loin and asking them to cut it into chops will be cheaper than just buying chops, for example. For quick meals pre-prepping a bunch of taco meat, meatloaves, chili or the like and freezing it is a great time saver.
Around here ground beef and pork loin go on sale pretty often, just a few weeks ago we had pork loin for $1.89/lb and discounted 85/15 ground beef.
Sardines are a great (and cheap!) source of protein and they’re super nutrient dense. Tons of vitamin d, b, fish oils. This has little to do with the topic at hand, I just got turned onto sardines as someone that wrote them off my entire adult life and they’re awesome!
On topic though, I love threads like these because we get to see all of the middle/upper middle class nepo-babies come out with their advice on how to manage living with a level of poverty they have clearly never experienced. Always such a special time.
Nope! I have hypertension, so I’m extremely sodium conscious, out of necessity. The king Oscar tins we buy have 350mg of sodium in them, which is around 15% DV. That’s not much compared to pretty much all red meats…
You can get away with very little supplies, actually. Basically just a small shovel, the rest be salvaged.
Pots can be made from old plastic bins/containers, soil/fertilizer can be made from food waste using worms, seeds can be made from surprisingly many fruits/vegetables. Pumpkin seeds are right inside the pumpkin, potatoes and beans can be put right into the soil, even tomatoes can be grown from store bought ones.
And while it’s a really cool hobby: you’re right regarding the cost effectiveness. Unless you happen to have a significant plot of land, it won’t make a dent in your grocery bill.
This is not great advice. Using random crap for planters can leech chemicals into your fruits and veggies. Also, you need seed-potatoes to grow potatoes you can eat. You cannot grow edible potatoes from what you buy in a grocery store.
“Random crap” is what’s used in agriculture as well, if you buy a big plastic tub, it won’t leech more into the soil than your coke bottle already did. There’s only so much plastic that can leech out and planters can be used for years, the plastic you’re using around your house gets thrown out in a week or two and replaced. Much higher chemical content there.
And you can absolutely use store bought potatoes, they are clones, there’s no difference between seed and regular potatoes. At most, there might have been something done to prevent sprouting for a bit, but that’s it. You can simply wait for them to sprout, if that’s a concern. You know how I know? I’ve been growing “old” food potatoes in pots for years. Works just fine.
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Nope, you’re simply wildly exaggerating the effects of the dosage you’re actually getting.
That’s like saying water causes cancer, because everyone with cancer drank water at some point.
You are not getting the minimum doses needed to get from a water bottle. And again, if you’re getting headaches from a water bottle, that’s your imagination. Period.
While I like gardening, unironically advising people to grow their own food to cut costs is just bonkers.
It takes months to grow anything, and given the limited space, you can’t grow much anyway. You’ll be lucky to grow 20€ worth of food on your balcony while spending hours doing the gardening. That’s not cost effective.
And that doesn’t even count the cost of materials to get started.
Definitely not against gardening, me and my partners are in the process of getting our garden going in our new place, but dirt alone could easily eat up the cost savings if you have to build out your planters.
As I wrote in another comment: you can create your own soil with earthworms. You can get a small batch of worms in fishing supply stores for like 5€ (or collect them yourself), these guys turn almost any plant material into pure fertilizer.
Yeah I’ve had gardens all the way up until covid when prices went bananas because it wasn’t feasible anymore. I can buy from a farmers market for less than the materials/time/water. I need to build a gray water capture system.
If your balcony could support the load you could grow quite densely with hydroponic towers, but you won’t ever recoup the costs. That method is also very little work beyond the initial compared to soil.
Yeah, sorry, no. Even if I had the space, when I get home from work at 1900 the last thing I want to do is more work. It's not like you can just plop some seeds into soil and do nothing until the harvest is ripe—I know, we had a decent family garden when I was a wee lad. Took a lot of work to keep it going.
If I worked 4 or even 6 hours a day—sure, I could add some homework to my day. But not when working 8 hours+commuting. And many people are working even longer days.
I was a bit surprised rent wasn’t higher, but I wonder how many of the respondents haven’t moved and have rent control, so they aren’t affected by rent hikes.
This is a serious point. I couldn’t afford a place until I was in a relationship. And that was a long time ago. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be with today’s rent.
For one city in Germany there was an article reporting that moving in together became the new marriage, because giving up your previous accommodation means to be stuck together in the same place for six months or longer after a breakup.
Having a roommate turned an apartment from unaffordable luxury to merely 25% of my paycheck.
I honestly think having roommates is fun, particularly if you’re old friends anyway. But its crazy that a spot at the ass end of town was eating so much of my take home pay even after we cut the bill in half.
You seem to mistake having a salary for having money.
America now has more than 6,000 Zoomer chief executives and 1,000 Zoomer politicians.
Also, what if you’re not a CEO or a politician? Also, plus, too, how on earth is “small town city councilman” or “part-time New Hampshire legislator” a sign of wealth?
That was one single indicator. I agree it’s not the best, to your point, unemployment, homeownership, and salary averages are the ones that show middle class wealth.
I don’t get the point you’re trying to make with your graph. Obviously there wouldn’t be many Zoomers working full time; most are still in school.
Zoomers born after 2006 haven’t graduated high-school, and those born between 2002-2006 are in college. That’s leaves only a 5 year window of people you’d expect to be employed full time.
The line for millenials looks about the same as Zoomers.
I can’t read the entire article since it’s behind a pay wall for me, but graph alone doesn’t support or contradict the headline. It simply shows the full time employment of Zoomers is comparable millenials at when they were the same age. It doesn’t show anything about income.
I remember having to spend $20 a week on groceries 15 years ago. Now I’m spending ~$30. It’s disgusting.
Edit: I don’t know why I am getting downvoted.this is really about what I spend on groceries.
I may also have some advantages here. I eat almost a vegan diet. I do a large amount of cooking from scratch. I also will look for the discount items at stores and plan accordingly from what I find. The most expensive thing I get is Yogurt because it’s where I get my protein besides beans.
This week I was making vegan Bahn Mi sandwiches. (Cilantro, Pickled carrots, Pickled radish, cucumber, green onion, tofu, and Avacado that was bought the previous week, baguette)
$6 Yogurt $12 vegetables/fruits $1 Bread $3 sting cheese Cheese $2 Tofu $5 premade non perishable food items $12 bulk energy drinks, this will last me a while. Found them on discount. $3 pickles
So, we are up to over $40, but because I bought stuff in bulk this week. Next week it will probably be $25 or so.
If anyone is in a bind that wants food ideas, hit me up. I love cooking.
I spend about that if you exclude my splurge on Soylent for breakfast (substitute oatmeal, for example). I eat wraps that are 90% veggies for lunch and the premix Birdseye veggie/chicken dinners where I can get 2 meals per bag.
Soylent alone averages $3 each, so that’s already more than 2/3 of a $30 weekly budget on breakfast alone. Birds Eye Veggie Made Garlic Chicken is $7 for a 21 oz bag, if that’s what you’re talking about it’s (7*7/2) about $25 a week. So now we’re at $46, or more than 150% of a $30 budget, and we haven’t accounted for a single lunch.
I literally said in my comment that Soylent is a splurge that could be replaced with oatmeal. I don’t get it to be cheap, I get it because I like it and it’s pretty good nutritionally. Make that change and you’re under $30, like I usually am outside of that.
More importantly I was replying to your “only ramen or rice and beans” comment, because I don’t eat either of those. I could reduce my costs further if I did, but I like what I eat and don’t need to save money on my food budget.
Probably not buying pre processed garbage. I feed a family of 3, well not some rice and beans every night shit, for about $65 a week and I’m not out looking for ways to stay inexpensive.
LMAO Wegmans known for how inexpensive they are. You can go buy an entire pasture raised pig and have it butchered to your preference and vacuum sealed for $800 , get the good cuts too and have it feed your family the entire year.
I never said they do. In fact I said just that an hour ago in this thread. And a butchered pig will fit in a large chest freezer. It’s not that inaccessible at all outside of city apartment living. It’s a viable option for many.
So what, your probably Dayton, Cincinnati area? You a Krogers person? They are quite popular there and I found some links for similar pricing 2.69/lb. Found some pork loin out in Indy as well. Do I need to go as far as at Louis to cover my bases?
I’ll ask again, what rates were you specifying for pricing?
Why should I answer questions of someone who won’t admit they’re wrong? Unless you think I’m lying about not being in Cincinnati or St. Louis. Maybe I’m in both at the same time!
So maybe I’m further off your location, but unless you were making up shit earlier you’re likely on the East Coast within that radius of i70. So yes I’m estimating quite a bit and am wrong.
Ok, to answer your question: I never referred to rates. I just went back and looked to make sure. The only person talking about rates in this conversation is you.
So you want me to explain why I said that the thing you responded to me with didn’t actually agree with your claim? Because you claimed it was $6 and it was actually over $9 and so your claim was false?
Honestly curious about what you’re cooking and what, if any, dietary restrictions you’re working with. I’ve got a family of 4 and we’re lucky to get out of a grocery run in less than $150-200.
Wife is celiac and so the house is 98% GF. Once in a while I might grab buns for a hamburger.
Lots of pork and chicken. I’m my local you can buy pork loin or chops in 3-4 lbs portions for like $7. Chicken, especially whole is inexpensive but breasts and thighs can also be bought in 4-5 lb quantities. Produce wise, nothing fancy onions or all types, green beans, ginger, peppers, broccoli, potatoes. We typically have beans of different varieties as well as jasmine and basmati.
You add 30 or so spices, oils, flour, and a few other pantry items as well and you have the ability to do a wide variety of food.
I did exclude gf frozen pizza and bread in my og pricing viewing it as an exception. Yeah that shit is fucking expensive and making your own is 40 different flours and praying to a god for success.
I’m also considering just buying a few pigs each year in bulk but you need space for that which I understand you ain’t getting in a small apartment.
I don’t know why people find this hard to believe. Yeah prices are way up but if you take some simple steps you can keep your food costs relatively low. My partner and I spend about $50 per week but we live in California. We grow a lot of veggies, buy everything in bulk and eat simply - a lot of rice and beans, tofu and whole grains.
One of the key things is to eliminate or minimize processed foods. I.e. extract the value of your labor not add to some company’s profit margin. As a slightly extreme example, crackers are very expensive per calorie. We make our own for a tiny fraction of the cost. Or… as soon as you buy meat your costs are way higher. We do but e.g. we’ll buy a whole chicken instead of the cut pieces, and then make stock from the carcass (sorry vegans). Or instead of buying orange juice, buy oranges at a discount from road side stands and make your own. You can freeze it. And don’t buy things out of season.
Not to be critical, but when I see what people have in their carts I can fully understand why they find food expensive. And then they gotta constantly work more to cover the higher costs. No thanks…
People have nearly lost the ability to prepare a full meal it seems in this thread. I can fill an entire US sized grocery cart to the top and be under $300 and that’ll last a couple nearly a month.
You literally just need to buy unprocessed food. Yes it has gone up a bit, but not nearly to the extent processed shit has.
Yes it has gone up a bit, but not nearly to the extent processed shit has.
This is a great point. Big corporations always look to generate “value” out of nothing, and processed foods are a great example. And when they can take advantage of “inflation” (LOL) to pad their margins, they will go nuts. When margins are lower and the percentage of “value add” is lower, there is much less price to inflate. So to speak.
You could take an ingredient like potatoes, cook them and add flavoring and voila, huge markup. The potatoes only went up 1% 2022-2023 but the average price of a 16oz bag of potato chips went up 27% over roughly the same period.
I’m going to real, I don’t know how. I thought that this was kind of normal. Usually I eat a lot of produce, yogurt, and dried beans. I also have a garden. I’m trying to avoid processes foods and breads.
I recently moved to the south and have noticed that food was 40% cheaper in the north where I originated.
We don’t have a garden but have started one in hopes to cut the costs a bit. And started our first sourdough this weekend so hopefully we can achieve the same.
Ooh let me know how that goes. I wanted to try my hand at sour dough myself.
I do have a garden, Kale and collard greens grows year round which is nice. My recommendation for gardening is potato, Kale, Collard Greens, Tomato, Fresh Herbs, Squash, peppers.
Some interesting adds are prickly pear cactus, Yarrow, Rose, dandelion.
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