Surviving tough economic times (cheap meals?)

Honey,grits,noodles,RICE,lots of rice,dried beans,cornmeal,eggs,bread(get it at the bread outlet store cheap),canned meat like spam and tuna,peanut butter(big 6 lb cans for daycare centers cost ,like 7 bucks at Walmart).pancake mix(the mix with water kind)..lots of things you can do to fill your belly and still eat good....

Use your medical coverage to get Chantix to help you quit smoking if it will cover it. It works quite well.

Rice and dried beans and lentils are great for getting your amino acids and proteins and fiber, and like others said, start yourself a little garden if you have a yard. Spices work wonders.

Lentils boiled with a little piece of kombu and crushed garlic, then drained and tossed with oil and lemon juice and salt over hot brown rice is really good. (The kombu helps makes the lentils more digestible, so you get more nutrition out of them, as well as adding some of its own.)

If you have no yard, try to buy whats on sale and in season fresh veggie wise. Avoid empty calories. Buy nothing that doesnt add real nutritional value to your diet.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Chantix in the US or Champix in Canada. (Varanicline tartrate)
or Zyban. I dont recommend taking pills for quitting the smoke tho.
Acupuncture, will and control over the substance is the key.

I'm not sure if anyone has said it but you could use your cash that you get to fish. If you look in the right places you can find a ton of bait so you can replenish your food supply without spending much. perch is pretty good fried up and my favorite is northern pike but you gotta be careful of the little bones. some corn meal can give it that crispy fried taste too.

Hope it helps man.

reply to post by wantsome


i really dont have anthing nice to say here after reading ssd and foodstamps and smoking.

1. Talk to local govt. first to see what foodstamps, etc., you qualify for. You are the person those programs were designed for, so don't rule them out.

2. Talk to a local mosque, synagogue or church. Ask them to connect you to any non-government food pantries or assistance with utilities in your area. Frequently, you'll get better food from the local food pantry than from the govt.

***BONUS*****
More importantly, see if they participate in a network called "Angel Food Ministries" which buys restaurant-grade food off a vendor truck, and sells it in bulk at cost to ... folks like you. Seriously, you can get most of a months groceries for a whole family for 75 bucks. I made this its own item. It is probably the most useful piece of information on this whole thread. ANYONE is elligible, regardless of your own income. It is churches setting up their own distribution network, which keeps the vendors in volume orders that help pay to keep the trucks running even when their restaurant business is slow. you buying from them makes cheap food accessible for other families also.

3. cut out all processed food. By raw food and process it yourself. An entire ham where I live is about 28 bucks if you buy the spiral sliced kind---but only 14 dollars if you cut it up yourself. And it provides the meat of maybe 10 packets of lunchmeat, saving you at least half the money you'd have spent on lunchmeat. And ham in particular is a meat that freezes well.

4. Consider where you can garden. A community garden will waive fees for the needy. Or just a space between houses. Potatoes grow well in "virgin" ground, and produce all summer long. You don't have to store them until you dig 'em.

5. Picking berries. The end of may is prime pickin' season. it comes free, instead of in plastic trays at 5 dollars a pint in the grocery. I know a blueberry farm in Tx that will let you pick your own for a dollar a quart.

6. Visit a butcher shop
Most local butchers also sell milk and eggs at cost, to get you to shop with them instead of going to the supermarket. Look at the briskets--another meat that freezes well, and will cost less that 2 bucks a pound, if you can cook it, which is easy. All your meat should be coming from there, probably.

7. Try a farmer's market or flea market
The produce is often way cheaper than a grocery store.

8. Rabbits are easier than squirrel.
Particularly cotton-tail, which children can hunt without even using a gun. Raising your own rabbits is a better solution, but I didn't see whether you have a back yard where you can keep the hutch. They are quieter than chickens....

9. Fishing
If you have the time, this can add some protein to the diet. And if you don't mind adding the occasional turtle to your pot, you're in real business. A lot of fishing holes wont produce because they are full of snapping turtles; but in the south, that is a solution of its own.

10. Roadkill.
This is a lot better when there is snow on the ground. I grew up hard, in Texas. Where trucks "drive blind" in a blizzard. They hit a lot of stray cows and deer, but you never see that many carcasses unless the weather is hot. Why is that?

Note: the use of a pick-up truck as a sporting weapon is illegal in most states.

To all those saying to ditch the ciggs...that's all very well to say if you do not smoke, but if you do it's a hard thing to get rid of.

It's harder to starve.

Seriously, I'm pretty much in what is considered to be Middle Class, and I can't even imagine spending the kind of money people spend on cigarettes these days. I can't imagine how any addiction overrides the need to eat food.

Same thing with alcohol.

Pastas, beans, and rice. Small amounts of meat. As mentioned, buy the specials as they get close to the sell by date (even I do this, I love saving a buck or two). Make foods in bulk that you can keep eating meals out of, like a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs, or chicken and yellow rice.

Ramen Noodles...college kids can't be wrong, right? Hehe... PB&J of course.

If you do have the room, a small garden is an excellent idea for practically free produce. (sadly, my yard gets so much FL sun, it scorches any such attempts....or I just suck at this...)

I'm not going to lecture...I know how hard it is to quit smoking...and people have already encouraged you to do so. Between eating and smoking, I know what I'd choose! 'nuff said.

The up-front cost is a little high, but I would definitely suggest buying one of those vacuum sealers. Frozen stuff will keep 2-3 times as long in your freezer!! And it helps when you buy meat in bulk...just take an hour or so and divy up the meat into servings and seal it, pop it in the freezer and you're good to go! The sealer is good for putting meals into servings. Do a large pot of chili or spaghetti stew, what-have-you, and put it into meal-size portions and seal and freeze. Definitely a budget-saver!

Whole grains go a long way...and stretch meals. Plus the fiber really fills you up so you don't get hungry so fast!

My mailbox is inundated weekly with grocery circulars, I would suspect most peoples' are. Use them to find sales and bargains. Often they'll include coupons.

Good luck! If this economy continues its downward spiral...we'll all be living more frugally!!

reply to post by wantsome


Lot of good reccomendations here but lemme help you cut the smoking cost, without quitting or slowing.
Get a cigarette machine, bout $40 on Amazon google top-o-matic.
Buy cartons of tubes for 2-4 dollars for 200 plus a 1lb bag of tobacco for 20-30 dollars makes 2 cartons.
Best case a $12 carton worst case $19.
This is what I did and my wife and my smoking bill was cut in quarter.
Average say 10 cartons $45. each $450 total. we pay $120.
Plus I'm retired, it helps me find something to do if I get bored.

reply to post by wantsome


Hopefully times get better for you. You can try buying bulk nuts, peanut butter sandwhiches, bulk rice and bulk dried beans, oats to amke oatmeal (not the packaged kind the real, have to cook on the stove top kind). Maybe grow some veggies?

if you rent ,find a place to move to where you can walk to 2 different grocery stores,(buy whats on sale at one place then go to other one and buy whats on sale their too). a bank,a thrift store,pawn shops,public library, and maybe a small strip mall. then sell your car and cancel its insurance,when you have to go some where have a bunch of neigbors to call, and pay one of these neighbors to take you , still cheaper than a cab.spend your time looking through all these places you can walk to looking for bargins, they will show up, then buy.get a 3 wheel bycicle, you can carry plenty in one of those.surely their is sometimg you can still do for your neigbors to make cash? pass out flyers door to door with your abilitys and skills listed.cut your bills a little and increase your income a little and your fine.DIY Damn Self!!!! no one else will.good luck.

Coupons. $1 off something might not seem like anything that can help you, but if you watch the sales at your local grocery stores, you can get awesome deals. For example, I had 6 coupons for $1 off a box of pasta that I printed out. I waited for that brand of pasta to go on sale... 10 for $10 at albertsons... and bam! 6 free boxes of pasta. You can do it too! There are tons of websites that can help you. I like to use livingonacoupon.com, but that is because the poster lives in my area. Try to find one near you.

Also, buy frozen vegetables. Wait for sales if you have to. They don't go bad, and you usually can get a whole bag of corn/bell peppers/onions/beans etc for less than $1.

I'm going to make a suggestion which you might think is odd. But just bear with me. It will be a little costly at first but will keep you fed for over a year.

Buy a cow. A mature steer at least 2 years old which will run you about $1500. I usually sell my cattle for around $1/pound and deliver them to my butcher for free. You might be able to get one cheaper at an auction, but you never know.

Now after buying the cow, you just need to get it to a butcher. Have it slaughtered, processed and wrapped. This usually costs another $0.40/pound plus a killing fee (costs vary depending on butcher). If you have specialty cuts done such as premade hamburger patties or sausages, it usually costs a bit more.

All in all, you will end up spending about $2000-$3000. But you will also have a freezer full of meat for an entire year, if not longer. It takes a while to eat through 500-600 pounds of meat. After that, you just need to stock up on canned or frozen vegetables and seasoning.

So my suggestion is to save up as much money as you can. Make the investment. It sounds like a lot of money but you will be saving around 40-50% on what it would cost you to buy from the supermarket.

Another option would be to find somebody else interested in purchasing some beef in this manner. Splitting the cost and the meat.

reply to post by allenidaho




I have a freezer in the garage; we have friends who will go in on a calf and each pay for a quarter. They store some of the meat in my freezer in exchange for a share of the beef. A quarter of a beef will mostly fill an upright freezer, and set you back maybe 300 bucks, while feeding a large family for at least six months.

I lived for 6 months on $83 a month for food, about 5 years back. I was waiting on my job to transfer me to a HIGH paying spot out of state, and while I was waiting they put me on "transfer leave".

I suggest a few things.

1. Stop smoking. If you smoke, and choose that before food, then you have no right to complain about being hungry.
2. Plant a garden. Growing your own veggies will go a long way.
3. Clip coupons. If your store offers double coupon days like mine did at that time, you'll get twice as far.
4. Stick to the things you NEED.
5. Stay upbeat.

One more thing. Contact as many food banks as you can. Once you've done this, contact EVERY church, as they for the most part offer either food or store vouchers.
By doing this I lived normally for those 6 months.

Okay, surviving tough times. This is not about cheap meals but learning how to darn your socks may save you enough money to be able to afford another can of peas or a bag of rice.

I found this video very helpful. It's simply how to darn / repair your socks. Now I recently got 15 pairs of the most comfy, chunky, warm, soft socks at Universal Textiles dot com based in England. These socks are so pretty, (they pick out the colors) and so wonderful, I do not plan to ever be without another pair of them.

So, if the SHTF you can at least watch this video and learn how to darn / repair your or your neighbor's socks.

Not a bad skill to have and so easy.



Now the socks I got I guess are all gone till next winter, they are multi colored, big chunky, loose fitting, up to knee comfy socks to wear around the house or in cold weather.

My feet get cold easily and I hate shoes.

I've never had a better pair of socks than these and even though they were on sale and they picked out the colors (most are multi colored) they are so Englishly beautiful.