Frugal General

Rate my poverty diet, Veeky Forums. How can I make it cheaper?

In one week I typically consume:

3 24 packs of PBR
5 handles of Taaka vodka
3-4 40oz of olde english 800
12 packets of maruchan ramen (chicken flavor)
5-7 rip-its (16 oz)

Here, it's about 10¢ for a serving of pasta. Do you mean that the pasta + sauce = about 50¢?

Can it count if you don't need to be on a budget, but you're a cheap sumbitch all the same? Cuz that's me.
My dinner last night, pasta with brussels sprouts, cost me about 42¢ for the meal itself and 75¢ for the cheese. Good cheese is fucking costly, m8. Of course, you could cut the amount of cheese in half or use domestic instead of import to drastically reduce the cost but while I'm cheap, I also like quality, so I won't skimp on the cheese.

Also
>buying canned chickpeas
No.
A tin of cooked costs the same amount as a bag of dry, but the difference is that a bag of dry cooks up into about three tins worth of chickpeas.

no, a box of pasta is a dollar if you buy it in bulk, and about half is a very full plate

This is in california I'm sure it varies hugely though

This is what's cheap where I live

Buy enough carb staples for energy:

Cornmeal
Pasta
Rice
Dried lentils and chickpeas
Flour
Potatoes
Buckwheat

Some nuts and seed:

Peanut butter
Sesame/sunflower/pumpkin

Whatever money is left goes towards fruits and vegetables:

Cabbage
Onions
Broccoli
Spinach frozen
Carrots
Zucchini/Eggplant
Bananas
Oranges

Milk and eggs are expensive per calorie and unhealthy so I only buy them if I need a small amount usually for baking.

I'm currently at a place with a water boiler. sandwich press and a microwave, and I've started to drop into a cycle the last couple of weeks where I'm so sick of being broke that I end up going on a bit of a binge and then being pretty close to broke again, had some fun though.

Any ideas for living cheap? I've been eating a lot of steamed veg.

>a box of pasta
What an inprecise measurement. Let's go with the more commonly standard in the uS 1lb box (12oz boxes are becoming more common, but still can't hold a candle to the commonality of 1lb boxes). You're saying that a half pound of pasta is 50¢, meaning that 1lb is a dollar, right? And that a half pound is a /a serving size/? That means you're eating over 900 calories worth of pasta alone in one meal which, actually, is about 1lb of cooked pasta. Add to that the sauce and cheese and you're likely consuming well over 1500 cals in one sitting.
How fat are you?
>b-but i'm a powerlifter/i workout!!!
That's nice, but that's not exactly a budget-y life, is it? All that extra food, extra protein, extra this and extra that isn't exactly wallet-friendly. So how exactly would your likely fatty-fatty fat-fat lifestyle be relevant to the thread when you're self-admittedly eating literally three times more than people who actually are on a budget?

Finally, buy pasta from Mexico if you're in California. It's sold in 200g packets, which is about 7oz, but they cost 25¢ each, ergo, ~56¢/lb.

>expensive per calorie
It's costlier, sure, but you shouldn't be buying food only for its CpC. If you did, you'd only ever buy oil (about 54.5 calories per 1¢) and white, all-purpose flour (45 calories per 1¢), and we know those aren't a good thing to buy. And why are you buying veg if you're worried about CpC, anyway? Zucchine, for example, is $1/lb in most parts of the US and I can't imagine them costing much more elsewhere. They provide only 76.44 calories per pound which is less than a single calories per 1¢.

the box says 1600 calories.
if you're eating half per meal that's 800 calories.

the cheese I use is about 50 calories
the sauce, if I use any, can get up to 150
I usually use one or the other too

considering us poor people have 2 meals per day that's just fine having 1000 calories/meal

so shut ur fuckin mouth

>100 calorie difference is a big fucking deal
Well, looks like ya got me there. Bravo. Yup. You sure showed me.

>150 calories of sauce
So... a half cup? For a pound of cooked pasta? Sure, champ. Sure.

>50 calories of cheese
So... a half ounce? For a pound of cooked pasta? Sure, champ. Sure.

I really wanna know why people like you tell such obvious lies on the internet. Mindboggling, is what it is.

have u considered that these assumptions ur makin dont apply to me?

B-but poor people are fat because we can't afford to eat healthy!!!!!!

What's being assumed?

Drink less and it will be cheaper-- for example, drink 1 fewer beer and 1 fewer vodka drink per day. That could be easy.
Or, drink half as much as you do and your booze will last twice as long. That would be difficult though so you might not want to make the effort.

if a box of pasta is 500g, I make 4 serving of it, not 2, and they are decent size servings

No, poor people are fat because they either can't cook for shit or they stupidly worry about CpC, as though calories are the only thing that matter in diet.
I used to work in the court system as a translator interpreter. While we're not allowed to talk about cases we work on due to NDA, there's nothing stopping us from airing other people's dirty laundry if we just happen to overhear something or if someone mentions something to us outside of NDA. I once encountered a fatty-fatty fat-fat who lost custody of her daughter for gross negligence. The kid was overweight as fuck, yet had scurvy. How the FUCK does anyone get scurvy in this day and age? They pump vitamin C into just about everything these days.

Those are very large, yet still believably-sized, portions. In the US, 1lb, which is 454g, is the common size. For me, that cooks up into six servings rather than four. The box suggests 2oz (56g) as a serving, though IE eight servings per box, which seems way too tiny for me.

What do milk and eggs provide other than calories? Nothing, so that's how they're evaluated. As I said, milk and egg are unhealthy and their positive properties relate only to a limited subset of baking. Milk and eggs are not particularly filling unless you consume an inordinate amount, which, again, nobody should do.

Vegetables and fruits are purchased not to supply energy but for dietary variety, taste, health etc. I buy vegetables and fruit on a per-dry-weight basis, not per-calorie, whereas I buy starches on a per-calorie basis. I buy starches first and vegetables second with the remaining money, as I pointed out.

>over 1500 cals in one sitting.
>How fat are you?
not the user you´re replying to, but i do long distance running and cycling. i can eat about 2800-3000kcal/day and still stay skinny w/ abs

Went to the veggie market yesterday, got all of this for the equivalent of US$4.5, plus I have a couple of bags of lentils, beans and rice, so I'm pretty much set, at least for a couple of weeks. Now I can spend the little money left I have in drugs, booze and bicycle parts, wheee

Fat, protein, amino acids, vitamins amongst other things.

Milk and eggs provide various nutrients, complete proteins, some fat and vitamin B12, things that you're not getting from zucchini. Don't go overboard with eggs and dairy, but don't cut them out completely, either. They also provide relatively few calories, as you stated earlier. They're eaten for variety, just as you say vegetables are.

My diet, I suspect, is similar to yours. By weight, what I eat is very, very veg-heavy, consuming just about a pound, pre-cooked weight, of non-grain/non-pulse vegetable-derived food in a day. However, by calorie, my diet is very carb-heavy, deriving well over half of my cals from carbohydrate sources.
However, I also consume milk, eggs and meat, although sparingly. A dozen eggs lasts me about a month. I eat under a pound (pre-cooked weight) of meat in any given week. Milk I go through a bit more readily, a gallon every two weeks or so.

I pedal about 9 hours every day, roughly 2800 calories or so burned. I have a bunch of pedal machines, two at home under my desk and at the foot of my couch, and one at work when I actually have to go into the office. I'm pedaling right now, actually.
I eat about the same number of calories as you do, but again, I'm just frugal, not on a strict budget.

Fat and protein are not positives, they're negatives and almost everybody is consuming too much of one or both. The fat in milk is majority saturated, which is even worse.
Fat has no actual economic value, it's extremely cheap per calorie even when concentrated. So you're paying for something that's bad for you and doesn't have value.
Animal protein is harmful to human health compared to plant protein (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16201743), so again you're paying for something that you should be paid for to consume. Complete proteins are abundant in plants, even a potato is a complete protein, let alone soy etc. Fish would always be a better choice than meat, dairy and eggs.

Oh. You're one of /those/.

My favorites cheap food ingredients are

>parboiled rice
>frozen peas
>chicken
>potatoes
>onions
>broccoli
>carrots
>tomato paste

You can do a lot with these and they are dirt cheap. At least where I live.

parboiled rice is pretty wonderful
boil it, put on a plate, sprinkle black pepper, herbs, put some sauce in the side, and wala

you are a madman, in what universe are potatoes healthier than eggs and buckwheat a cheap option?

Are you me?

Cheaping out buying tonnes of veges then getting booze and bicycles.

Buckwheat happens to be cheap where I live (just a bit more than pasta), it's probably more expensive outside Europe.
Potatoes are carbs, fiber and a complete protein with no fat, they are also one of the most satiating foods known. This makes them quite healthy, however one chooses to define it. Eggs are full of cholesterol and saturated fat and fail to provide fiber, so they are unhealthy, though useful in some aspects of cooking and baking. Egg whites are a good choice for protein, but very expensive.

Well how about we start by defining healthy as having nothing to fuckin to do with satiating your hunger dipshit.

Also, Potatoes are not in any god damn way a complete protein. Plant proteins are phyto-analogues and most of the amino acid chains are not bioavailable to humans. You are either a troll or you will be dead by the time you reach twenty, fuckin child.

Cholesterol is one of the factors involved in allowing nerve cells (neurons) to communicate with each other and exchange electrical signals.

Payleo clown spotted

Question. I can get generic cans of frozen veggies like peas, corn, & green beans reliably for 4-5¢/oz.

When I look at frozen bags of the same vegetables, they are typically about 7-10¢/oz. Because we go through a lot of vegetables at my house I can never bring myself to get anything but canned since I've believed tiny price differences tend to add up over the long run.

Is it worth it spend the extra 3-5$, texture and/or taste-wise, for a 5-lbs bag of those varieties over the equivalent amount canned? Or is it a wash after the fact when cooked in the microwave or steamed?

>cans of frozen veggies
wat?

Sorry, thought I proof-read my post better. Should read:
> I can get generic cans of veggies like peas, corn, & green beans reliably for 4-5¢/oz.

tl;dr Frozen veggies are more expensive than canned versions of the same kinds. Is it ever worth the price to get the frozen bags instead, as far as taste or texture goes? I do buy my cruciferous varieties frozen or fresh (cabbage, califlower, brocolli, collards, etc.) along with carrots.

I buy rice in bulk 10kgs for about 20$, then a bunch of beans and veggies.
To the alcholics out here, I'd recommend making your own booze. Tastes like shit, but gets you drunk and for a cheap price

I'm broke for at least the next 35 days or so from being a doormat by helping a girl I know live an unrealistic life and cover fines, in thanks for her tolerating me.

I have next to no food in my cupboards and a negative bank balance. I already wanted to kill myself after a recent/ongoing stressful event and now I'm too burned out to be creative with what I have. I don't have much fat on my body, so I don't know how I'll do if I just expend minimal energy and eat nothing for over a month. At least my rent is paid.

What food is literal hunting for pennies on the floor budget tier...

>in what universe are potatoes healthier than eggs

How are potatoes and eggs even comparable? They are completely different food groups and you eat them for completely different nutrients.

Not even a little bit, chum, carbs are just as essential as anything else. Potatoes are ratshit.

I've compared them because he said that potatoes are a worthwhile investment whereas eggs are not because they are "unhealthy and have no benefits beyond calories" which is total insanity as potatoes are much closer to that description.

My main point was that eggs are not pointless. Anyone trying to convince the poor that eggs are a bad call is doing harm to those people.

Oats
Cabbage
Eggs
Apples
Pears
Celery
Peanuts
Sardines
Onions

Will easily get you by for months on a budget of 20usd a week

for an extra ten dollars a week you can throw in a bit of red meat and broccoli.

It will get tedious but it will keep you healthy and active for a long time.

would be easier to answer if we knew the general area in which broke user is living. some prices vary pretty much depending on location

>literal hunting for pennies on the floor budget tier
> an extra ten dollars a week
i think you misunderstood his situation

It's going to be a stretch finding equivalent to 20usd on the floor every week when I can rarely bring myself to go outside, but we'll see. Thanks.

I don't think that red meat would be a particularly cost efficient energy source.. but anything better than rationing a bottle of vegetable oil would be fine for me.

Milton Keynes, UK

cabbage, oats and eggs/sardines should be cheap anywhere not in crisis. Those alone will do the trick with a bit of salt.

>potatoes are much closer to that description
You haven't described how that is the case though. Potatoes do have fiber and do not have saturated fat and cholesterol. Potatoes are extremely filling, eggs are not. I consider satiety important because when you're on a budget you certainly don't want to be eating a bunch of stuff and then feel hungry because you made poor purchasing decisions.

>Anyone trying to convince the poor that eggs are a bad call is doing harm to those people.
I don't know what world you live in, but if you actually were to do the math, you would find that eggs are exceptionally expensive for their calories, and 75% of those calories are from fat. Paying a premium to destroy your health is not a good choice whether you're poor or rich.

Are you already really thin? If so you can probably last a month on salted oats alone.

>microwaveable dinners and frozen pizzas
>homemade sandwiches
>chips and various snacks, chocolate bars

all of those are expensive for what you are getting unless by homemade sandwiches you mean you cooked a big piece of meat and used that. the deli counter is murder

Preachin to the choir m8. I eat around 1100 cals a day and i'm lower mid class, always pretty healthy. baffles my mind how other poorfags manage that sick shit. fruits and veg are literally dirt cheap. I can buy a 10lb bag of very filling carrots for like 3$ and that's a lunch w a piece of in season fruit for like a month or more

It's been bad for a little while. Used to be fairly athletic at 90-95kg/188cm for a decade or so, but I'm down to 75kg right now. I do have about a kilo of dust tier stale oats though.

Baking your own bread is a good idea if you can get a deal on yeast packets. If you buy name brand yeast it isn't much more expensive to buy the end product especially since it is a lot of work and time

But the smell of that dough after that first rise holy shit

I can get a dozen jumbo eggs for 70 cents here. They are by far the best source of cheap complete animal protein. Even frozen chicken thighs can't compete

You live like a monk and you need some more calcium

Uhh, if you're baking enough bread for the cost of yeast to become an issue, you shouldn't be buying individual packets. In fact you shouldn't be buying yeast at all, since it's free. Look into sourdough starter methods.

Sincerely,
Ex poor

If you are on crisis budgets you are going to have to deal with feeling hungry. Feeling full has nothing to do with whether or not your nutritional requirements are being met. You can starve to death eating nothing but potatoes.

The eggs are not for calories.

They are for protein and vitamin D, chiefly.

For fiber and carbs/energy rolled oats are superior+cheaper and won't fuck with your insulin, unlike potatoes, which is part of why you feel full.

Potatoes will provide energy and very little else, what it does provide nutritionally can be had from more effective sources.

You can not think only about energy when living long term on a budget.

Yes

75kg is pretty rough, keep at least a cup and a half of oats a day as your staple and then supplement that with literally anything edible you can get your hands on.

you really ought to buy those frozen, they taste much better and I mean how much difference in price could there be? 1lb frozen is $1.20 where I am

although I'm partial to slinging a can of corn into chili

time to hit up the food pantry and the dumpsters behind your grocery store and little ceasars right after they close

yeah, they are not completely frugal
just my taste
for total frugality I say baked or fried potato with butter and salt; and pasta with tomato sauce and cheese

Anyone read Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day?

no, but I do it right now because of your post

A lot of stores will sell cheap packs of sesame seeds. If you grind them up and add them to some water cooked oats almost all of your energy and nutritional requirements will be met for the day including calcium. All you need then is a cheap source of fats and proteins. Eggs are a good source of fats and proteins. Fats are essential for many life-sustaining functions and are not at all just a source of energy. Fiber isn't necessary, especially if you aren't eating much. All you do with fiber is shit it out.

Top three cheap items for a nutritionally rounded diet on a budget are:

Eggs
Cabbage
Oats

You could eat only this and still exercise daily.

Insoluble fiber absorbs and carries out all sorts of negative shit.

Soluble fiber slows digestion, prevents cholesterol buildup and stabilizes blood sugar.

Excuse my binary language - insert 'helps to' as appropriate.

Binary?

>particularly fitting meat into my diet, which I haven't had in months
Good god user. Go get a whole chicken or something, they're like 5-6 bucks for 3-5 pounds of meat.

yes/no; does/does not

I didn't mean for it to sound like fiber completely prevents cholesterol buildup, for instance.

Damn, how can you down all that shit alcohol with hardly and food to soften the blow to your stomach? Do you have ulcers yet?

whole chickens
celery
onion
carrots
flour
butter
frozen peas
eggs
cream
salt
pepper
bay leaf

This list can make chicken and dumplings, chicken noodle soup, chicken pot pie, chicken with roast vegetables, chicken stock, chicken gravy, and likely more.

If you add granulated garlic and onion, shortening, and baking powder, then you could do fried chicken and biscuits. Add potatoes for mashed potatoes, and as an addition to the soup and dumplings. Or just have some home fries and fried eggs for breakfast.

Chicken and dumplings

youtube.com/watch?v=k0G5Q7muWvM

Egg noodles

youtube.com/watch?v=YoqV-YvWvw4

Chicken stock

youtube.com/watch?v=X6jOzA2MTfI

Chicken noodle soup

youtube.com/watch?v=45WXFbSyGm4

Chicken pot pie

youtube.com/watch?v=BCBiMvHmif0

Chicken gravy

youtube.com/watch?v=zZev3v2PUUg

Did you notice that I said its not essential, rather than not beneficial? I also said that its especially unnecessary if you aren't eating much. If you aren't eating much its easy to regulate blood sugar, cholesterol will not build up, there will be far less negative shit to be carried out and the slightly faster digestion is mitigated by chewing longer.

genuine fellow

thanks user, that was genuinely helpful

what type of bread should I be buying? Are there any particular ingredients that are healthier?

just buy what tastes the best for you

Full grain bread is generally the only bread that should be eaten on a regular basis. Full grain has quite a lot of dietary fiber, which most people are missing from their diets in sufficient amounts.

White bread is utter garbage, nobody should eat that stuff. Literally every other source of carbs is better. Try to avoid it.

Bread can be frozen. It's never quite the same, but if it's something you're going to grill (as in fry in butter) or toast then you can barely tell the difference. Bagels, English muffins, hamburger buns, loaves of sliced bread, etc.

That said, if you want to eat wheat, I would suggest noodles. Most people think of ramen or pho with a bunch of exotic ingredients, but any broth you like with any vegetables or meat you like can make a bowl of noodles.

Find a quality chicken stock recipe, bring it to a boil, and pour it over noodles. The noodles will cook as it cools. Top with a bit of parsley and lemon juice. It's comfy as fuck.

You know what I find funny? Every single one of the countries that values whole grains over refined grains has far higher rates of diabetes and obesity and a far lower life expectancy than countries who openly prize refined grains. Isn't it odd? Maybe, and I'm just taking a guess here, white bread ain't the devil after all?

And you know what I think really causes fucked up health problems? Having a diet so imbalanced in the first place that you have to vilify white bread and eat shitty-tasting whole-grain bread rather than simply eating right in the first place. Maybe if you ate a vegetable every now and again, you wouldn't need all that extra fibre from eating bread literally made from the refuse of the milling industry.

Go to a food bank you mong.

I forgot to add link.. Here's a food bank in milton Keynes
The Food Bank

9 Hollin Ln, Milton Keynes MK12 6HT
01908 322800

g.co/kgs/VQiDjA

Like I said every other source of carbs is better. Yes, you can make up for the uselessness of white bread by eating other foods that compliment your dietary needs. That is a complete moot point that you could use to justify any kind of junk food.

> Every single one of the countries that values whole grains over refined grains has far higher rates of diabetes and obesity and a far lower life expectancy than countries who openly prize refined grains.
Give me a source for that bullshit of yours.

Just another clown who thinks people in Europe or North America are ACTUALLY eating whole grains or are in fact actually following any of the dietary recommendations put out by governments and public health bodies.

>rich people say it's better to travel and do yoga instead of being a wage slave, therefore if you travel and do yoga you'll be rich too!

I'm not saying that they do eat whole-grain, I'm saying that they value whole-grain. Nobody has even an eighth of a fuck to give about whole grain in Italy, Spain, Andorra, San Marino, Japan, South Korea and many, many other countires. They all eat highly refined grains, either in the form of white rice, pasta, or white bread. And they're all at the top of the list when it comes to life expectancy. Why is that?

You can buy 500g of Tesco everyday Value cornflakes for 25p. I don't understand how they could possibly make a profit from that.

First of all causality is not causation. Secondly there is nothing wrong with refined grains like parboiled rice. You're bunching everything together with white wheat bread there for no apparent reason.

And I am still waiting for that source for your claim that the most obese countries eat the most whole grain bread.

Because they eat high-carb diets with limited animal products

I agree with you that whole grains aren't that big a deal when it comes to obesity and diabetes. Whole grains are nutritionally superior because of their much higher micronutrient content and fiber content, the latter of which is known to have a protective effect.

As an example, the lack of thiamine in white rice has in past centuries caused many cases of beriberi, and there are beriberi cases to this day resulting from white rice consumption in the context of an inadequate diet.

So it doesn't help much if you're getting crippling nutritional deficiencies from refining your grains. In the context of an otherwise adequate diet, white rice is fine, but its nutritional profile is still piss-poor. If the higher palatability of refined grains can get people to drop the butter and ketostix, that would be a good first step, but it hasn't happened so far.

seems 'cheap' food always just consists of loading up on carbs with mere sprinklings of other things. this will just lead to rapid fatassery

better to stock up on clearance aisle veg and meat and cook up some kind of stew and add moderate amounts of carbs and eat it over a few days

Carbs prevent obesity, please stop

You are thinking of cheap refined food full of fat and sugar. A high carb diet is the least likely diet to make you a fatass.

a lot of japs nowadays mix in other whole grains into their white rice.
you're ignorant

They don't, but they do on the other shit you buy. Loss Leaders are a glorious thing for people with no money.