How do I live off a grocery budget of $40 per week?

Food pantries are a thing, I'm not shitting you.

Eggs, rice, beans, pasta, ground beef you can use for different things

This. I went to one once and it was mostly shit (a fuck ton of cookies and bread) but they have different things all the time

rice and beans

kek.

This. Fucking fresh baked bread is around 70p. Absolutely no reason to make your own.

2 Q4U:

1) Is that money cumulative (or however might be best to describe it)? Let me explain: you wanna budget $40 per week, yeah? So does that mean that you only have, at most, $40 for food at any given time or are you able to, say, spend $60 this week but then only $20 the next to balance it out?

2) What the fuck do you like to eat, faggot?

I wish I could get decent crusy/crunchy bread for 70p/90c per loaf. I can get pre-sliced cakebread for 83c, but a decent, crusty/crunchy bread sets me back $4.50. Baking it at home costs me about 40c worth of ingredients (not sure how much running the oven costs).
Not to knock cakebread. I eat that, too. And enjoy it. But I grew up with the crusty/crunchy type so that's my go-to bread.

Bakeries will give away day-old loaves for pretty cheap. You could also catch them at the end of the day and see if they've baked anything that can't be saved for tomorrow.

Thanks. I'm well aware already, I'm afraid. Worked as a baker all through university. Believe it or not, it takes more effort for me to do that than it does to simply bake my own loaf.
I don't know if this is common for all businesses near one another, but coworkers and I used to barter with other places near us for various things. Gave the Mexican joint a bunch of cinnamon rolls and they gave us a huge number of tacos, for example.

to be fair that poster's initial point was to get fresh baked bread at 90c per loaf

day-old might bring the price in line but kind of defeats the whole purpose

>literally never eaten rice
>same with beans
>learning to cook now
Aren't there a bunch of kinds of both? What kinds are the best?

I've done this at some grocery store/restaurants I've worked at. Usually the coffee shop and the restaurant would trade free samples of stuff.

How the fuck are you struggling to eat on $40 a week? I effectively eat on $35 a week and I eat pretty damn well.

Learn to cook food that doesn't come out of a jar, look at sales your local grocery stores are having, eat more vegetables.

I have a decent amount of money saved and am still working. I would like to take 40 out per week for food but could do 60 one week and 20 the next like you said.

I will eat virtually anything. The only things I can think of off hand that I actually don't like are green peas and egg rolls. I get the feeling I'm going to be eating a lot of pasta, stir fry, etc. Just wanted to see if I could add more variety with any tips or tricks.

I know people can do it for a lot cheaper but I am happy with this budget. I'm more than happy to go cheaper though.

Everyone else thank you for your advice so far.

Assuming you have all the different spices/oils/utensils etc you can generally get by on a weak with the following things
>Bulk assorted chicken
Gonna cost a little less than a dollar a lb in americaland. But you need ways to cook drumsticks/wings.
>Eggs
Boil them, fry them, drop them in soup. You can also use them to make french toast in the morning as an easy alternative meal to fried eggs.
>Bulk generic sausage
To have with the french toast/eggs. This is a bit more pricy to your breakfast meal but will add that variety
> Bread
For obvious reasons. Get something that you can use for general purposes
>Head of lettuce
>Tomatos
>Couple onions
>Lunch meat
Use to make sandwichs with for lunch, lunch meat can be a bit pricy though. I'd rather skip lunch or have something smaller. The lettuce/tomatos/onions can also be used to make salads and burritos for dinner
Throwing out some ideas here and the multiple purposes food can serve.

Hand rolled Flour Tortillas:
>flour
>water
>baking powder
>salt
>lard or cooking oil

Filling:
>beans
>creme fraiche
>lettuce
>onions
>spicy peppers and hot sauce

and boom you've got a full meal for ¢
add a $ or two and throw in some cheap meat

Follow the recipe on the back of chili seasoning packets. Super cheap and tasty. In fact, many pre-bottled sauces will have recipes on them that are pretty cheap and easy. I get this Korma curry sauce where all I do is fry up some cubed chicken breast and throw the sauce right on top, then let it simmer and serve over rice. You can even just get a precooked rotisserie chicken, shred it up, heat up the sauce and throw the chicken in there.

Which reminds me, rotisserie chickens are your friend. 3-4 meals for $5 (plus sides).

If you have a grill, get value packs of chicken breast, brine them, then grill them. The brine helps the chicken maintain moisture so you can cook the shit out of them and they'll still be pretty juicy.

And uh.. eggs and oats for breakfast I suppose

Bread and bbq sauce got me through college

I regularly live on 30 burgerbucks per week.

I always keep these staples around.
Rice: cheapest calories around. Super versatile and can be boiled in broth and spices for better taste.
Pasta: another source of cheap calories.
Flour: make bread, pancakes, pizza crust, naan to go with curry.

Then I get onions or peppers. Get them in season or you can get the frozen onion+pepper or sofrito mix if it's winter. For inexpensive proteins go with eggs and chicken thighs - slightly less expensive cut but tastes better. I get the cheapest whole wheat bread I can find without the stupid fucking HFCS for toast and eggs, pb&j, french toast etc. Bananas or in season fruit for breakfast smoothies or lunch side. Yogurt (the quart-sized plain stuff) for filling breakfast with granola or breakfast smoothie. For spices, gradually accumulate a collection of spices every now and then. Italian seasoning mix and chili powder are good starters that I use a lot. Boullion cubes to make soups.

Also, always buy the generic brand whenever possible. It's usually the exact same stuff as the high dollar brand.

Just invest in a deep freezer and stock in the pantry and you spend most like 100 a month

>$40 a week
nigga

Just shop the sales user. I rarely get to the 45 mark and I have food for over a week, even from what people consider to be the more expensive grocery store around here.

Rice is better if you have money. You can make delicious curries and stir fries with fresh vegetables and meats.

Potatoes are the better poor food. Fry it in oil with chopped onions, salt, and pepper and smother it with ketchup. Like...you don't even feel poor at that point.

while this thread is around and tolerated, what should I read and look into to accomplish something similar, alongside learning to cook properly in general?
recipes/ideas about plotting out food/basic mandatory knowledge for an adult/such

Chicken quarters are cheap af, so are things like assorted pork chops and pork shoulder.