Ways to save money that aren't "live entirely off rice, beans and chicken"

Gardening. if you don't have a yard, guerilla gardening.
Free food if you save seed from your store bought veggies or use a seed library. Just very cheap if you buy seed.

Most herbs are actually just weeds, you can grow them on a window sill and just clip leaves and a stem or two, theyll grow back

Hunting isn't for poor fags unless you live in a state with plenty of public land

chicken thigh
noodle
potato
garlic
yum yum

>Hey mr farmer man, cool with me killing those things eating your corn/winterwheat/soybeans/marijuana?
Wa la

eat pidgeons and cats.
there's literally no way to raise vegetables if you're actually a thirdworld poorfag.
I thought about living off mushrooms but they need way more cares than i thought.

Hunting and fishing is only cheap if you have nothing better to do and you have the stuff for it already.
We have dipnetting and people claim AHM GONNA GO STOCK THA FREEZER FOR WINTER and once you factor in all the gas it takes to get down to Kenai and buying a license, dipnet, and waders, you're paying 2x what you would have paid for fish at the fucking store. AND you didn't have to burn a 3-day weekend to do it.

I'm Alaskan too, can guarantee you this is false. You're not originally from here, are you? Maybe if you want to go combat for Kings. But plenty of pike, grayling, smaller salmon runs etc. Much cheaper than buying a a 10 lb fish at $20 a pound haha

Also factor it in with hunting/berry picking/fireweed jelly, you've got plenty. It just takes knowledge, some time, and not being afraid of /out/

>carp

Fucking pinbone nightmares. I'll take catfish any day so I don't have to deal with pinbones.

Takes like 20-30mins to catch my limit here in channel catfish. That's about $200 worth of fish.

I'm a farmer. 80% of my food comes from what I raise/grow. That increases every year too. Try shiitake mushroom plug spawn and inoculate some oak logs. Just stand them up on the north side of a building or in the woods where you can see them. Free mushrooms for years after that. Pearl Oyster mushrooms are even easier to grow. You can make your own kits from scrap paper and spent coffee grounds.

And the fishing equipment is free? And the gas and several hours it takes to drive to/from bumfuck nowhere where you can go fishing is free? And the time it takes to clean/package/freeze all that fish is free, along with the freezer big enough to hold it all?

Time costs money, and I don't have the time to hunt and fish.

Become a hunter or a fisherman.
Like, a properly trained hunter, not the fagshit they do in America with some dipshit mowing down boars with a chopper door gun, completely tearing apart the meat in the process.

It'll feed you, it'll teach you, it'll arm you and none of that will change when you gotta go innawoods.

Also, learn your plants and gather food. It may sound like shit hippies do, but gathering nettles and using them like spinach is absolutely free. Can't save more money.

Cooking has a high up front cost (spices, cookware, staples, etc) but once you have all of that, you can really dial back your costs.

Make a menu for every meal you intend to eat a home. Then make your menu according to what you already have. If you're really good, you might only need 15 items for 7 days.
If you have an Aldi's nearby, use that.

With everything I've listed above, you can reduce your cost of food per week to $30-60

Also, consider buying a chest freezer and a 1/2 or 1/4 beef.

There's something fishy about this post?

>$30-60
>crazy planning
>shopping at Aldi's
What the hell are you eating, I spend $30-60 a week on groceries and I shop at Harris Teeter. Are you feeding a family of four?

You don't think the farmer has tons of hunters lined up to do just that? The point is without public land, you'll need to hunt on private land and poor fags don't own private land.

>$30 - $60 a week
You're a fucking idiot if you think this is an accomplishment. That's an absurd amount of money to spend on weekly groceries.

The drive depends entirely on where you live. That other guy isn't an idiot because you happen to live far from a creek.
As for fishing equipment; you can got nice and expensive as with any hobby, but you can also just get some fishing line and some hooks. I haven't bought fishing line in years but I'm pretty sure you can get a roll for $5 if you're not planning on catching something large. Hooks are like a dollar for a big bag on eBay.

You could maybe use your brain and not catch more fish than you can fit in your freezer instead of pretending you have to buy a bigger one.

And as you've been told already; if you have time to bitch about this on Veeky Forums you have time to go get some fresh air and catch dinner.
Are you sure it's not just because you're a little bitch who thinks fish are icky?

>buy chicken whole
>Seperate in your kitchen and freeze/marinade right there
>Can make a broth/stock from the carcass
Like a third of the price of any bulk chicken is the 5 minutes someone took to take it apart, it also gives you more variety in your chicken if youre poorfagging anyways

The majority of humanity lives in civilization, not the countryside where you can just pop out for an afternoon to do this shit. I love fish, but the idea of burning a vacation day to drive out to the nearest state park to catch the four or five that would fit in my freezer is absurd. And if you think I have time to do that just because I have 30 mins here and there to post on Veeky Forums, then you're even dumber than I thought you were.

I do this too, but the price/lb is usually better for chicken thighs or leg quarters, which also give you bones for stock.

Cut the chicken and you save a lot more

You can make your own equipment really easily. Even the fishing line, though for $10 you can get rod, reel, line, hooks, lures, etc. It'll last an extremely long time if you keep the line out of the sunlight when you are not using it.

Distance to a place to fish doesn't matter if you live in a desert and want to whine about it. I own my own pond and have a river through my property. That also means I don't need to pay for a fishing license.

>food prep and storage

Same with buying fish at the store. You need to store it and prep it. You may as well get a fish sandwich at a drive-through..

The world is becoming suburbia. More people live in suburbs than any other place now. Perhaps you should move to a location where you have waterfront property like other people do.

I raise chickens and sell their eggs. The money made from selling eggs pays for everything for the chickens. They literally pay their own way while providing me with extra money, eggs, meat, and fertilizer. They even make more chickens. It is crazy.

youtube.com/watch?v=_pDTiFkXgEE

Chickens are awesome if you have the space. they even have a lot of not-so-obvious uses.

I grow vegetables in my garden. Whenever I need to deal with a bug problem I let my chickens go into the garden shortly before sunset. They go nuts going after all the bugs but it gets dark (and they go back in the coop) before they have time to devour the produce.

Do you need to "till" a garden prior to planting it? Just keep the chickens in that area. As they dig and scratch they will till the top few inches of the soil. Not to mention you get free fertilizer from their poo. They eat weed seeds too.

Got a big pile of mulch you need spread out? Likewise, just let the chickens into that area. As they dig around in the pile they'll spread it out for you. No backbreaking work with a rake, just let the chickens do it for you over the course of a few days.

Guinea hens are great to have around too. They make excellent guard animals and will make a racket whenever they see anything out of the ordinary (trespassers, predators, etc.). They are also fantastically effective snake killers.

>living in a poorfag place

sorry we dont all live in bumfuck nowhere,

I use raised beds and the coop is a long ways from those. I want to get a second coop closer to the garden and use some fencing to direct them right onto one or more beds. Most of my stuff is no-till since I rotate crops and the act of rotation tills the soil when harvesting the tubers.

See:

The chickens will still work with raised beds. Just set up your fencing so you can direct the chickens.

>burning a vacation day to drive out to the nearest state park to catch the four or five that would fit in my freezer
You're angry on Veeky Forums, man. That right there is exactly what you need to do. Not for the fish but for you.

You're in this thread trying to argue that no advice is good advice unless it applies specifically to you.

>Hunting
>Fishing
>Stocking a freezer with enough food to feed you for months on end

I don't know where you think I have the space or time or resources to do any of that shit. I live in a city in the middle of the desert. I could fish in Lake Mead and that would involve buying/renting a goddamned boat.

I find it hard to believe you don't have the time. Do you have an exotic job that keeps you on-call 24/7 or something? What's hard about driving out to the lake (or woods or whatever) one morning then coming back that afternoon?

>>involve buying a boat
You can fish from the shore bro. Also, hunting around Lake Mead is legal:

nps.gov/lake/planyourvisit/huntingmaps.htm

Christ on a cracker, that place looks like hell to live in. I used to bemoan living in a semi-rural area. However, now evertim I see a picture like that or fly over suburban wastes I am thankful that I live where I do.

There's a homeless guy I'm pretty sure is living innawoods of a park in my town and I see him fishing in a creek fairly regular. I don't know if there's anything to catch but he's trying.

Damn

if you're unemployed it is

Watch the mail for coupons. Those "two for the price of one" deals.

The trick is to buy ONLY what's on the coupon. One burger for today, one in the fridge for later. Fuck the fries and soft drinks. Empty calories.

All I am reading is "I can't do it no matter what!!!"

Yeah, some user posted that in /out/. He was living in Florida and needed camping advice ASAP or something since the hurricanes were on their way in. I can't imagine living in a place like that. Glad I'm in BFE.

Fun fact: your time really is worthless in the modern age.

>what are some ways you save money on food outside of buying in bulk and living on dirt cheap staples

>take a one week vacation in the spring
>go campin with buds
>catch fish all day. no limit on bluegill. can keep around 20 crappie and 5 catfish a day per person
>come back, clean fish and pack them on ice. have a few fresh ones for dinner
>repeat a few more days
>eventually get tired of cleaning them and just release fish from that point on
>freezer still filled with fish filets

i do plenty of catch and release fishing throughout the year, but can easily catch enough for an entire year over the course of a week. plus I get to enjoy a nice relaxing camping vacation at the same time

>Only if your time is worthless
>on a thrift thread
Time isn't worthless, and spending a little time get meat cheap isn't a waste of time, unlike posting on Veeky Forums or modding a shitty emulator.

That's not true everywhere
>be German
>pay 200ish € for mandatory fishing exam and optional preparation course
>pay 10€ per year for fishing license
>pay 35€ per year for license to the Rhine, the local river (and that's cheap, some places owned by fishing clubs are 200€+ per year)
>pay for tackle (including new rigs to replace the ones I lose on the plentiful rocks in my home river)
>spend hours upon hours, sometimes catching nothing, sometimes catching quality such as catfish, pike-perch or eel, most of the times breams, barbels, roaches etc.
Doing it for fun is ok, but getting a job and buying fish is a lot more efficient

look in dumpsters for food behind resturaunts and grocery stores. im eating two dumpster calzones, right now

But oh fuck

a wild fire appeared

You can get lots of stuff on clearance at yuppie stores like Albertsons. Pic related 75% off, $2 for two meals. Their management is so fucked up they always make mistakes on what to stock. Often they put stuff on clearance that is expiring but I grab what's on the back of the shelf that isn't expiring.

Or an advanced technique is to go around the store the day after their sale ends and see which tags they forgot to take down and when it rings up wrong you get it for free. I have gotten $1000s of food free this way.

That's pest control not hunting. You don't eat wild hogs in Texas because they're covered in parasites.

>Lives in a desert
>Surprised his food choices are limited if he doesnt want to spend money

You forgot your bling bling?
kill me

Cooking destroys the parasites.

>You don't eat wild hogs in Texas

texasfag here. sure ya do. just make sure you eat the young'ns. the old ones stank up the place and taste as badly as the smell

The point is that you're not hunting them for the meat/sport primarily. They're pests, it's pest control.

"Eat what you kill, that's my motto. That includes racoons and opossums. Everything is food.

Pork loin is very cheap, I bought 4.5kg for $14 and ate pulled pork for a week.

Bake your own bread.
Hunt for stuff on sale instead of just going to the nearest store to your house.
Buy whole chickens and learn how to take them apart yourself. It's easy.
Grow herbs and maybe tomatoes in your windowsill. You can even do that if you "live in civilisation".
Buy in bulk and freeze or otherwise preserve.

Yeah, you'd think such an exotic beast would be more expensive.

Definitely some cheap cuts of both pork and beef that are under-rated or simply unknown.

yeah let me just go rent a car so I can spend $200 and an entire day I can’t spare, driving around to random rural houses with “no trespassing” signs asking strangers if I can lurk in their yard with a fucking loaded rifle

ruralfags are seriously delusional

Guy got it straight. Now learn how to make dried meat and you're set.

>can't spare a day
>doesn't own a car
>only outdoors he can conceive are people's backyards
Yeah those other guys are morons. It's worth living like a caged rat because of muh things to do in muh city

I know a number of people who hunt wild hogs here in Texas. Some eat a wild hog on occasion, some don't. I don't know anyone who kills multiple wild hogs at a time and butcher more than 1 or 2 of them.

>no one mentioned dumpsterdiving

I remember how my dad used to drive 6 extra miles to go to "that cheap gas station" to save a few extra cents, and we lost more gas and time to go there.