Post-COVID and inflation, we're spending over $500/month on groceries. We're a family of EIGHT, so this figure might actually sound pretty reasonable.
But $30/month? Is that even possible? Or is that just looney tunes?
Table of Contents: Eating on $30 a Week
Frugal Cajun Menu: Tips & Tricks for Inexpensive Eats
In brief, we're an old Louisiana Cajun family. Eating cheaply and in large scale is something we have done for hundreds of years.
Here are the major pillars of our family food operation:
- We kill our own deer and pigs and process our own ground meat, roasts, and sausage
- We cook a lot of rice-based meals: gumbo, etouffee, sauce piquante, etc.
- We have a huge garden that provides staples like potatoes, tomatoes, and bell peppers
- We get a lot of citrus, figs, and other fruits by foraging
- Oatmeal and Grits: we can buy these in bulk as our breakfast staples, and jazz them up with fruits and preserves ... speaking of
- Preserves: we have a pretty vigorous canning and preserving operation
“Could you eat on $30 a week?”
From a previous post
If there is one thing that has struck me through my financial journey, it is that I need to be more mindful about what is spent for our household’s groceries. With that in mind, it is no wonder that this article on CNN struck my eye – especially its question: “Could you eat on $30 a week?”
The premise, of course, is that families on food stamps have about $30 a week to feed their families. It is quite the conundrum when you consider that you can spend ten cents on a package of ramen noodles while fresh produce is worth dollars per pound, depending on what you’re purchasing.
In this article, the author takes $30 and gets a week’s worth of groceries, staying within the parameters of the challenge she’s issued herself.
I thought the challenge was interested – the choices in food that she purchased even more so. Why did she spend over $4 for two chicken breasts when she could have likely bought a whole chicken on sale for less and had more protein to eat during the week? Why name brands when she could have bought some items in bulk and spent less overall?
However, I did appreciate her need for a brick of coffee. That, I can entirely get behind … (especially considering that a can of Folgers is still around $8 and I cheerfully forked that over on Sunday when I went grocery shopping. *Sips coffee* … aahhh!)
Stories like this remind me that I have a wonderfully full pantry, stocks and sauces in my chest freezer and that there are lessons to be learned through articles like these … you can eat a healthy diet and you do not need to spend a lot of money. It just takes knowledge and some planning.
Actual Poor Student Cookbook
Here is a gem of an article from BreadedFishStrip that I found archived in some dark hole of the internet. Resurrected for your benefit, the "Actual Poor Student Cookbook" ...
No it's not. Ramen is only cheap if you're lazy.
A 5lb bag of rice wil run you $5 - $6 and last you 50 or so servings. Prices for dried egg-or rice noodles are about the same, depending on market.
If you can haul it, Walmart has 10lb bags for $5.
You can get extremely cheap bulk rice and dried ramen if you visit your local "ethnic" shop. They will have 5kg bags of rice or dried ramen/noodles for a much lower price than the equivalent in ramen boxes. What you miss out on are powdered bouillon cubes.
> Poor Student Cookbook: DIY Ramen - How to Purchase Bouillon Cubes in Bulk
Learn to love bouillon cubes. Almost half the cost of your ramen is basically powdered versions of the cheap bouillon cubes. You can get 10-15 for $1.50-ish. They give anything you make a flavor kick.
You can also easily make your own stock from leftover bones and skin from poultry or beef. Here's an example DIY chicken stock recipe.
If you have a freezer, you can make stock cubes in an ice cube tray and transfer them to a container with a lid for long term storage. However, this requires access to more than one pot and you know, the monetary capacity to buy chicken, the time to make stock, and the time to dose it in cubes.
A rice cooker is a really good investment, it eliminates one pot (especially with bulk rice) and it also lets you make other stuff in it.
Recent edit: While cubes are probably still the cheapest way to replace adding salt and give you some flavor, budgetbytes have turned me on to "Better than Bouillon". It's a little more pricey, but has less salt and more flavor.
For non-US students, some of the low-end supermarkets have equivalents - usually in jars or bottles. While they have a relatively large shelf life, the downside is you'll need more fridge space.
> Poor Student Cookbook: Shelf Life and Dry Goods
Dry versions of the following:
- Kidney/black beans
- Lentils
- Chickpeas / sweetpeas
- Pasta (bulk, can be noodles, macaroni, whatever)
- Rice (bulk)
- Flour
- Milk
- Sugar
Canned versions of:
- Diced tomatoes (Usually less than 0.50$ a can!)
- Tomato Pasta (Used for spicing up soups, stews, etc)
- Corn
If you have a freezer:
- Frozen spinach
- Frozen cauliflower / broccoli
Flour is extremely versatile. I'm not saying you should bake your own bread, but can you bake an egg? If yes, then even you can make pancakes by mixing flour (1cup) milk (1cup) and some sugar (1tbsp at least) and dumping all that in a pan. Eggs are nice, but not required.
You can also use that stock for:
- Flour: Browning meat for stew, giving fish a crisp skin when baked, making tortillas
- Sugar: un-tarting tomato dishes, other pastry, in hot drinks
- Corn: add a sweet touch to veggie-only dishes
> What About Soda or Pop or Soft Drinks or Whatever You Call Them? How to Avoid the Expensive Grocery Item of Soda?
>> By the way, investing in Coca-Cola as a dividend stock is a solid investment in this addiction. Just ask Warren Buffet.
>> For my family, we just don't buy this stuff. Easy solution.
Maybe the hardest. Soda/pop contains an insane amount of sugar, but more importantly: it's expensive and addictive.
Buy tea in bulk - your local ethnic shop is gonna have mint leaves in bulk for half the price you spend on soda in a day. Brew a tea with it, dump some sugar in it in a glass container and put it in the fridge.
Better yet: learn to love hot teas. There's a crazy amount of teas out there, from herbal and fruit infusions to variations of black and green teas.
All of them are cheaper when bought in bulk compared to sodas, and you will find that eventually a hot green tea quenches that thirst much more than a sugary coke.
> Poor Student Cookbook: Cheap Spices
Spices are the most expensive part of recipes for a reason. They make the difference between 'carrot water' soup and 'tasty carrot' soup. They are expensive at first purchase, but any student kitchen should at least have some of the most common spices that are affordable:
- Cumin (a 'curry' mix is acceptable, and sometimes cheaper)
- Oregano and Basil (necessity for Tomato dishes)
- Marjory/marjoram (Good on tomato dishes, also good on potato/egg/cream dishes)
- Nutmeg (always good on potato/cream dishes)
Other affordable spices are:
- Paprika (sweet, good in tomato/savory dishes)
- Fennel seeds (Anis-y taste)
- Dried chiles (add some heat to a dish without coloring like paprika)
- Cayenne (add some heat. Not as much as chiles)
> Poor Student Cookbook: Beans for the Win
Ah, the magical bean ...
Beans get a bad wrap for being poor people food. Guess what: you're poor. Buy a stock of dried beans (kidney/red/black) and lentils (any), and you'll have a steady supply of something that is filling, tasty and easy to use in any recipe. Indian/ethiopian/afghani cooking revolves around lentils, beans and rice - but they know how to spice.
Dried beans and lentils are extremely cheap - the downside is that dried beans need a 12 hour 'soaking' before you can use them. Dry lentils and peas (not chickpeas) are pretty much good to go if you're making anything liquidy that's gonna simmer.
> Poor Student Cookbook: Red Beans & Rice Recipe
One of those low effort recipes that ends up being amazing. This uses dried red beans and some fresh celery and bell pepper to make an amazing stew to go with rice. A small bowl with some rice will fill you up for a damn long time.
Here's your Poor Student Cookbook Recipe
> Poor Student Cookbook: Spicy Noodles Recipe
As cheap as it gets. Cooked noodles (pref in a broth/bouillon water) with chili flakes. Feel free to replace dried chili with sriracha, tabasco or whatever heat you prefer. If you got your noodles in bulk, this is the cheapest recipe ever.
As a bonus: add an extra egg, or peas, or diced carrots, or basically any leftover veg. Consider this a 'vidanche frigo - "empty the fridge"'
Cost: about $1.5 for 2-3 servings
Here's your Poor Student Cookbook Spicy Noodles Recipe
> Poor Student Cookbook: Chunky Lentil Vegetable Soup
One of my personal favorites, I make this shit a lot because it's so easy and filling. Requires almost no effort and the longer you 'forget' to turn off the heat, the better it gets.
Extremely easy to make, super cheap ($5 or less for a full pot) and very filling. Make a batch on full ingredients worth $5 - 7$ and you'll have a hearty meal soup for 3 - 7 days. It'll hold in the fridge for a week and only gets better with age. If it gets too thick you can just pour that shit over rice.
Cost: about $6 for 5+ servings
> Poor Student Cookbook: Italian Wonderpot
An easy as **** one-pot recipe. Simmer some onion and garlic, and then dump the rest in with some water. Add a bouilon cube. You don't need to boil pasta in water - getting it ready in the sauce it's supposed to be in just makes it tastier and is easier.
Cost: about $7 for 3 - 6 servings
> Poor Student Cookbook: Creamy Tomato Spinach Pasta
This requires you have a freezer - makes a lot of budget recipes a lot easier.
Again, its a one-pot recipe: dump your onions and garlic in oil until glazed, add diced tomatoes (from can) and spinach (from freezer) and your herbs. Dump your dry pasta in there to simmer with all that shit (use the tomato can for water measurements) and let simmer.
Cost: About $4 for 4 servings
> Poor Student Cookbook: Spinach Breakfast Bowl
Spinach breakfast bowl!
Definitely not for breakfast only, but a good way to clean up rice leftovers:
Dump some frozen spinach chunks with a hardboiled egg with your rice leftovers, nuke, add chili flakes/hot sauce.
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