A guy I know from college survived an entire semester on a single ten pound bag of discounted potatoes. Beat that!
Big sacks of rice and dried beans will go a long way, as will eggs and oatmeal. If you can find a good price, definitely buy chicken that has the skin and bones still attached, never the boneless skinless stuff. Avoid any flesh that is marked with “up to XX% water/brine/vegetable broth/phosphate solution” huge rip off there. Drink only water or home brewed tea. Avoid anything premade-soups, sauces, breakfast cereals, frozen dinners, are all big markup items that are much cheaper to make yourself, or substitute for. Use your freezer. Raw meat will keep way longer than you think when wrapped well and frozen liquids will keep for years with no real changes. And stay away from ramen noodles! Those things are full of saturated fat and a coronary bypass is a hell of a lots more expensive than a box of proper macaroni.
The real trick, I think, is to change how you shop. Obviously, Walmart is usually the cheapest, but not always. Write down everything you think you could possibly consider buying, then go around to every store in town and write down the prices. It’s a pain, but if you know what is cheapest where, you can hit them all in one trip (bring a cooler). If there are loss leader crazy cheap items at a particular store, only buy those items and get everything else cheaper elsewhere. Asian markets are generally the cheapest place in town for spices, condiments, and fresh vegetables. You may even be able to get fish there that will fit your budget. Most supermarkets will have a last day of sale bin in the meat section, go back several days in a row to stock up (it always changes, right?) and freeze the excess. One strategy that may not work well for your short time frame, but will definitely pay off in the long term is to pony up the $25 bucks to shop at Sam’s Club or Costco. If you avoid the wallet-sapping prepared junk, you can get insanely low prices on fresh and frozen produce, meats, drugs, and cleaning supplies (I realize the last 2 are not on your list, but they can be very cheap indeed).
My wife and I lived like this for 6 years and we never wanted for anything, foodwise. Plus it’s fun to tell people that you only eat out-of-date meat.
10 lb of potatoes to last a whole semester? As in 15 or so weeks? That’s an ounce and a half a day. Not likely, except in the most dire situations.
Hispanic markets are another good source of cheap food. You can very cheaply buy bulk rice and beans, and the meat (although not of the best quality) is quite cheap. I often buy pork shoulder for well under $1 a pound. Bulk corn tortillas are to be had at a fraction of the cost of big chain supermarkets, and the produce section is a bargain, as well.
This for a treat. We’ve had very delicious lamb chops this way for almost nothing. When you shop, note meat where there is lots of product and very close expiration dates, and come back for it.
Water is fine with dinner, and you can make lots of ice tea with a few tea bags. Store in the fridge. Soda is expensive.
Tour the supermarkets with a list of possible purchases, and find the ones with the lowest standard prices. You can at least budget that way. Then, make sure you get the specials, and plan meals around them. Make a menu, and stick to it and use it for your shopping list. It keeps you from buying stuff that looks good, and cuts down on trips to the grocery.
I second the recommendation for going to the bakery thrift store if there is one near you. Bread is about half the prices as the grocery, and I’ve never had problems. They also have Boboli pizza sets for almost nothing. You need cheese, but it is a lot cheaper than a frozen pizza. Save all leftovers. You might be able to swing one leftover meal a week, which saves a lot.
If you have room, cook two chickens at once. Whole chickens are often cheaper than parts, you can freeze one for later, and you can eat one and save the remains for lunches. I agree that it is cheaper than deli meat - also much tastier.
I love this kind of thread/project. Cisco, I hope you are keeping a diary of what you eat, along with cost calculations and how it tastes/how you feel. I’d love to hear how this comes out.
I am the master of cheap eats but all the good suggestions I have are already upthread. The only thing I might emphasize a bit more is the peanut butter - buy a large jar of a cheap brand and a spoonful when you get hungry is a great snack. It also makes a base for a vaguely Asian-style noodle sauce - melt the pb over low heat, gradually stir in an equal amount of water (the pb will thicken at first, strange as that seems). Add salt/soy sauce, lemon juice/vinegar, pepper/tabasco, and sugar according to taste and what you’ve purchased with your $100. (Garlic or garlic salt would be nice, but probably too pricy unless you get a big head of garlic cheap and use it to flavor a lot of your dishes.) Add more water as needed to get to your preferred consistency, and toss with noodles.
If you had the space, and the time, you could get a few chickens. They will forage for themselves, and eat any table scraps, and give you free eggs in return.
Also, there’s lots of free citrus coming - I already have loads of limes falling from my trees, and lemons are starting to ripen.
I recommend planning meals, and making your grocery list based on the planned meals. Don’t buy anything that doesn’t go with the plan!
Coupons are great, too, but there aren’t too many for “bulk” items. Sometimes stores give out house brand coupons with the receipt. Read the flyers that come in the mail or the newspaper and scope out the sales - that’s where my weekly menus come from. $1.99/lb chicken legs that you BBQ and a can of beans are a cheap couple of meals.
I do find that buying in bulk can be kind of expensive in the short term, however. Don’t forget freezer bags or freezer paper!
Rice and beans, canned veggies, ramen. Don’t buy soup; buy some bullion cubes and add your own rice/noodles/veggies. Peanut butter on saltines for your salty snack needs, plus it’s a protein boost. Eggs can be any anytime food and pack a lot of calories per buck: scramble some up with a little bit of cheese, maybe some canned tomatoes. When I lived in London and was Very Very Broke I basically lived on varying combinations of rice, pasta, beans, canned tomatoes, and when I was feeling indulgent, some cheese (bricks, not pre-shredded).
If your tastes are anything like mine, I’d say splurge on a shaker of garlic salt or just plain garlic powder, because a little can go a long way.
For breakfast, oatmeal is good, so is generic cereal you can buy in bulk - you know, “Oat O’s” or whatever. Dried milk, and you might want to check the prices on the boxed, non-refrigerated milk, I don’t know what the price difference is. Or, just go without milk.
Forget about any beverages except for water and, if you need a caffeine fix, cheap tea or coffee.
Plan ahead.
Buy one chicken. cut it up. Skin it, cut out the backbone. then remove the white meat. That meat is at least two meals, better four, if you use it for stir fried rice. The legs you can bake, at least two more meals, four if you cut back. The skin, bones, neck, giblets, and backbone make soup.
Buy a bag of onions. Bag of rice, bag of beans. (Not a whole lot of rice, it’s only a month.) A bag of mung beans, sprout a tablespoon a day, takes three or four days, so keep several going. use in your stir fry, and your soup.
When you shop, get the last day of sale meats, usually thirty percent or more off. Use sparingly, keeping the leftovers. Meat is a condiment for you now.
A few bags of frozen veggies, your favorites, if they are cheap. Or, one big bag from the warehouse stores. Use in stir fry, and in soups. Soy sauce. (I find enough of the little packets in the break room at work not to have to buy them)
Forget coffee.
Whole oats, good for you, and fairly cheap. Microwave them in water (a cup with a half cup of oats.) for about three minutes, and let sit. Sugar if you need it, sparingly. Cinnamon is nice, if there is some already in the house.
Day old bread, make it last by making toast. Peanut butter on multigrain bread is a complete protein meal. Jelly and jam are expensive.
Drink water.
For long term, bulk buying is great, but for one month, forget it.
Tris
Oh yeah? Well my mother’s sister’s husband’s wife’s sister’s brother’s son’s gay lover’s nephew’s hairdresser’s stockbroker’s sister survived for 150 years on a single slice of bread.
Thanks for all suggestions so far. I appreciate them all.
How much are you guys paying for milk? It usually lists for ~$3.50 here but it is always on sale for under $2 a gallon. I paid $1.88 tonight for a gallon that doesn’t expire until 11/16. The stuff with < 5 days left is usually “manager’s special” for $0.99.
Please, no canned veggies! If you’re not doing fresh, at least do frozen. Canned veggies taste nasty and they have fewer nutrients.
Oatmeal is always good…sticks to the ribs, you can make it sweet or savory and it’s fairly cheap!
Grow sprouts in mason jars on your kitchen counter.A quart of alfalfa or red clover sprouts will cost you less than 25 cents if you buy the seeds in bulk.
Do you have an Aldi in your area? While not everything they offer is super cheap, the staples almost always are. They’ve also drastically improved their fresh produce over the last few years, but it’s still fairly cheap. Things like cans of vegetables or beans are great to stock up on here, as well as milk, eggs, bread, Ramen noodles and so on. Bring your own grocery bags.
Meat is often cheaper if you buy it in larger pieces and cut it up - admittedly, this can bite a big chunk out of your budget and leave you eating the same kind of thing for days on end in a scenario like this, but if economy is the key, buying a joint of beef and cutting it into steaks is usually cheaper than buying the equivalent weight of steaks.
Likewise, a whole chicken ought to be cheaper than the equivalent parts sold as portions - although of course here, some of the cuts are cheaper than others (wings, for example).
Consider making several meals out of one resource - for example. a whole chicken can be:
-roasted and served with potatoes and vegetables
-Picked over for meat to go in sandwiches the next day
-bones boiled down for stock to make risotto or soup the third day
Plain flour is a cheap, remarkably versatile ingredient - and you can use it to make dumplings to bulk out a soup, bread, cakes, pancakes, etc.
Actually, for the past year dried milk has been more expensive than liquid milk in my area. I recommend comparison shopping.
Good suggestion. Always comparison shop - and remember that advice from one end of the country is not always good at the other end (free citrus - in Minnesota the idea that trees might drop a lemon is something alien - on the other hand - wild rice - a luxury in other parts of the country - can be purchased here for something approaching reasonable over at the Farmer’s market - probably not still budget - and adds a lot of variety to grains).
If you really want the experiment to be more accurate, a person with little money can’t use a lot of spices. Use only ones you can by for a dollar. It sucks when you run out of all your spices and extra ingredients.
You can freeze milk of you get a good deal on it. We did it for years. Just shake it well after it thaws.