My buddy and I were just out of high school and decided to go see a friend in Tampa , Forida, for a week. We weren’t rich and sucked at budgeting. We woke up the last morning and realized we had barely enough money for gas to get home, and absolutely none for food. We had been skimping on food all week to save money for important stuff like golf and nightlife, so we were very hungry. As we sat on the beach pondering the situation and gearing up for a 12 hour drive home on empty stomaches, lo and behold a young man walked up to us and said “Hey! If you’ll come visit our new time share facility and listen to our presentation, we’ll give you a certificate for a free lunch at that seafood restaurant behind you”. Our eyes lit up and we quickly agreed. We walked in saying “We’re only here for the food” and repeated the phrase often enough that they finally sent us on our way (with coupons!) so we didn’t poison the whole pool of suckers.
My big discovery in college was ramen spaghetti.
10/$1 ramen plus a 50 cent jar of store brand spaghetti sauce.
Boil the noodles and drain, then top with two or three tablespoons of the sauce.
You didn’t even need to heat the sauce because the noodles would warm it up enough.
Dinners for almost two weeks for $1.50!
My life has been fortunate enough that I’ve never had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for food.
But my coworker said when she was doing an unpaid internship for us (before you snap at me, I was a lowly peon with no power to fight an unpaid internship), it got so bad that she went to make a box of Kraft Dinner and when she poured the milk in it she discovered it had gone bad but went ahead and ate it anyway because she was so desperate. We’re mad that she never told us at the time, we would have taken her out grocery shopping. Or at least for supper. But I understand how pride works.
Once I and my girlfriend made a meal at Nathan’s from the free condiment bar - sauerkraut, pickles, etc. I think we might have bought a soda or something so we didn’t feel like we were stealing.
My roommate my freshman year of college let me eat off her stash of snacks when I was too broke to afford my own food. I lived off of a giant container of cashews for 3 days, and regretted it for 7 days
I remember one meal when I couldn’t afford the gold flakes for my lobster and caviar stuffed white truffles. shudders
Seriously though… rice-a-roni, even without the butter, is a treat for someone on a budget! (Yes I know this is an ancient zombie thread but I still had to get in my 2 cents)
Once when I was really broke, and went to the store to return bottles for food ( a paltry $8, and giving away my age to those who remember when you could do that), I came out of the store right at closing time, and there, in the dark, on the bottom of a shopping cart, apparently forgotten, was a 10 lb. sack of potatoes. I took it. I still beg mercy for that transgression.
My god, potatoes are wonderful! I fried them, baked them, mashed them, in short, made it to payday on that sack of lovely russets.
Oh, potatoes are wonderful! Apparently if you combine them with whole milk [and eat the peels] they are fairly complete nutritionally. It is no wonder they are a comfort food.
Occasionally when I was broke, I would make a meal out of baked potato with a-1 sauce for the umami to make it feel like a fuller meal. They are absolutely fantastic, they combine with cheese, with most other veggies, you can bake, boil, steam, microwave and fry. One of the saddest parts of being diabetic is not being able to load up on potatoes, there is nothing better as a comfort food for me than potatoes the way my nanny made them in Germany - she boiled them whole, ran them through a ricer then turned it into mashed potatoes with whole milk and that wonderful sour cream cultured butter, salt and freshly cracked pepper. My brother’s comfort food is Jansen’s Temptation.
The first year we were married, 1973, we had Saltines (the generic store brand) for Thanksgiving dinner. We were both students so didn’t have much money, but we were also sick and couldn’t stomach anything else.
I like Ramen. I usually drain most of the water, then add the seasoning stuff because I like it non-drippy and with stronger flavor.
I have no idea how to figure pricing for my cooking, since a lot of stuff winds up being snacks over the course of a day or two of grazing (I’m not really an organized meals person).
If you are a Ramen fan I encourage you to seek out ‘Indo Mie’ brand. They have 5 flavour packets inside, and are definitely the very yummiest ramen noodles available!
They are from Indonesia, come in many yummy flavours (try them all!), good alone. Superb with some bean sprouts+veg+leftover meat of any stripe.
(Had them earlier thins week. My favourite flavour is Rendang, Hubby’s is Satay!)
I made “poor student’s mac n cheese” by boiling ramen, draining, and stirring in a slice of American cheese. It was quite filling.
Outside of college, I remember standing outside a fast food restaurant advertising 29 cent hamburgers and feeling absolutely disgusted with myself that I couldn’t scrape together a mere 29 cents for a damned hamburger and a guy must have seen me standing there drooling and he gave me a dollar. I think that was the best hamburger I’ve ever had.
