How to Diet with no Money

ScarlettVamp

I completely understand what you are dealing with. Due to my husband's illness, he hasn't been able to work since October 2011 and can't get unemployment benefits because he is physically unable to work. Right now, I have $100 to feed a family of 3 for the next month. It's SO hard. But, I buy tuna, eggs, rice, pasta, meat on sale, dry beans etc when things are this tough. Portion control will help tremendously! A pot of peas or beans and rice can last a week for one person. You'll get sick of eating the same thing over and over but desperate times mean being thankful you have food. I made a pot of chili the other day and we ate off of it for 3 days (would have been 4 but my mom ate with us twice).

Coupons are great and can be found online for free a lot of times, so you don't have to buy a newspaper to get them. Also, if there's a Publix in your area, check out their "buy one, get one free" deals. You can get things like pasta for less than $1.00 per box. Today you can get Eat Smart veggies 2 for 1.

I agree you should apply for unemployment benefits and try the local food pantry. Thanks to the help of family, I've been making it so far. Good luck to you!

mike5802

If you truly only have $20 per month for food, you need to get some financial assistance of some kind.

However, carbs in themselves are not bad. The focus of MFP when it comes to food is calorie counting. It's basic math: your calorie intake minus calories burned must meet your weight goals. You can be eating Snickers and still achieve a weight goal, although the nutrition factor might kill you.

Many carbs are both low on the glycemic index (GI) and relatively inexpensive such as beans and whole grains. Yes, eating beans and brown rice is not very high on the yummy list, but it gets the job done. I once lost 20 lbs eating primarily small bits of expensive protein together with oat meal, brown rice, and lots of inexpensive beans. (Hint: heavy use of spices can make this diet quite palatable.)

Cheers.

- Mike P

Absonthebrain

You can also try your nearest church, they will help you with food. :flowerforyou:

amwoodruff

My brother is super poor and super skinny. Here is how. Beans/Lentils/Brown rice cooked with some sort of seasoning (soy sauce, enchilada sauce/curry powder/whatever spice is in his cabinet) and veggies. Fresh vegetables are CHEAP. Buy 5 carrots, under a dollar. A head of broccoli is also under a dollar. Good grains/Good vegetables/Season - you can make millions of meals this way, never get bored, and stay under 20$. You can do it! He also uses eggs a lot, like, he made breakfast for me once, and it was rice, enchilada sauce (canned, so also cheap), one tortilla ( the little corn ones-cheap!) and one egg over medium. It was great, it wasn't that bad for me, and it was good for the poors.

amwoodruff

The issue with eating those foods is that 1 pack of ramen noodles is around 400 calories. That won't feel you up. If you have a produce junction, they sell produce in bulk for really cheap. One trick I have is making a bag of broccoli, califlower and carrots. A large bag can run around 100 calories and it fills you up. Get assistance! Go you for not being ashamed of posting this. Many of us are struggling. I wish you well!

*fill

I totally expect my ramen to feel me up, sexxxxy and cheap! That's how I like it.

EEpling89

Depending on how much you actually are able to spend on food, you can just practice portion control with really affordable foods like Ramen noodles, dollar menus, etc. Not the healthiest but it's healthier than being overweight. Or if you're a little more flexible, try shopping at Aldi (or a similar store if you don't have an Aldi but I've found their meat and produce to be above and beyond other "discount" stores) and cooking/freezing immediately. This has cut my grocery bill in half.

EEpling89

Depending on how much you actually are able to spend on food, you can just practice portion control with really affordable foods like Ramen noodles, dollar menus, etc. Not the healthiest but it's healthier than being overweight. Or if you're a little more flexible, try shopping at Aldi (or a similar store if you don't have an Aldi but I've found their meat and produce to be above and beyond other "discount" stores) and cooking/freezing immediately. This has cut my grocery bill in half.

I didn't notice the $20/month part. Too lazy to read through the whole thing.
Definitely check out food pantries. Canned veggies are still veggies. Good luck!

DebraYvonne

please go to a church food pantry -- you need more $ than that to eat for a month! I'd do dry beans, brown rice, sweet[potatoes, yogurt and try to find some meat in the clearance section and look carefully for sale items. (P.S. Call your mommy)!!!

Lynnmi07

Frozen veggies. Whole chicken on sale. Yogurt (some brands do not expire for a while and they have good sales). Bananas are usually very cheap u can buy green and yellow ones so they don't go bad right away. Tuna. Bread. Brown rice. Black beans and eggs. Is what I would buy if on a tight budget.

elisa123gal

you have a bigger problem than weightloss right now. Go to a government or charity food assistance program and get help. Also..go to a soup kitchen for a meal every day. I'd suggest exercising to get in shape..and concentrate on employment.. Good luck.

G__Force

Realizing its winter and depending on where your at you might look it to some farmers markets lots of locals bring in cheap produce to sell and its always fresher than most stores. You should get some assistance from somewhere if possible church or goverment theres no shame in asking for help if you truely need it. But above all else stay positive, you will make it through and be much stronger for it.

MaraDiaz

Eggs are cheap. Good source of protein. Fills you up, gives you energy.

felcandy

I was in the same boat because of christmas... I ended up getting quality advice from my friends on MFP and bought a cabinet-full ($30) of canned tuna, chicken, green beans, mixed veggies, corn, tomato, and chef boyardee for the husband :P

Now we supplement our stock with some perishables every other week, like eggs, milk, etc

actually ive found that having no money is helping my diet because i dont buy a lot of unnecessary junk that i used to.

verdancyhime

$20 a month isn't even $1 a day. I don't know how you can possible eat, let alone eat healthy, on that budget.

Beans and brown rice are a very healthy combination. Add in some cheap veggies like carrots, celery, cabbage, and canned tomato sauce, and you have a very low cost, high fiber meal that will keep you full for a long time.

Oatmeal is also very inexpensive, filling, and good for you.

Eggs make an inexpensive protein, as does canned tuna. Powdered milk is less expensive than liquid.

I think the first priority has to be increasing your budget if you're not going to be on a very minimal, near starvation diet. If a job isn't coming quickly, consider asking friends for a loan, using credit, or applying for food stamps. It is just not a sustainable budget.

This. Why are you unemployed but not getting unemployment? If you can qualify, get it asap. There is no shame in wanting to live a decent life while you look for work. And I'd apply for food stamps as well. I hesitated to do it for years, but I was so glad when I did. It makes everything so much less stressful.

I would start with lentils, brown rice, and canned pasta sauce, most are under a dollar. Hunt's pasta sauce is very cheap and contains no HFCS. I would also not hesitate to go to food pantries and get food there. You can call 211 for a list of them in your area if you're in the USA. Peanut butter is another good cheap source of protein, I used to mix it with soy sauce, chilies from my local farmer's market that were $1/pound, and garlic to flavor rice and an egg or two.

Guess what? Walking is 100% free, and burns calories. And walking while looking for work still counts. I would log your calories and focus on walking whenever you can, take the bus if it's too far to drive so you will walk between stops. You'll save money by not buying gas. Just make sure the numbers are green everyday, you'll lose weight even if you resort to eating twinkies and mcdoubles for every meal.

liquidpete24

I don't know where you live but I live in Chicago, and I know lots of social workers. There's about 7-8 food pantries I can hit, one even gives you a month's worth of produce to take home. Most of them tend to give you basic, non-yummy goods that are healthy if prepared properly.
There is one that gives you these pig in the blanket smoky sausage things, a metric ton of them and it's bad, bad bad.
Soup kitchens, too usually serve healthy meals. No shame in it, really. I do get funny looks because my clothes aren't threadbare and I have decent shoes, but there's all kinds of food insecurity.

Vercell

You have so many choices that are cheap. These are my things. I make sure I keep. bananna, apple grapefruit, brown rice, eggs, chicken, fish almonds, frozen vegetables,carrots.

ColleenHollis

I can say we've been there. I am also responsible for 5 teen in the home. Eating with a very very strained budget gets so worrisome and I had many days where all I could do is cry. So, I figured out the local food banks and got to know some of them. Let them know we were trying to eat healthy and some of them would let me load up on fresh veggies and proteins if they had it. Sometimes they didn't and need to make it stretch. During those times we downsized where we could in order so save (even more) money. Dropping a cell phone and having only one for the fam. No netflix. Shopping for even better rates on auto insurance. Not driving anywhere when we didn't have to in order to save gas. One day I was walking with my daughter in the neighborhood and we came across a house with english walnuts all over the ground. We knocked on the door and asked to gleen what they didn't want and they said "go for it!" Man that was a BLESSING! Those walnuts were so so good. I don't mind saying there were alot of times that I was scared. I also don't mind saying that it's been 3 years surviving a major lay off that my husband went through. He was let go and re-hired as a contractor. Many weeks we saw no payck. Yet getting a company to give him the time of day when he was at the top of his pay scale was next to impossible. We lost our home after 13 yrs, my 2007 family car (that was even harder). We spent the whole summer walking everywhere and if we had to, load the whole fam up in the back of our 95 pickup and pray for no traffic trouble. Things are looking up now and you can do it. Stay away from what I call the "pig foods" corn, flour, sugar and fight for healthy choice. You have lots and lots of great advice on this forum ) Blessings to you.

jigglewiggles

If you have an Aldi's near you, they have pretty cheap produce and meats. Also, you should seek out your local food pantry through your township, they can help you by providing you with food, and many of them have fresh produce days. I hope your situation gets better soon, wish you the best of luck.

k8ecakes

Make pots of soup! Low carb, high protein soup like chicken veg soup, beef veg soup, or even just veggie soup is good for a diet. You can also make huge pots of it at a time freeze what you do't eat or portion it for the week.

Use a low sodium broth if you ate watching your salt.

Good luck! Keep searching for a job and don't give up

Also: if you live by one, shopping at an Asian/Middle Eastern grocery store is better than a chain (e.g. safeway, giant, food lion, etc) because they get imported foods at lower costs. You can save money on fresh produce, spices, and often the items are in bulk sizes (rice, beans, nuts, etc).

RockstarPunch

Make stews, soups and cassaroules. If you need to lay off the carbs just swap the carbs for veggies :frown: even if there frozen .

Soup

Crock pot
-water
-seasoning
-onion (long shelf life)
-garlic (long shelf life (both can be powdered if necessary)
-black beans -1 cup
-green beans -1 cup
-carrots-1 cup
-celery-1 cup
- cut up chicken -1 cup
-dark leafy greens (turnips-kale-chard-whatever is on sale)-1 cup finely cut

put in your crock pot and cook for a few hours ( 1 cup is easily on meal and if you need a thicker broth add milk or coconut milk) you can also freeze it and eat it later.

Cassaroule

squash
tomatoe
basil
thin sliced potato
chicken broth
string cheese (2 individual packets) cut them up and put it on top
bake till soft
( you can do a cup of each veggie)


:flowerforyou: hope it gives ideas

You just have to remember your staple ex: fruit-veggie-water-ezekiel bread- fish/chicken breast, buy generic, look for the deals , skim and alter recipes and take time to create a meal:glasses: it takes practice but you can do it. Oh and if you can get your hands on some cheap protien powder (meal replacer or otherwise- sometimes there on clearance and some stores) it will help with the fullness---keep your self busy and delay gorging: do self inventory-do i need to eat-am i just bored-is my body hungry-am i possibly just dehydrated etc....