New to Cooking & Very Tiny Budget

SpookyPuppy
SpookyPuppy Posts: 7 Member
edited November 13 in Food and Nutrition
Any cheap meal ideas? I live with 3 roommates. We don't have much... As far as money... But I really want to eat better and take care of myself. They usually get fast food which for me is a huge no.

I have chronic kidney stones and constant UTI symptoms. I'm not medicated for it. I'm always told "more water" "pain meds" "don't eat ANY of these things" ...

I definitely need more veggies. Fruit is fine too. As well as grains and low fat dairy. Eggs and some beans. Nuts and seeds. Any advice on food and snacks? Help is very much appreciated! Thank you!

Replies

  • cosmonew
    cosmonew Posts: 513 Member
    I eat pretty cheap. I make mostly stir fry's with chicken breast which is $1.99 a pound and veggies...whatevers on sale. I have come to love cabbage which runs about .68 a pound. I also like Spinach...I get a huge bag from GFS for about $5.00 and it is good with eggs or as salad or cooked in the stir fry.

    Just buying your food and cooking for yourself will be a lot cheaper and healthier than fast food but remember standard cheap fare like ramen noodles and pancakes and spaghetti are pretty high in calories per filling factor in my opinion.
  • SpookyPuppy
    SpookyPuppy Posts: 7 Member
    Thank you! Stir fry sounds good. And chicken is probably the best meat for me. I'll grab salad supplies as well. I just prefer cooked over raw, you know? Warm and tasty lol. I already avoid ramen like the plague due to sodium. But I didn't realize that about pancakes and spaghetti! I'll try to have them less or as treats.
  • NJCJF
    NJCJF Posts: 134 Member
    Quick and easy... black beans cooked with a can of diced tomatoes, onions and garlic over brown rice, melt some cheese on top and top off with some salsa delicious and filling
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,839 Member
    Beans are great for inexpensive eating. Google comes to your rescue, too. Try searching for 'frugal recipes', 'cheap food recipes', and 'cooking without money'. You'll find lots of ideas to get you going. Start watching for sales and what is cheap among the things you should be eating. Relatively cheap fruits and vegetables include bananas, apples, and cabbage. Although light meat chicken has slightly fewer calories than dark, leg quarters are often very cheap. Right now turkey is very cheap -- our local market has them for $0.59/pound. Cut the bird in quarters, cook it, take the meat off the bone and freeze it in meal-sized portions. Sandwich bags work well for this and can also be pretty cheap.
  • SpookyPuppy
    SpookyPuppy Posts: 7 Member
    That's wonderful advice! Thank you!
  • not_my_first_rodeo
    not_my_first_rodeo Posts: 311 Member
    Rice (learn to cook the from scratch kind, this will be cheaper than instant. You just need a pot with a lid and a measuring cup), add in some kind of protein like chicken thighs or tofu or whatever that you fry up separate. Then add in veggies.
  • SpookyPuppy
    SpookyPuppy Posts: 7 Member
    Thank you all! This is giving me lots of ideas. I'll also have an easier time shopping with an almost empty wallet.
  • MKEgal
    MKEgal Posts: 3,250 Member
    Here's a cookbook put together to help SNAP (food stamp) recipients make the most of the small amount they're given. Yummy healthy recipes, great photography, a nice departure from the usual bland government output.

    https://8e81c55f4ebf03323905b57bf395473796067508.googledrive.com/host/0B2A2SnkA9YgxaHdzbEhGSmJOZDg/good-and-cheap.pdf
  • 777Gemma888
    777Gemma888 Posts: 9,578 Member
    Do you mind my asking:

    1. Where do you shop for food?
    2. What is your weekly/fortnightly/monthly food budget?
    3. Are the 4 of you all adults? Any children?
    4. How much of your budget is allocated to pets?
  • Speziface
    Speziface Posts: 1,687 Member
    Oats and oatmeal are pretty cheap, filling, and can be supplemented with just about anything. And you can eat them straight or substitute for flour for healthier baking.

    Chicken thighs can usually be found cheaper than breasts, and wings are pretty cheap as well. And this time of year you might be able to find turkeys super cheap on a per-pound basis. (Just check YouTube for cooking ideas.)

    Fresh (not frozen) veggies are reasonably inexpensive, but also look for the store brand frozen veggies.
  • sammyliftsandeats
    sammyliftsandeats Posts: 2,421 Member
    www.budgetbytes.com is a great resource for this as well. She also works how much per serving the meals are (which will vary due to where in the world you are, but still helpful)
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    I love all these ideas. If you are new to cooking, try cooking one bulk meal a week, packaging up the leftovers. Over time you will have a list of favourites.

    Add to your basics list chilli powder, sriracha sauce, ziplock bags, and reduced sodium soy sauce.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/foods-everyone-should-learn-to-cook?utm_term=.hak6EaEQY#.kunYvKvoN

    Check out the chicken thigh recipe above.

    Buy on sale. Pocket the savings to pick up your next deal on sale. Over time your freezer will be full, and you'll have a little nest egg for bulk sales.

    Main meals are much cheaper at home. Baked goods are likely cheaper at the store.
  • courtneylykins5
    courtneylykins5 Posts: 168 Member
    Learning which fruits and veggies are in season can be a huge money saver also. Those will be the things you can buy a lot of cheaply. Out of season stuff might be more budget friendly to buy frozen.
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,839 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Baked goods are likely cheaper at the store.

    Maybe yes, maybe no. Bread is simply flour, water, salt & yeast. Add time and heat and you have bread. And don't worry if you hate kneading. No knead bread recipes are all over the web.

    And a budget hint: if you get into bread making, yeast by the pound is the way to go. A 1-pound pouch of Saf Instant Yeast (a very reliable product) is usually less than $10 and available online from lots of sources. It keeps at least a year in the freezer and is enough for about 50 loaves of bread -- to get 30 of the little envelopes of yeast is over $30!
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
    edited November 2016
    Eggs! Can you cook them well? It may sound funny, but it really can take some practice to get the techniques down. It's worth it though because it makes eggs taste so good. A perfect runny yolk or softly scrambled eggs can be a cheap food that you look forward to eating. It doesn't feel like a sacrifice at all.

    For breakfast today, I had something cheap and easy. Pinto beans seasoned with some chili powder and Frank's hot sauce, a little shredded Mexican cheese, some lightly salted cubed avocado, and topped with 2 extra large, runny-yolk fried eggs. Really tasty because I'm a fan of all those flavors.

    If you were to make this using half an avocado, one serving of cheese, and half a can of pinto beans, the total cost (using the prices at my store) is $1.93. Sure, you could eat cheaper meals, but this one's a good value. In under $2 you're getting tons of protein, fiber, and some good fat. Plus other good things, like phytonutrients.

    This could be made for 20 cents cheaper using store brand eggs, but I'm an Eggland's Best addict. To me, the improvement in flavor is well worth the extra 10 cents per egg.

    You could use the same general idea for the base but swap out the eggs for another protein. Maybe for dinner, throw in some cubed chicken breast.
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
    edited November 2016
    Some more thoughts...In my experience, protein sources and wasted food are the two factors that can most raise cooking expenses.

    One tip for frugal and easy protein is to buy your store's club pack/family pack of chicken. Mine sells chicken breasts that way for only $1.99/lb. In the package, I get about 5 lbs. I do some prep work, which then makes later cooking so easy. I do various forms of prep, but here's an example. I'll cut up the chicken into smaller pieces. In about 5 large freezer bags, I'll get 2 or so different marinades going and add the chicken. Usually I'll do most of the bags with a relatively plain marinade so that I have wide options for the ways I later prepare the chicken. The other I'll do something more pronounced, like cilantro or coconut, etc. I marinade them for a few hours in the fridge, then toss most of the bags in the freezer. It makes those later meals so easy and eliminates waste. I only cook as much as I know I'll eat within a couple days.

    Also, get to know what flavors you really like. That way, you can doctor up cheap bases into something you really like. For example, I'm a sucker for ranch dressing with hot sauce mixed in as a dipping sauce for chicken or a sauce to use in chicken or bean burritos. Knowing multiples of those little, inexpensive flavors you like can easily impart taste and variety.
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    edited November 2016
    http://www.budgetbytes.com/ is an AWESOME blog, and she makes a lot of freezer friendly foods (with tutorials on how to freeze the particular item so you don't have to cook as often.
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
    Chili is another great cheap food. Ok, I'll stop now. Clearly I could go on forever about this subject. ;)
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
    canadianlbs wrote: »
    and it's surprising how something that makes you think 'bleh' because you just ate it already can be exactly teh thing that you feel like having a few weeks later when you're not in the mood to cook or the budget/schedule is tight.

    So true :D

  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
    MKEgal wrote: »
    Here's a cookbook put together to help SNAP (food stamp) recipients make the most of the small amount they're given. Yummy healthy recipes, great photography, a nice departure from the usual bland government output.

    https://8e81c55f4ebf03323905b57bf395473796067508.googledrive.com/host/0B2A2SnkA9YgxaHdzbEhGSmJOZDg/good-and-cheap.pdf

    You tease. The link doesn't work. ;)
  • jo_nz
    jo_nz Posts: 548 Member
    http://www.familybudgeting.org.nz/media/stationery/pamphlets/Cheap Eats.pdf

    This is a cookbook I have found useful in the past when hunting to budget-friendly recipes.

    I am in NZ though, so hoping the ingredients aren't too odd for those in other countries! (an obvious example is kumara = sweet potato) Also, oven temperatures are Celsius not Fahrenheit.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    . . . oh. and the two things i grow in pots of my own? parsley and green onions. they're the two seasonings i can't be without when it's something that's calling for them, b ut i just stick at paying 2 bucks to some grocery store for a bundle of either of them, which i'm only going to half-use and then will either throw out or have to think up something else to cook just for the sake of using them up.

    they're great. the onions just go and go. supposedly parsley is a 'biennial' which means it lives for two years and then throws seeds and dies. but i forgot all about that this year and it just re-seeded itself, so i've got this great little parsley forest going outside in just an 8 or 9-inch pot. plus, i'll admit it's something where i'm really happy knowing there were precisely no pesticides or chemicals involved.

    i started out with the whole herb-garden thing, and i'm emotionally attached to my little rosemary bush. plus glad the oregano survived after all. but on the totally-finances level, parsley and green onions are the two go-to's for me.
  • not_my_first_rodeo
    not_my_first_rodeo Posts: 311 Member
    When it comes to anything in the way of cooking equipment: garage sales and estate sales.
    Chunkahlunkah wrote: »
    MKEgal wrote: »
    Here's a cookbook put together to help SNAP (food stamp) recipients make the most of the small amount they're given. Yummy healthy recipes, great photography, a nice departure from the usual bland government output.

    https://8e81c55f4ebf03323905b57bf395473796067508.googledrive.com/host/0B2A2SnkA9YgxaHdzbEhGSmJOZDg/good-and-cheap.pdf

    You tease. The link doesn't work. ;)

    Is this it: https://cookbooks.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf?
  • Chunkahlunkah
    Chunkahlunkah Posts: 373 Member
    edited November 2016
    not_my_first_rodeo wrote: »
    When it comes to anything in the way of cooking equipment: garage sales and estate sales.
    Chunkahlunkah wrote: »
    MKEgal wrote: »
    Here's a cookbook put together to help SNAP (food stamp) recipients make the most of the small amount they're given. Yummy healthy recipes, great photography, a nice departure from the usual bland government output.

    https://8e81c55f4ebf03323905b57bf395473796067508.googledrive.com/host/0B2A2SnkA9YgxaHdzbEhGSmJOZDg/good-and-cheap.pdf

    You tease. The link doesn't work. ;)

    Is this it: https://cookbooks.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf?

    Yes, I believe that's the one MKEgal was referring to. That's the same one I found during my google hunt. I have a lot of respect for the author for putting that together and posting the pdf for free. If I'm remembering correctly, she also donates the profits when people purchase the hard copy.

    I skimmed through it the other day. What can make it so hard to cook in the way she or other low cost recipe writers describe is, yes, the meal falls within the budget but having all the components on hand doesn't necessarily. Some investment has to occur first. Still, it's great work she's doing. :)
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    Red beans and brown rice, cooked with a ham hock for flavor is cheap and nutritious (you can buy big bags of beans and brown rice cheap). I also like caldo verde, which is a Portuguese kale-potato soup that's cheap to make if you find a spicy sausage to use that is on sale. Look in your local grocery for store brand frozen veggies and frozen fruits to save money. As someone else pointed out, eggs are also a great inexpensive source of protein; so is peanut butter. Here's a source for recipes:

    http://allrecipes.com/recipes/15522/everyday-cooking/budget-cooking

    If you search in Google or Bing for "budget recipes" you'll get a lot of ideas. Also, you might visit your local library and see if there are budget recipe books you can copy recipes from. I'm not a coupon clipper, but that's another way people save a lot of money.
  • fastingrabbit
    fastingrabbit Posts: 90 Member
    What a wonderful thread this is. It's not easy to balance healthy & budget-friendly & tasty & fast, but some of these ideas make it sound like a lot of fun!
  • Vanilla_Lattes
    Vanilla_Lattes Posts: 251 Member
    NJCJF wrote: »
    Quick and easy... black beans cooked with a can of diced tomatoes, onions and garlic over brown rice, melt some cheese on top and top off with some salsa delicious and filling

    I can't tell you how often I eat canned beans and canned diced tomatoes. I love it.
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