Tips: eating right on $7-$10/day?
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cedric_says
Posts: 26 Member
I'm trying to eat healthy on a small budget.
Running a small business has left me little time to shop and cook on a regular basis so I end up eating out a lot.
Meal prepping sounds great but after a few days of eating the same cold left overs gets old.
Please share your tips on eating right on a budget of $10/day or less below!
Running a small business has left me little time to shop and cook on a regular basis so I end up eating out a lot.
Meal prepping sounds great but after a few days of eating the same cold left overs gets old.
Please share your tips on eating right on a budget of $10/day or less below!
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Replies
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I am doing the college student budget diet; sometimes keto diet.
This is my groceries per week:
Cooked Rotisserie or fried chicken from the store: ($10) - Lasts the week
Butter ($3)
Broccoli sprouts ($2.50 )& random veggies ($3-4)
Bread/other carbs ($2-3)
Get a glass Tupperware, in the morning, put some chicken, butter, bread and veggies and take it to go for the day.
All in its like $50 a month. Works great. If you're broke then eating the same food repeatedly is almost a necessity but at least its healthy.
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$7-$10 a day is $49-$70 a week, that should be easy to manage for one person.12
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I would really, really suggest cooking lentils and adding meat or vegetables as needed. They are cheap, easy, tasty and healthy.3
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Check if there is a discount grocery in your area. I can spend under $30 for tons of fresh veggies, beans, bread, yogurt, etc. I also shop the meat sales at the bigger grocery stores. I feed myself and my husband for under $50 a week so you should be able to stay within your budget if you do a little planning. It's going to be hard to eat out on $7-$10 a day so you may need to fit some meal prep into your schedule somewhere.
The rotisserie chicken is a grand idea. As a single person you could eat on that for many days and put any leftovers in the freezer. Other quick things are bagged salads and canned beans or fruit. Cottage cheese and pineapple is a good quick breakfast for low cals and not very pricey. Tortillas are good for making tacos or quesadillas (with the chicken, veg and beans). You can do that in the microwave in less than a minute.3 -
Meal prepping doesn't mean eating cold food... You can prep meals that require reheating. Obviously some foods are a bit gross reheated (dry double cooked chicken! Urgh) but if you're smart about your selections you can have a decent tasting meal.3
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Hi, @cedric_says
A couple meal planning resources to get you started:
https://www.budgetbytes.com/meal-prep-101-a-beginners-guide/
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/food/meal-planning-that-works/
I think that learning to meal plan, batch cook, and use your freezer as a resource is definitely a skill set worth cultivating.
Meal planning ensures I stay away from fast food when working 12-hour shifts, encourages me to eat healthy, and makes it easy to stay on budget. I can tell you to the penny how much I spent on food for the last four years (I'm such a nerd) My annualized food spending will range from a low of $185/month to a high of $300/month depending on whether I'm restocking the pantry and freezer (which includes bulk purchases of grass-fed bison and free-range pork direct from a farmer) or deliberately not buying while eating down the pantry and freezer.
I set my menu for a week at a time. I like to do my planning on Thursday nights because I rarely need to work late on Thursdays. I use a 2-page spread in my bullet journal to write it out long hand. There are many online tools you can explore, but I like scratching out my ideas in doodle fashion. Thursday is also the day the grocery store flyers are published, and sometimes a really good sale will inspire my next week's meal plan. I use the Flipp app to browse the flyers for all the stores in my area and price compare. It's a free app, and it will work in the USA and Canada. I also browse blogs for recipe ideas, print the most appealing ones to pdf, and file them digitally in a folder where I can pull new recipes I want to try. I'll be making a batch of Slow Cooker Coconut Curry Lentils tomorrow for the first time, part of my challenge to incorporate more meatless meals in my diet. I shop my pantry and freezer first for ingredients already on hand, or meals I've previously batch cooked and frozen, then create a shopping list for what I don't have.
After a while, I can just flip back through my previous weeks and re-use a menu and shopping list.
Hope this helps. Good luck.5 -
Wow!! Thank you for all the feedback! I appreciate you all taking the time to share. I will definitely consider the resources you all have recommended.3
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biggest advice - shop around, get shopper discount cards for all available grocery stores (I personally i have/use giant, safeway, food lion and shoppers - those discounts add up - i think my giant is over $150 to date this year and you can earn points towards discounts on gas at the same time).
plan your meals around the proteins on sale for the week - i normally make 4 servings of each meal - 2 for dinner and 2 for lunch1 -
Freeze what's left when you get sick of something...will last ages in freezer, and may be in the mood for it again in a batch or 2 of something else.
ditto above on the rotisserie chickens - it's a loss leader item in quite a few chains - cheaper than a raw chicken, and ~ALL of the meat can generally be easily pulled cleanly off the bone with pretty much no waste. You can get a lot of 2-3 oz servings off of 1 of those.
If sauteeing chicken (bought raw) to reheat for later, don't overcook.
Soup is cheap. If you are in the north, then the local yearly available cheap produce is generally the traditional soup vegetables (carrots, celery, turnips, potatoes, onions, ...). Dried beans work well for soup and are cheap. Canned beans are also pretty cheap.
Starch is cheap to fill in calories once protein & fat needs are met. (rice, potatoes, pasta, bread,...).
Eggs are cheap.
More expensive, but not by too much (not a problem on $7-10/day), and are good lean protein sources: lowfat yogurt and cottage cheese.
Stuff can be bought in varying degrees of work required from the supermarket (with pretty much all of them being cheaper than take away). Bagged pre-washed salads, for instance. And lunch meat and hot dogs, can be found in varying quantities of fat, salt - some of which aren't bad. (Price rite has some cheap generic turkey franks that I often chop and add to rice & beans or soup; and if I didn't have to limit the wheat, a hot dog would not be a problem).1 -
buy on sale only. check out ibotta or other similar money saving apps. use coupons
soup. easy to make and reheat
salad. lots of variety
tuna packets
in season fruits.
dry beans or lentils save money.
i buy plain yogurt and use it for cooking, dips, parfaits.
budget bytes is a great site.
mostly, i spend about 25 dollars a week. prep and store. i put some in the freezer so i can pull out something if i get sick of what i prepped
consider making your own bread/tortillas
and next growing season, try to plant your own fruit and veggies.2 -
Buy from the bulk area. Bulk pasta/rice/lentils. Get some broccoli and other leafy veggies. Meat will be your most expensive item.
Target has good deals on food sometimes. I found some yummy yogurt for a dollar a pop.1 -
Is food so expensive in the US? If I were to convert that to GBP I could not eat all of it. I spend about $130 per month on all groceries, including lots of unessential things, like expensive teas, artisan bread, and candy.1
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Is food so expensive in the US? If I were to convert that to GBP I could not eat all of it. I spend about $130 per month on all groceries, including lots of unessential things, like expensive teas, artisan bread, and candy.
No, I feel like this is a really reasonable amount in most parts of the US for someone who is preparing their own meals. However, if one if buying a lot of takeout (like OP), it will be a lot less than what they're currently spending.1 -
$7 to $10 a day won't go far if you eat out. I do breakfast at home and when I wasn't doing keto Oatmeal is so cheap if you cook it (not instant). I have a business and pack lunch daily. I do this because it's cheap and I can eat at my desk in five minutes with no travel outside. A cooler with an ice pack keeps it for me. I save at least $50.00 a week over some of my employees. Drinks, I have a hydroflask I fill with ice & water daily. You get used to it and it's free. Probably the cheapest is a sam's or costco rotisserie chicken (they are the biggest) get it on sunday and eat it for dinner and cut up the rest for sandwiches or salad protein.1
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janejellyroll wrote: »Is food so expensive in the US? If I were to convert that to GBP I could not eat all of it. I spend about $130 per month on all groceries, including lots of unessential things, like expensive teas, artisan bread, and candy.
No, I feel like this is a really reasonable amount in most parts of the US for someone who is preparing their own meals. However, if one if buying a lot of takeout (like OP), it will be a lot less than what they're currently spending.
yep. pretty much this in the western NY area too - shouldn't be a problem unless buying takeaway/restaurant food or impulse buying lots of snacks/gourmet items.1 -
in a pinch (as in 0 food prep time): greek yogurt single + Clif bar amounts to decent macros while using less time and money than takeout.1
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My average day is looking like a breakfast burrito from Del Taco in the morning for around $5. Then in the afternoon or evening I'll stop at el pollo loco for a double chicken bowl ($6-$9) and or I'll stop at the super market for .5 to 1 lb of steak or chicken to cook ($5-$7). My average day is probably around $15 per day.
My main concern with re-heating leftovers is I don't like to use the microwave. Whether you believe using the microwave is okay or not doesn't mean much to me. I'd rather be safe and wait a few extra minutes to cook on the stove then increase my chances of complications later in life.. however, getting a hot meal in the middle of the day without is extremely difficult unless you can use a hot plate at work.
After considering a few of your recommendations, I suppose I could make make a few breakfast burritos myself at home all at once and wrap them in foil. (easy to re-heat without the microwave) In the afternoon, I could probably eat a salad but I don't like them much. Drink a protein shake in the afternoon and cook when I get home from work or re-heat a chicken bowl when I get home.
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cedric_says wrote: »My average day is looking like a breakfast burrito from Del Taco in the morning for around $5. Then in the afternoon or evening I'll stop at el pollo loco for a double chicken bowl ($6-$9) and or I'll stop at the super market for .5 to 1 lb of steak or chicken to cook ($5-$7). My average day is probably around $15 per day.
My main concern with re-heating leftovers is I don't like to use the microwave. Whether you believe using the microwave is okay or not doesn't mean much to me. I'd rather be safe and wait a few extra minutes to cook on the stove then increase my chances of complications later in life.. however, getting a hot meal in the middle of the day without is extremely difficult unless you can use a hot plate at work.
After considering a few of your recommendations, I suppose I could make make a few breakfast burritos myself at home all at once and wrap them in foil. (easy to re-heat without the microwave) In the afternoon, I could probably eat a salad but I don't like them much. Drink a protein shake in the afternoon and cook when I get home from work or re-heat a chicken bowl when I get home.
There's a good chance the fast food chains are microwaving your breakfast burrito and the chicken in the salad bowl anyway (especially items where they mix cheese in with the minced meat, they often microwave for at least a few seconds to melt the cheese into the other ingredients).4 -
Thanks @ritzvin ! Yes, I understand that. However, being in the same room with the microwave while it is running is more of a concern to me. Escaping the use of a microwave completely is the goal but I understand is extremely difficult nowadays.
Does anyone think it is actually possible to live a truly healthy life without compensating or compromising?3 -
What I mean by that is, is it possible to have quality, affordable, and convenience without compromising or compensating?1
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