My card got cloned and no I have no money other than $41.
I literally have an empty fridge minus a small amount of shredded chicken and $3.6 a day to live on until I get paid on the 15th.
There are no food banks or support programs where I live. Canned good are super expensive as they are all imported.
What are the cheapest, filling meals you can give me? I don’t care about nutrition at this point.
by PrettyLardie
35 Comments
Pasta with oil or whatever sauce you can get for cheap. White rice with fried eggs. Peanut butter sandwiches. Ramen noodles. Egg salad sandwiches. White rice with frozen veggies and soy sauce. Canned spaghetti. Boxed Mac and cheese. Potatoes-any way you can cook them.
Lotsa peanut butter, hotdogs, ramen. These are the things I eat when I’m poor as hell.
Potatoes, rice, beans, chicken leg quarters or drumsticks (they’re cheap here, save the bones to make stock).
Flour and oil, to make flatbread.
Spaghetti, garlic, olive oil and a little butter. And whatever else you can afford to add or have around (like chili flakes).
walmart rotisserie chicken — can be stretched in numerous ways. Marked down once they take it off the heat and stick it in the fridge section.
Do you have anything in your pantry? Oil, flour, etc?
Time to go on a ramen diet. I like to add cheese to mine.
If you can aim to only spend 1/2 of your cash for now.
First, looks at the sales ads for the stores in your area. Keep an eye out for filling cheap items or loss leaders which are items that the store will mark down really really far to get people into the store, hoping that they’ll buy other things. The trick to the game is to only buy that super cheap item if possible. if you haven’t already subscribe to some of their loyalty programs. This is the time to do it. New subscribers will often get double or extra coupons or deals. Clip those coupons and get those deals so long as they are super cost effective.
Then what you’re going to do is focus on getting a meat or protein that will be filling and stretch in your budget. This could be a cheap cut of meat that you can slow roast, this can be a rotisserie chicken that you can work in various ways, or this could be a bag of beans or lentils.
After what you want to focus on carbs, which could be potatoes, pasta, oats, rice.
You should still have some money in the budget, roughly $20 to grab some frozen veg or fresh veg if that’s cheaper. Aim to grab some fruit. And if you come across a clearance bag of cookie mix or something treat yourself.
Then moving onto the next week or about 9 to 10 days, you revisit those store ads and look for those more cheap Loss leading items and build your meals with the same format.
I hope that makes sense.
What about churches? They have food drives sometimes.
In Ontario stores come out with their new flyer every Thursday. If you get to the store Wednesday night if they’re over stocked on some of that weeks sales that need to move sometimes you can get insane blow out prices on stuff. One time ground pork was on for like 60% off and at the end of the week it was like 80% off on top of that. I got 4 massive family sized king packs of ground pork for an average of less than $2 each and just froze them.
Bye rice and maybe some ginger a few scallions and make congee.
Ramen cheese shredded chicken and some cheap hot sauce
Food bank. You can’t live on nothing.
Rice, cabbage, and sandwiches helped fulfill me during tough times 🙂 I also liked tuna (canned) with (canned) corn, mayo, greenbeans (canned) and eating it with chips or bread! Add some seasoning (even just salt, garlic, and pepper helps a lot!) the taste made me think I was eating better than j actually was!
Canned chicken breasts, Tortillas, and a bottle of barbecue sauce took me places I needed to be. Sour cream and/or cheese also helped with this meal.
I think pasta doesn’t fill you up enough. It’s an empty calorie.
Instead of fruit try focusing on vegetables and meats (if possible) right now!
Many churches have food pantries. Reach out.
You can go on one meal a day
this is considered an intermittent fast
This is my grandma’s recipe. It makes a big pot and is full of nutrients, flavor and is very filling.
1 large head cabbage chopped
1 onion about the size of a baseball chopped up
1 package Italian sausage links, sliced up.
1 large can crushed tomatoes
Whatever veg you can get dirt cheap, bags of frozen mixed veg whatever, spinach if you can if not that’s ok. I like to look in the discount section and find whatever veg is nearly gone but still good for this soup. It works great with legit any veg you can toss in. Once I added a chopped up rudabega and a butternut squash. It’s very friendly to any veggies.
1/2 bag of beans cooked (I usually cook those in big batches a d freeze for later. If you don’t have any or no time to cook beans separate a can is ok too) white, kidney, lentil, all good in this.
Potatoes if you’ve got em if not that’s ok skip em.
Put everything in a pot. Cover with 2 cans worth of water or broth if you got it. Water is fine. Add whatever seasonings you have, if none in hand that’s ok too the sausage seasoning fills this with flavor. Cook low and slow for an hr or till everything is tender. Serve over pasta or rice if you’ve got it. It’s good by itself too. Keeps 4 days in the fridge but can be frozen for up to 6 months. I’ve even used a can of spaghetti sauce, the super cheap stuff instead of canned tomatoes. Worked fine. Keep pasta and rice stored separately though that way the noodles and or rice don’t get mushy. I’m sorry you’re struggling right now.
Liquidation stores usually have food with 1/3 of the price shaved off because of minor packaging damage. Might be worth a look if you have time. Try to eat dense food like potatoes, bread, rice and pasta.
Ramen + egg + cheap frozen veggie
Yo buddy, go to the nearest Sikh temple. They will serve you warm fresh vegetarian meals for free. Go as much as you need to.
Get a pound or two of dry pinto beans and rice. Boring, but only a couple of bucks and very filling.
Not budget related but your bank wasn’t able to give you back the funds? I had this happen to me twice and my bank was able to cancel my card and “refund” me back the money… otherwise I agree with a lot of ppl with going to a church! Most of them have food boxes or your local pantry.
Depending on your area check Facebook out and see if you have a local “Buy Nothing” group. You can make an Ask post if anyone has any food they’re willing to help out with. Otherwise get some staples like potatoes, rice, beans, and whatever meat is on sale to help hold you over.
Card got cloned? Call your bank and file a fraud complaint, ask for your money back and an investigation.
Otherwise, unless you live in some super remote place, canned vegetables are usually about a dollar and you can get large amounts of bagged dried Lentils, Beans, etc for a small amount comparatively (like $3 for about four days worth of). The only caveat to the dry beans vs canned is that though you get more, you have to soak them overnight. Realistically, if you have to go almost two weeks with $40, you’re gonna have to do more searching for local charities, churches, etc and possibly even emergency file for food stamps. Each state runs it differently, but where I am at, if you can prove and you declare you are in a food emergency, they quick stamp an approval.
rice and frozen veggies
When times are this desperate gotta be some friends or family that can help?? I’d steal before I starved to near death 💯💯 second job at a pizza joint working for free pizza??
Also really hard to believe no catholic charity or some food pantries around. Look harder amigo, when times seem their worst a little spark seems bright.
You will make it to the next level man, this is the part before the come up!!
Dollar store has a lot of canned soup/ramen! and some even have frozen foods like hot pockets etc.
A bag of rice, a whole chicken, a pound of pasta, a bag of beans, a bag of potatoes, 2 onions, 2 dozen eggs, a large oatmeal.
Buy lentils, boil them. Sautee onion, garlic. Throw in a can of devil ham. You’ll have a nutritious meal and cheap!
Check out Lisa Dawn videos on YouTube, she has many on “$20/week from dollar store x”, very simple and easy recipes and quite balanced. Dried pinto beans, rice, eggs, flour, frozen veggies & frozen chub of ground meat or sausage, maybe potatoes.
I would highly recommend potatoes, bake a whole bunch, eat them that way, extras get fried up or made into potato soup. Or roast wedges with some cheap chicken hindquarters in the oven.
Dried Pinto Beans are simple, but can be made into soups/chili/stew/curry, mixed with cooked rice (also easy), mashed and made into refried beans (very delish), used as dip or spread into bread, stuffed into tortillas as burritos/tacos/enchiladas/quesadillas, or even made into simple bean burger patties, good fried up!
Cooked rice is great with a little butter and salt, or soy sauce, eaten with beans makes a perfect protein, cooked into soup or a congee/porridge, fried rice, rice salad, fritters, or even rice pudding or horchata.
Rice and beans
Every store has a “clearance” section or a stuff in the butcher aisle that is marked down for the “day of” expirations. If you eat pork, that tends to be the least expensive… you can sometimes get a BUNCH for just a couple of dollars, just requires longer cooking.
The cheapest Peanut butter/peanut oil, at the very least… it goes far! Some clearance bread. Should last a couple of days, and feed more than you if need be!
Go to a bakery and ask if they are willing to donate stuff they don’t sell at the end of the day. The bakery at my mall waste a ton of edible food as we share bins with them
Limit your meals to 2 meals a day. But I think you will have let overs to have 3 most days
– 5lbs bag of white rice from Walmart. ($3.34)
– See if there are any reduced meats. See if you can get a 10lb bag of chicken quarters. Sometimes Aldi has them for $5 or less if you can’t find at walmart. Cheapest I found was for $3 reduced.
– 2 dozen eggs at Walmart (1.63 each)
– Russet potatoes 5lb bag $3.27 or you can possibly find for cheaper since potatoes are in season
– Celery ($1.00)
– Carrots 1lb ($1)
– 1 bag of frozen bell peppers n onions great value ($2.58)
– bag of frozen peas and carrots (.98 each)
-fajita seasoning mix ($0.62)
– garlic powder ($1.12)
– onion powder ($1.12)
– margarine ($1.38)
– ramen packets
– 8oz cheese ($2)
– ramen
– If you’re near a dollar tree you can get 12 tortillas for $1.25
– pancake syrup ($1.25 dollar tree)
– Roma tomatoes (2lbs for $2)
– Lettuce iceberg ($1.77)
– can of corn ($0.55)
Total $33
Optional:
– bananas, apples, bread, brownie/cookie mix
I hope you have a container full of take out condiments (ketchup, soy sauce, mustard, mayo, bbq sauce)
Meals
– baked chicken fajitas with rice
– chicken fried rice
– cheese quesadillas with rice and tomatoes
– pancakes n eggs
– baked garlic and honey mustard chicken and baked fries
– baked chicken with celery and carrots
– baked bbq chicken with baked potatoes and salad
– potatoes, egg, and peppers breakfast burritos
– chicken soup (don’t throw away the bones! Add some salt, pepper, onion, celery, carrots and have it make a broth. Then add the cooked chicken when it finishes over a bed of rice
-chicken Cobb salad (baked chicken, over lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and boiled eggs)
– ramen with egg and chicken
optional meals
– grilled cheese
– chicken sandwich
Edit: dang I saw your comment about imported not sure if you would have a Walmart. If anything I hope some of these meals could work. Check out your reduced areas at your grocery stores!
Added a few things to my Walmart cart…
Beans, 2 lbs: $2.23
Rice, 2 lbs: $1.86
Valentina seasoning or sauce: $2.12
Onions, 3 lbs: $1.88
Garlic, 1 head: $0.62
Subtotal: $10.10
Savings: -$1.39
Total before taxes: $8.71
If you have a pot, stove, and access to water, you can easily make it to the 15th.
Depends on where you live and what you have access to. What’s in your pantry? For me, bananas are 59 cents/pound. A bag of quick oats and a few bananas will serve as breakfast. If you can find inexpensive unsalted nuts or seeds, add that yo your oatmeal and the breakfast gane is solid.
I bulk cook rice, so that’s a great base for lunch. You own some Tupperware type containers, so you make bowls. Look for the cheapest produce you can find that is something that you’ll actually eat. Chop that stuff up, put it on the rice, add the keftover chicken, and whatever dressing or sauce you have on hand
Dinner- buy a bit of frozen chicken and some frozen vegetables. Eat it with rice. Look at curried lentil recipes. Use dried lentils. Bulk cook curried lentils and rotate meals and use leftovers for your lunch bowls.
* I surmise that you live in Cambodia. So definitely rice, legumes, and whatever in season fruit/ veg you can get. Chicken if it’s reasonable.
Not sure where you’re located, but $20 at Walmart in Texas usually gets me 5lbs of rice, 5lbs of potatoes, a box of ramen, and a couple bags of various frozen veggies and black beans (store brand for best deals).
When I was 18 and depressed, I’d buy a 5lb bag of Krusteaz pancake mix for like $8 and just eat pancakes for 2 weeks until I felt better lol