$1 a Day to Eat..

I was reading an article about a woman who being on a tight budget, spends a dollar a day to eat..

I was wonder if you only had a $1 a day to spend for food, what would you eat for today?

I thought about it a minute said, this should be easy.. it's isn't lol
Having ideas from the members on how to do it would be great!!
Not actually having to do this, but very interesting to find out what everyone would find for a $1 a day to eat!

Today, i'm having Top Ramen (10cents) and a little snack pack of peanutbutter crackers (79cents).. dang i'm going to have to skip breakfast

If you can tolerate it. I suggest Rice and oatmeal.

Lots of water....also.

I lived on about that one time years ago in Iowa and while the dogs ate well, I did actually go to bed hungry more then once a week. I think it gave me a good impression of what it was like for many in this country in the years to come.

Yesterday, I got rid of some food I cannot eat (VERY high sodium) and dropped it off at the local SA and they were just THRILLED someone was GIVING instead of asking.

I felt so good, I'll try to do them favors more often, but at a healthy level...

I'd have to have up for a week then go to the store and buy some several cans of tuna fish, saltine crackers...and of course..oodles of noodles...that ought to get me by!

cup of noodles for lunch, tuna for dinner, skip breakfast

boy id still be hungry!

You would probably have to try and incorporate some coupons w/that dollar. And on top of that eat 1 or 2 meals someplace where they're served for free - a local church, soup kitchen, Salvation Army, etc. Otherwise you're going to be very hungry. $1 doesn't buy as much in food (or anything else for that matter) as it did a couple of years ago.

Back then I could buy a decent sized bag of rice or box of spaghetti to help round out a couple of good meals for under 50 cents. But I'd have been very lucky to pick up a couple of cans of tuna or some ground turkey to round it out w/out going over that dollar. It would probably have been impossible even then, but it's definitely not possible now. That rice or spaghetti alone now costs right at $1 for the smallest size I can find.

But it can be done for under $2 where I'm at - at least right now. I can get 1lb of ground turkey and a few packs of ramen noodles for under $1.50 which will make me a couple of meals. That's still less than I'm used to but I can get by on it if I have to. This won't last too long though I predict. That ground turkey is only that low because it' s an off brand and is located in a different section from most of the other meats. Once a few more people catch on to it, you can bet that it's gonna be going up fast. They always do that. You have to hunt around for good deals like that, but they're usually out there.

So if you enjoy any meat or fish in your diet you're gonna have a very hard time w/this $1 a day business. And you better learn to love ramen noodles.

now that i really think of it...i could eat better than i thought....if you look for all the clearance/ damaged items you can actually find things really cheap. ravioli's for 20 cents, i've seen [and bought] cans of vegetables for 10 cents....all kinds of other stuff too, but you really gotta look for it!

well, you would have to watch all the sales but it would cost you for gas to drive to them i say go to Sam's club or Costco's and eat all the free samples they put out But---------if you are really that broke PLEASE swallow your pride and go to your local food pantry and let them HELP you that's what their there for and Pray that always works God will always provide for us one way or another if we ask

That's true Satan. I forgot about the clearanced stuff. Some stores do have really good deals on their clearanced foods if you can find them. In my part of town even that's drying up though. Kroger's is the only store that I can even find clearanced deals at and now even those prices are at least double what they were a year or so ago. Don't know if it's a new store policy or just the whims of management or whoever marks the items now or what, but it's usually not even worth it anymore.

I used to be able to get really good deals on whole rotissere chickens there too toward the end of the deli's shift. They'd mark 'em down to as low a dollar or two each (from 5 or 6 bucks apiece) right before that section closed. And if they hadn't, I started just going up and asking them, "hey, you guy's gonna mark any of this stuff down tonight?". At first they were more than happy to come out and mark whatever was left down, even asking me which one I wanted. Then they started running for the back every time they saw me coming.  Now they don't mark down a damn thing. Ever.

Oh well, I was good while it lasted.

well, i just read an ad for potatoes 5 pound bag for 89 cents.. those will last for days, ill buy another Top Ramen for 10cent, thats my $1 for the day, tomorrow i'll have another $1.. find something under a dollar to go with the potaotes lol...

eggs.....now you can have a potatoe salad...not a great one but hey.....

bread...you can have egg salad as well

well i was thinking, on the next $1 i could goto the butcher and get $1 worth of the cheapest hamburger meat, maybe splitting it to be able to make 2 burgers.. and make french fries

being a compulsive gambler, and used to live with one too...we used to stretch a buck quite well.  

here's what i'd do with my 7. so i would have a something that resembled meals.

1 lb bananas                      .49
loaf of bread                     1.00
half gal milk                      1.69
2 cans stewed tomatoes     1.00
3 packs ramen noodles         .30
1 lb chicken breast             1.99
1 can sweet peas                .50
----------------------------------------
                                   $  6.97
I only eat twice a day, so I would alternate between lunch and supper, or eat late lunch, and I would have the bananas for breakfast.

I like stewed tomatoes on toast, can eat that a couple days.

I cut up the chicken in thirds, and cook it however I feel.  I can mix it with the ramen and sweet peas, or eat it on the side.

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Right now, I always buy steaks and chicken breast and cut them up and freeze them in small bags...way cheaper than the sandwich steaks, and I buy the good cuts that taste way better, and they are much more tender.  Same with the chicken...way cheaper.
So I am kinda use to this way of shopping now anyway.  ;D

Not quite seven dollars though!

PS...oh yeah...if you want take out...jr whopper...always 1.00

My mother always says that I am the person who can survive even in the middle of no where without any money...:) I grow own my vegetables like cucumbers,tomatoes,peppers,lettuce...we have freezer full of avaloni which are good as raw or cook both and seaweed-some are wet and dried-from diving...and of course rice...I can make over 12 different dishes from only eggs. I can never live without tofu which is also homemade, thank my grandma for teaching me how to. I can spend less than $2.00 for a bag of flour to make noodles and last for a week. I try very hard to spend less on food but always make sure they are indeed healthy food. I will probably  need to spend that $1.00 on potatoes.

Both wnanhee and Nal have excellent posts regarding this, and satan tuna is a good idea i always forget about it, many things you can do with it too..i love tuna cassarole, probably can either save a dollar and get a bag of noodles to make it, i never see those on sale... i wonder if ramen noodles would work!
Nal i love that menu, 7 bucks a week or more of food, all good meals too
Wnanhee.. gosh that is fantastic, i am also garden thumbed, i just don't use it much anymore, maybe we should, i used to grow alot of things, had fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, spices.... i just stopped.. good idea to get back into it.. when it was growing it was all so beautiful.. Nal made me think ... why not have a chicken.. fresh eggs...