A friend of mine did an experiment in 2009 where he tried to feed himself on $1 a day. Surprisingly he did quite well with this experiment although by day 20 he started counting free food as acceptable in this experiment. Most of the time he ended up making meals of spaghetti, rice, and corn pone. When made with no frills, these things could be made for around 30 cents a meal.
This got me to thinking, “wouldn’t it be interesting to do something like that?” Of course there’s two issues standing in my way. I have no willpower to stick to such an absurd diet, as amusing as it was to read. The second is that food prices have gone up considerably in just the two years since the experiment. I really don’t know if he could replicate the experiment today using the same foods.
My prevailing thought as I read the experiment was that there had to be other options than spaghetti every night. And of course every college student that has ever lived off a diet of Ramen noodles has probably thought the same thing. So, what kind of meals can I make for cheap? I intend to find out.
I enjoy cooking and my mother has always taught me to be cheap, so combining the two shouldn’t be hard, at least I think. My goal is simple: find the best cheap meals that I can make. Cheap means that there likely won’t be many ingredients. Fewer ingredients typically means it’s easier to make.
My goal is to find meals that cost less than $1 per serving although obviously if there are multiple servings, then the price of making the entire recipe will be more than $1.
Some ground rules:
I will be using normal supermarket prices. Sure, you can get a huge can of tomato sauce at Sam’s Club and the price per serving will be less than a regular jar but unless you plan on using that much for a recipe it doesn’t count. If I can get decent ingredients at a dollar store or some other kind of store where the sizes are normal, then I consider this to be fair in the spirit of what I’m doing.
Sales and coupons are fair game. Obviously you might not always be able to buy these items at these prices but if you stock up while there are sales and plan carefully, you can save tons of money like this.
Clearance prices are also fair game. I’m thinking especially with meat. Meat is expensive and at regular prices it will severely limit my options. However, there are regularly pieces of meat that have to be sold within a day and come at great discounts. You might not be able to find these sales every day or on the particular cut of meat that you want but they come up for sale fairly regularly. So these prices are fair game. When I can, I’ll mark the regular price as well as the discount price.
Spices count sometimes. If the recipe calls for something like “salt to taste” then there’s no way to measure this. But if it calls for a teaspoon, then I will count the cost. Salt shouldn’t be too much but some other spices are quite expensive.
A serving isn’t what I – or maybe you – would normally eat. Whenever possible, I’ll be following the serving suggestions on the recipe. So even though I might eat three tacos for supper, this might count as three servings. So, if you eat more than one serving, it means that your meal will cost you more than what I’m listing. Just keep that in mind as you read.
So there are the rules. If I come up with any more as I go along I’ll come back and edit this as I see fit. For now though, it’s time to cook!
