What's Your Favorite Go-To "I'm Broke" Meal? - Page 3

No food in the house? I'm having a hard time with this question, I absolutely just refuse to not have food in the house.

Honestly, most meals I cook are free or extremely cheap.

I try to plan ahead with sale cycles. If I can get cereal for free this week, I'll get approximately 3 months worth to coincide with the next (assumed) similar sale. Ditto for most items I buy. The only thing that really limits how much or what type of foods I'm able to stock up on is the space available to me. I have one chest freezer that is consistently full of hunted meat, veggies, and cheese. Pasta and rice are items I refuse to pay for and go a long way toward stretching meals and keeping you full. I have chickens for eggs, or meat if any of them decide to become hooligans. I forage blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc and freeze or can. Out of season fruits or vegetables, milk, and a couple baking staples are the normal grocery expenses for me, and if need be I'll cut out fresh fruits or veggies for frozen if I simply can't afford it. Meats like hot dogs or whatnot I'll buy if the price is right and stock up, or just not buy.

I've gone hungry before in my life, and it is something I refuse to ever have my children experience. I may not always be making our favorite meals, in fact, some meals none of us are really big fans of lol  But our bellies are always full, and I do whatever I need to do to stay within budget. Can't afford groceries this week? Well, I'll scrounge up a couple bucks to keep milk in the house or some bread, and the rest I'll pull from the freezer, my pantry (one set of shelves hidden in a bedroom and slim totes under my bed), and avoid the supermarket. I simply can not allow myself to not have a store of food on hand for meals when the budget isn't there for me to bring in groceries...I've experienced empty cupboards, experienced opening a fridge to a container of baking soda and assorted condiments. Refuse to ever see that again, or worse, have my family see that. 

In that baking soda situation, 3 days of meals? We're getting what I can get for free for those 3 days, plus milk. Hunting season or not, if I have to I will do that. If it's summer 'produce' can be found. If it's winter, then I'll probably spend the remaining amount of my $7 on oranges, bananas, or another lower cost/higher benefit produce item.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karen1985 

No food in the house? I'm having a hard time with this question, I absolutely just refuse to not have food in the house.

 

This was the original scenario:

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Missystuy 

 And by "I'm Broke" I mean, there is minimal food in the house, and payday isn't for another 2 days. Lets say you have $7  to shop for 2 days.  What do you go to? Could you do it?

Really, I think with $7 you could get a lot.  There is a lot you could do with the bread and eggs.  Also, a bag of rice is cheap. You could get:

$1 loaf of bread

$1.50 eggs

$1 spaghetti sauce

$1 spaghetti noodles

$2 1/2 gallon milk 

$1 bag of rice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karen1985 

No food in the house? I'm having a hard time with this question, I absolutely just refuse to not have food in the house.

Quote:

I understood the original question, I just honestly don't see how anyone would ever allow there to be no food in the house. To me there really is no excuse to let it get to that point, even on an extremely limited budget or heck, even on no money. Which is where I was lost, in trying to wrap my head around how this question ever had a need to come into existance. However, like many of your suggestions, there are most certainly items that for $7 would allow you to keep your family from being hungry for a few days.

Eggs

Pancakes

Oatmeal

pasta and sauce

fried rice

tuna fish sandwiches or grilled cheese

It would depend what I have in the deep freezer.  Dh gave me a budget of $125 to spend on gas and groceries.  I might go over by $5 once in a while but with coupons and sales I tend to stick to the budget and most of the time come in under.  The deep freezer which isn't a chest freezer is the best investment we ever made.  I cried when I had to throw out my 2 free hams, free turkey and eggplant I had grown when the huricane hit. 

When hubby was unemployed for 14 months, it got a little dicey food-wise. It wasn't like there was NO food in the house (just to look at me you'd know I never really went hungry) but there wasn't much to make a MEAL with. There wasn't much variety. There was a need for a lot of creativity and substitutions. Grocery shopping was a lot of work - comparing prices, deciding to not buy something, checking the clearance areas (did you know Sam's Club has a clearance section? can you find the clearance area in the frozen foods case?)

We're not in that situation any longer but I still run up against the need for a quick, inexpensive "go-to meal". Just yesterday I spent much of the day running around and COULD NOT figure out what to cook for dinner. It had to be quick to prepare. I needed to be able to grab it quick and I didn't want to spend a lot. I was spending so much time in the car I couldn't buy anything that needed refrigeration since it would be over an hour between the time I could go to the grocery store and get home. I ended up buying a box of jambalaya rice mix (shelf stable - yeah!) since I had leftover kielbasa, cooked chicken and ham in the frig. I threw in some veggies, too. I started it to cook on the stove and had to dash out the door to pick-up DD from her GS meeting. It was ready when we got back home.

My family never seems to tire of pancakes.  Those are really cheap, especially since I use the "home-made Bisquick" recipe someone posted on here a while back. Home made soup is also really inexpensive.  We use red lentils a lot to make dal (Indian lentil soup). A lot of casseroles can be made for very little money, especially those that are heavy on the noodles/pasta or rice.

At our house the go to is Spanish Tortilla.  These are not the corn or flour variety you find in Mexico, but from a cook at the Air Force Base we lived in in Madrid.  They are totally easy, filling and best of all cheap.

Peel and thinly slice about three medium potatoes, and 1/4 white or yellow onion.  Cook in olive oil until potatoes are fork tender but not brown.  Meanwhile beat about 3-6 egg (depending on how many I use 1 to 2 per person) well with about 1/4 cup water salt pepper.  When potatoes are done pour the whole thing, oil too, into the eggs.  Stir well.  Return to skillet and place into a 400 degree oven until it has risen and the center is done. 

We usually have this with fresh home made bread and juice or tea.  One 9 inch skillet feeds the four adults living in our home, and feed four kids and two adults when our kids were small.