Could you feed yourself for $38 a week?

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motorbo, Apr 21, 7:48am
I also do not eat much meat, and find im way more creative and eat way more veges, meat is hard on digestion, if I can afford organic on special I will buy it, love seafood! eat mussels and squid and fresh fish when I can
trouser, Apr 21, 8:37am
If I could amortise costs over a month or so I could do this easily. It would be fun to try if I didnt have a family of 5.
cgvl, Apr 21, 11:43am
Ah but with a family of 5 you multiply the $38 by 5 so could you spend $190 or less on food for a week? Would that be a challenge.
oli3, Apr 21, 1:43pm
Of course most of us could do it, financially, if we had to - as a challenge. But the point is I think that when people have to live on that, because its their only choice, its a very different story. I imagine that it is very depressing, there wouldn't be lot of variety, and supermarket shopping would be a horrible experience of walking passed a thousand unaffordable items to select the staples that you could live on for that. Cheap rice and pasta, tins of tomatoes and a few seasonal or frozen vege. Cheap milk or milk powder, very little meat and it would be low quality, tinned fish and battery hen eggs. Very little fruit, treats would amount to plain biscuits very occassionally. It would be very hard - mentally - to live like that week after week I think. Multi-millionaire Gwyneth 'I'm better than you' Paltrow turning it into some kind of game is more like a kick in the guts for real families forced to try and make that work every week. Who the F does she think she is buying 7 limes on that budget then giving up after 4 days? I think she's merely showed once again how badly out of touch she is with the real world. I could count on one hand (maybe two!) the amount of weeks I've had to really stretch a grocery budget like that, I've been very lucky, my heart goes out to any parent who faces that more regularly, that's tough.
mjhdeal, Apr 21, 5:38pm
It is certainly proving to be a good exercise in gratitude - for what I usually buy, in quantity and quality, without thinking twice.

I made a budget shopping list, and a meal plan, and I have had to take so much stuff off. I thought $77 for two would be easy, but 'essential' things like coffee and butter cut into actual meal ingredients, and are now luxuries!

P.S. Re: Gwyneth Paltrow - she got people talking though. Perhaps she deliberately manufactured outrage. If it wasn't for her seven limes (lol) I wouldn't be trying this myself.
pamellie, Apr 21, 7:45pm
Can I suggest you google mooncup. If you could all manage to use one of these they would quickly pay for themselves. I have been using one for about 4 years and have not bought any 'lady products' since.
Not food related but a great way to save on your weekly supermarket spend.
cgvl, Apr 21, 9:55pm
Gwyneth Paltrow did make a point that it is very hard to go from a Champagne Budget down to a Beer Budget without feeling somewhat overwhelmed.
I know that at one time we didn't have to worry about how much was spent on groceries or what we were buying. If we wanted it then we bought it. Hence what we call a champagne budget
Now things have changed and we are totally focussed on what we need rather than want. A much smaller food budget has helped to see that we didn't really need what for us now are luxuries ie bought biscuits. Hence the beer budget in other words we no longer can afford the top of the range items like Molenburg bread, its now budget or Home brand.
trouser, Apr 21, 10:01pm
Looking at it that way I'm already doing it. Our fortnightly spend is less than $340.
buzzy110, Apr 22, 3:55am
Does this shop provide EVERY meal for the entire two weeks without resorting to 'top up spending' and lunch buying?
huntlygirl, Apr 22, 7:54am
l have been living on $25 pw for the last 6 months and manage to eat fairly well. My biggest expense if fruit and vegetables.
brightlights60, Apr 22, 8:08am
I have to disagree with your last sentence. The mistake most people make is to buy vegetables that are out of season, i.e. not cheap. You buy the cheapest veges each season, or you freeze excess of summer veges (carrots, beans, zucchini etc) for the best budgets.
trouser, Apr 22, 9:23am
Yip. Includes fish and chips twice to. They are the most expensive meals of the fortnight with $19.50 as the usual.
buzzy110, Apr 23, 4:57am
I buy cheaply but seriously I couldn't buy cucumber, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, celery, butternut, mushrooms and all the other vegetables (POTATOES ARE NOT A VEGETABLE) for one person for 1 week for LESS than $7.

The challenge didn't allow for frozen, homegrown produce, or other foods already in the house. It had to be bought only for that week. I suppose that is because how those on food stamps in the US live.

Can I point out that freezing and bottling fruit takes up electricity, which people on food stamps are probably using with extreme care as well.

And seriously. I don't buy fruit and vegetables out of season. If they are grown in NZ and sold fresh then fine but I don't get greenhouse tomatoes, cucumber or other hothouse crops or imported fruit and vegetables.

Maybe for 1 week I could squeeze by but I couldn't do it week after week after week.
buzzy110, Apr 23, 5:06am
You are amazing. I often see posts in here where people say they only spend X amount of dollars but question them closely and you find that they buy lunches, get bread and milk every other day, haven't 't included cleaning and sanitary products and generally spend up to another $50 - $80 over and above what they claim is their budget on incidentals.

Coffee would be my second biggest expense and buying it from cafes is definitely outside our budget. We don't do it unless it is a special occasion - so basically about 4 times a year. Wine and beer are our biggest and once again, we don't drink out unless a special occasion and I tend to prefer cooking my own special occasion food.
chchers, Apr 23, 11:07pm
Yes, I could, but it would be boring. Porridge, baked beans/spaghetti on budget bread, fried rice with a fried egg, pancakes, noodles etc. I am fortunate to live near an Asian supermarket that consistently has much cheaper veges (at the moment, capsicums are 50 cents each, cucumbers 99 cents, bananas $1.60kg, bunches of bok choy, spinach etc $1.50, potatoes $1.20kg etc etc. A few weeks ago they had corn cobs for 10 cents each!). The price of fruit and veg at Countdown and the like is truly APPALLING.
buzzy110, Apr 24, 1:06am
It would be boring. And not only that, the foods you would be eating are also quite fattening which is why poorer people who have to live like that generally do not look underfed, even though they are malnourished.
mjhdeal, Apr 24, 4:16am
I'm going to attempt to disprove the budget=boring/bad equation. Of course, what I like to eat may be some (most) people's idea of hell, and I may fail dismally.

I have worked out my meal plan for next week, and I admit it was HARD.
I stuck to a rule of $40 of my $77 on vegetables, and (sadly) crossed off the list everything that I felt I could dispense with to reach that goal. The hardest part was realising I couldn't afford even the cheapest butter AND olive oil. Refuse to back down on coffee, though! I have just two canned products: tinned mackerel and coconut milk.

(Confession: porridge does come up twice, but that is usual for us anyway).
sticky232, Apr 24, 7:51am
with large pack of bacon i can make bacon and egg pie pasta cabanara and frittata or bacon and egg 3 dishes or if stint on bacon 4 meals
motorbo, Apr 24, 8:36am
with no bacon I can make an egg and vege pie, a pasta dish without bacon and a frittata and its cheaper with no bacon and better for you. not having a go here - just stating you can make it even cheaper
jude343, Apr 26, 3:42am
when the kids where younger. 4/5 people each meal, & 4/5 meals per chicken.
I used to buy a chicken, boil it, with onion and herbs.
& make soup out of the stock. (meal 1)
slice the breast, serve with roast potatoes veges etc.( meal2)
use the meat off the wings, & some off legs . rice rissotto (meal3)
any left over meat, was used for sandwiches, & chicken patties.
I am not saying its easy. However it was economical,
jude343, Apr 26, 3:45am
Porridge,
make as directed, and stir some fruit flavoured yoghurt into it for breakfast,
1 small pottle, does 2 people for 2 days.
kindajojo, Apr 26, 6:58am
Totally agree in corn season when it can get as low as 30 c per Cobb. we eat corn for lunch and dinner. apples freely available on trees . may not be first grade but can be stewed up for pies, and wiht muesli for breakfast,
Carrots can be bought really cheaply. in bulk. replace fruit with a carrot or two, tomatoes are very seasonal. and you can grow a lot of the basics. silver beet, bok choi, cabbage, for a fraction of the cost to buy,
Potatoes . buy in bulk. and pumpkins. they are very cheap about now and if you buy good ones from the grower they will store for at least 6 months . soup. it's just planning.
I would be pushing to live on$38 for one week, from scratch but with access to stored fruit veges could average it out.
Rice in 20 kgs is cheaper than buying by the kilo.
Sharing with friends and neighbours as well
Unfortunately those on food stamps probably don't have that luxury and live hand to mouth
cgvl, Apr 26, 10:12am
Well I spent $6.20 on eggs at tray of 30 which will last 2 weeks or more. Vegies from the market garden $6.40 I was extravagant and bought lettuce, radishes, spring onions, potatoes, kumara. Groceries from Pak.n.Save $35. Which included coffee, butter, Sanitarium Pnut butter, peaches, ground almonds, crackers and cream as well as pumpkin, banana's, coconut milk and talc (12 items all up).
Tonight I did pizza bread and a spicy vegie Indian type soup for tea.
duckmoon, Apr 26, 11:05am
google "live below the line"
it is a challenge living off $2.25 per person per day

the recipe book is quiet good
mjhdeal, Sep 12, 1:50am
Thanks for the tip - I downloaded the recipes :)

I went shopping today, so can start my test tomorrow. I ending up over-spending on meat, and we'll be eating way more meat this week than we usually do - but I couldn't see any cheap deals on smaller portions.

For $52.65 I bought:
Vegetables: small bag parsnip, small bag carrots, 1 kumara, 2 broccoli, 2 bananas, 1 buttercup, small bag tomatoes, 2 avocado, 1 onion, 1 lemon ($13.02)
Meat: 2 kilos chicken thighs, ox cheek, ox heart, lamb liver ($22.24)
Other: Oats, raisins, sunflower seeds, can mackerel, coffee, olive oil, can coconut milk, 6 eggs ($17.39)

. so only $24.35 over for greens/other vegetables. Given vegetables are 3/4+ of what we usually eat, not sure how that will go, but it will be interesting.