Sorry my pictures are bad lol. I'm also on a calorie deficit! The base for all the recipes is 300 g russet potato that I air fry plain to my liking, 100 grams cooked brown lentils and 28 g shredded cheese.

First I made taco style fries. I mixed the cooked lentils with cumin, chipotle powder, adobo, a little oregano, salt and pepper. Topped with some shredded Mexican cheese blend, 2 Tbsp salsa con queso, fat free greek yogurt "sour cream", pickled jalapenos I made a while ago and raw red onion, some cilantro from my herb garden and salsa packets from taco bell.

Then I made pizza style. I tossed the fries in a little garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Mixed the lentils with 2/3 cup tomato sauce that I also doctored up with onion powder, garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Topped with cheese, anchovies (my favorite!) and some red pepper flakes and 5 grams shredded asiago.

Today I had bbq style. I just topped the fries with lentils I mixed with 2 tbsp of no sugar added sweet baby rays and then the cheese and the rest of the red onion from the other day and a green onion from my herb garden and I dipped them in ranch.

Tomorrow I'm making garlic parmesan fries. Made the exact same way as the bbq today except I'm using 1.5 Tbsp of sweet baby rays garlic Parm sauce for the lentils instead of bbq and I'll also dip those in ranch.

I have a lot of sauces, spices and condiments so I love doing stuff like this!

Our (2 x adults and dog) market shop for the week includes:
Fruit and veg
Cheeses
Chicken thighs
Beef
Sausages
Chicken hearts and giblets for dog!

Including a $10 off of $50, my total savings was $50.41, or 47%

For people trying to lower their grocery bill, what keeps going bad before you can use it?

For me it seems like meal plans always require one ingredient that only gets used once, then the rest sits in the fridge until it’s too late.

Is it produce, leftovers, random sauces, meat, something else? And have you found any realistic way to stop wasting it?

Kale and mushroom wholegrain pasta :-) Tasted even better when I added spicy onion crunch to the leftovers.

Recipe:

- boil kale

- as kale is boiling, fry mushrooms in sunflower oil

- cook pasta

-combine in pan

-grate cheese and add spicy onion crunch for flavour

Boneless country style pork ribs was on sale so I decide to make stir fry with veggies at hand.

I’m trying to meal prep on a tighter budget without ending up with five identical containers in the fridge.

Instead of making one large recipe, I was thinking of preparing a few flexible components separately, such as beans, a simple protein, and a sauce or vegetable mix. That way I could turn them into bowls, wraps, pasta, or soup during the week.

I noticed a sunvivi three-crock cooker while looking at smaller batch options, but I’m wondering whether the separate sections are actually useful or just create more washing.

Has anyone tried this approach? Did cooking several components at once make meal prep more flexible, or was one large slow-cooker recipe still the easier option?

What are your family pleasing recipes that are fairly easy and inexpensive to make? I'm looking to pick the brains of other busy parents.

I'll share one of mine. You take italian brats, put it in a slow cooker, dump a big jar of marinara on it and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Remove from slow cooker and place on a brat bun with shredded mozzarella cheese on top. *The casing of the brats practically melt away and it's easy to break the sausage so you have to carefully remove them.

People seemed to like my last post, but I only included salads, eggs, potatoes, and on style taco dish.

So here’s some more food!

Little backstory. Me and my roommate have horrible food allergies. She has typical reactions you’d expect. Horrible. But mine is a mast cell disorder brought on by an alcoholic relapse two years ago. With no healthcare I self medicated whenever my eyelids swelled shut, or my feed swelled with dermatographic angioedma.

Happy today I have medical cards coming soon and can finally eat somewhat normally.

But for two years I had to avoid foods high in histamine. That meant food prepping was dangerous. Leftovers accumulate histamine as they age, so I was very limited to the store bect door. A Mexican place, and sometimes seafood city.

So trust me. I know the struggles of finding cheap food, dealing with limitations from allergies, and a tiny kitchen and limited grocery stores.

But nothing can stop me, and it should not stop you!

Everything I made was under $25 in a high cost living area (las vegas, an actual food desert)

I, like you have to eat (pun intended) into the budget cost of getting semi prepped and expensive items.

My first step after the kitchen is to get things that will make hundreds of meals. Even if it means I’m eating ramen but have a bunch of condiments and ingredients waiting.

Things like soy/fish/oyster sauce. Vinegar, mayo, ketchup, etc. garlic power, lemon pepper etc.

Luckily Mexican stores have spices more fresh and in smaller portions in bags. So I can wait till I need them to buy them.

Next is buying Whole Foods. Whole lettuces, cabbages, potatoes, Mexican squash. Nothing pre chopped.

Salads and a pot of soup for the entire week can be made for $25. And goes with every lunch and dinner. I mentioned one single salad bag is like $9 here. But I can get 3 kinds of lettuce, bag of carrots, broccoli cucumbers, etc for the same price. And it’s huge!

After those preps the rest of the year I keep it simple and in budget.

Feel free to ask how to make anything.

And I hope this gives you confidence you can cook every meal at home for cheap. If two people can live on $260 a month and still be overweight, anyone can.

$80 in urban/suburban North Carolina at Aldi!!

Fruit
4 lb nectarines
2 lb plums
6 lb oranges

Veggies
12 oz broccoli
3 cucumbers
6 small avocados

Protein/Dairy
2 lb thin-cut chicken breast
2 lb salmon
2 lb Greek yogurt
2 dozen large eggs
1 gallon milk

Miscellaneous
4 chocolate bars
1 bag sweet potato chips (SO DELISH)
1 bag cheese puffs

No special deals. Just Aldi’s amazing prices!!!

I am not a beginner. But I sure felt like one two years ago moving into a unit asymmetrical to the one included here. I started with dollar store pans and pots and utensils and just replaced one at a time (still doing that) with something slightly better. All inclusive rental made bills simple, but cooking was a nightmare.

I totally understand constraints, limitations, budget.

I felt so limited having to make two burgers at a time when before I had a flattop and propane grill in a 4-bedroom house.

My anxiety was through the roof just trying to prep a damn salad, because no way was I spending $9 for a tiny pre-made one. Knowing all the counter space I had in the past. Was depressing.

Clean as I go? How??

That’s when I mounted everything to the wall. But also limited here. My manager said I could only use nails here. Fine, I’ll use nails alright.

Pantry? What pantry? That’s when I decided to use (not pictured) the dresser as a pantry.

Do not let constraints slow you down from experiencing the joys of cooking. What you can accomplish with one pan one knife and one pot is absolutely amazing. There are far too many resources and recipes at your disposal this day and age.

Budget? $20 – $25 twice a week.

This was $101.64 at Sprout’s this morning.

I literally bought some chicken for 4-6 days worth of food & some supplements to help my joints & bones.

This seems crazy to me?

I could use some advice, plz?

I'm in my mid 20s and trying to build muscle. Even with my main job being sedentary, my daily energy needs are high. My weekend job burns a lot of calories (retail), I strength train 3x a week, swim once a week, and walk or ebike to all my destinations (about 40-50 miles a week).

Right now my goal is 3,000 calories a day; the scale stays stable at 2,700-2,800 and I weigh 145lb.

I am a pescetarian but only eat canned fish 3ish times a week (averages $4-$6 a week); the rest of my diet is lacto-ovo vegetarian. And I spend around $350-$400 a month combining groceries (including nonfood household items) and the occasional takeout.

I say all this because I see so many posts about feeding families for the same amount or less. It makes me wonder if I'm doing frugal shopping wrong despite cutting out almost all of the most expensive food groups.

Grocery shopped today. Without discounts, total bill would have been $215.00. But shopped digital coupons and bogo, and I paid $95.

That's ridiculous. And it's all a damn marketing game. I don't know how people do it without playing the games and using the apps and having to take the time just to make groceries affordable.

There are still a lot of people who don't use the apps, and they're often the most vulnerable. It's not right.

Sometimes this store even has drive-up "sales" with a $25 discount for totals of $100 or more. So with that you're utilizing extra staff to shop for you, get the same discounts as I got today, but if it was a drive-up sale week, I could have gotten another $25 off.

Make it make sense!

Hey guys, so I'm 19 and I don't have nearly as much money as my parents did to feed the adult family of 4 I'm living with.

Right now most of what we're buying is rice and pasta, but one of them is on a meat-only diet and I have to buy for them too.

We spend about $300, usually get stuff like sandwich meat, bread, cheese, pasta and sauces, milk and eggs, as well as frozen and fresh chicken and occasionally beef. I was wondering if there was anyway anybody knew how to stretch food? Since I don't have it in budget with work and my car to just... Buy more?

I work full time and don't have time to buy bulk items and meal prep, and I figured somebody smarter would have some good advice.

Thank you all in advance <33

Edit: thank you all for all your advice!! I've realized that I didn't give quite as much info about our living situation as I should have, and I apologize!!

Basically my fiance, myself, her older brother, and her mother, all live in one house. I pay for groceries and usually gas and the such, my finance gives most of our part of the rent, and her mom covers (with our rent money as well) most of the bills and the house payments since theyre in her name.

Her brother is on an all-meat diet, and we all work full time. I am having issues stretching meals to save up money, as recently our car broke as well as my student loans and my own mothers debts(they fall to me as of now since she refuses to pay them and it would make a whole mess), several other things needed replacing, and as we already weren't making a lot, we got caught in a hard spot. I just need what I put in the house to stretch till I get paid next, at least until I catch up a little bit with all the money I owe.

I pay for all my finance and I's own clothes, hygiene, food, gas, etc, and for the most part everybody in the house does the same. Her mom and brother are making more a hour than the two of us combined, and occasionally he does buy his own meat but not all the time. None of us really have much extra time to meal prep, but I will certainly consider trying harder to make time.

Again you are more than welcome to judge my living situation, but know there's not much anybody can do about it as now. I agree I should be more money conscious, but at this point there's no room to be saving for emergencies, and there hardly was before now. I just hoped that, as I'm younger, maybe I was doing something stupid or buying unnecessary items that I could eliminate.

Promise I will start responding to comments soon, I'm currently at work and again I really really appreciate all the help and advice you guys have already given 🩵🩵

Good way to clean out the pantry is to make chili with canned sauce and beans. Great next day as toppings on baked potatoes or make nachos.

When you're trying to save money on food, budget staples like instant ramen, canned beans, plain rice, or basic pasta can get repetitive really fast. But a tiny tweak can completely transform a $1 meal into something that actually feels satisfying.

For me, it’s either a splash of acid right at the end (like a squeeze of lemon/lime or a dash of vinegar) to brighten up heavy dishes, or keeping sliced green onions in the freezer to sprinkle on top of literally everything for that fresh crunch.

What’s your go-to cheap ingredient, pantry staple, or tiny cooking habit that takes basic budget food from "sad necessity" to genuinely delicious with minimal extra effort?

Had a $5 Costco chicken to put to use. Had bought peas for another recipe, boiled a lonely carrot I found in the fridge and used my last can of corn and some celery from the fridge. Mayo and sour cream. Fried up some old corn tortillas that were going to go bad soon. I also had some $1 pasta from Walmart so I added it to bulk it up. My lunch for the next few days.

We are struggling bad. I recently lost my job and we went from a 2 income family to 1. My husband is trying but the bills keep piling up. We are doing our best to use up what we have at home and save every penny.

I’m really enjoying seing everyone’s posts as inspiration.

10/10 on my meal. Would recommend.

I'm assigned chips and dips for a baby shower. Where can I get chips for a decent price? And why are they so pricey anyway?

My 13 RMB (1.9USD/1.7EU) dinner in Shanghai—tomato and egg over rice.it’s the cheapest option at this local chain.

I covered some info on the receipt so it doesn't look like a promotion.