I decided the other day it was time to bite the bullet and do another pantry challenge. I went first to our local Dollar General. Then I went over to the local grocery store. I've debated how to do this challenge, and I think it's going to turn into three posts. Two $25 challenge posts and one $50 challenge because that extra $25 opens up a few more meal plans than the $25 challenges allowed.
Here's my why: twice now I've seen some videos about what can be made for a 'budget' dinner with $25. The food served four people. I figured if one concentrated and only spent $25 for dinner 7 "budget" days a week, it would cost a family of four $175 for a week of evening meals only. That's $750 for a month of dinners. That doesn't include breakfasts or lunches. That figure to me is mind boggling.
There's a store in Macon that advertises two meals weekly. You can purchase either one for $25. They mean it as a one-night pick-up quick meal sort of thing. You get a main dish, two sides, bread and some special sauce or seasoning packet or whatever goes with the meal that week. Given the price of take-out these days, I think the grocery store is giving good value but it's certainly not something you'd want to do daily!
Second, I've often considered our own small rural county and the lack of transportation that some might have. They are strictly limited to what they might buy within the community they live. Add a limited budget to that and how far could it go?
And my third reason is that I get lax and spoiled. It's nice to remind myself of what I might do to make real budget meals, if necessary. Frankly, it's good to stay in practice.
I did realize going into this that if I were shopping locally only then I was going to truly be challenged. I'd like to go to Aldi or Kroger and see what I might do with the same money but for this set of posts, I kept it local.
This was not a Mother Hubbard challenge where I began with no pantry as I did in a previous series of posts. I admit this is where I tangled my feet and tripped up, but bear with me as I figure this out, okay? I meant to see how many meals I might make if I had just $25 to spend. I didn't think to try to get breakfast, lunch and dinner. Feeding a family for $25 a day is a much better average for a week, I think, than $25 for one meal a day. But in pricing things I found, especially at the first store, that I couldn't buy for breakfast as well. Any of the below meals would do well for lunch as well as dinner, though. They are not complete meals. You're not going to get an entree, two sides, bread and fruit or dessert. The meals I've planned contain vegetables but I don't think there are enough.
I started at Dollar General so that's where we'll start our post.
I'll confess right away. I went over. I thought I was figuring everything carefully, but I was over by about $2. I think the discrepancy came in with the can of pineapple, which I debated not using. I kept thinking I'd make one particular meal (Sweet and Sour Chicken) but couldn't afford the green peppers. I should've just put the pineapple back, but I've tried to work it into the meals.
Tax on the foods I bought was 75c. That is local special option sales tax (SPLOST) and is county tax, not state. We do not pay state tax on foods, but I feel it's right to include tax in my costs, since it must be paid.
At Dollar General I purchased:
1 pound of spaghetti $1.00
Pineapple,15 oz. $1.95
3 cans of vegetables 3/$2.00
I bought corn, peas, green beans
1 can of tomatoes $1.00
8 ounces cheese $2.50
2 pounds BS Breasts $7.95
There are five breasts. This was frozen meat.
1-pound brown rice $1.00
2 pounds AP Flour $1.35
3 pounds Gold Potatoes $4.50
2 pounds yellow onions $2.95 (four large onions in the bag)
Tax 75c
Total: $26.95
One thing we'll note here is that produce at the dollar store is expensive in our area. But it is fresh food. And in the long run, the potatoes will lend themselves to more things than a box of instant flakes would.
What I planned to use from home were seasonings, fat (oil or shortening), yeast, a bit of sugar. I have skim milk powder in the cupboard, and I figured I could use that rather than buy milk for the purpose of these meals. I could, however, do without it. It's just a little added nutrition.
Some of my planned meals will serve four but others will only serve two. The meat is stretched a bit in these meals, but you'll see how I figured things. I opted for the chicken breasts because frozen ground beef was $4.95 for a single pound, and I knew I'd get more mileage from the chicken.
I planned to boil 3 chicken breasts and season the water used to cook them. I'll save this broth.
Chicken Pot Pie: Served as an all-in-one meal. I can make top and bottom crusts using 2 cups flour, a bit of shortening and water. I'd use 1/2 an onion (these are large), 2 medium potatoes, half the can of peas. I'd combine one chopped breast with the vegetables and gravy I made using 2 tablespoons flour and oil. I'd make a quart of milk using water and the powdered skim milk in the cupboard. Seasoning gravy with what I have in the spice drawer. I'd serve half the can of pineapple as a side dish and save the other half for later.
Alternatively, using baking powder, milk and oil, for a pourable crust and reduce the flour to 1 cup.
In making the meals below I'd set aside 2 tablespoons of each can of vegetables. And I'd reserve any cooking liquid from them as well. That contains minerals!
Fried Chicken Breast (splitting the largest breast in the packet in half), Mashed potatoes, Corn, Bread. If I made rolls or bread I would need 3 cups flour, the packet of yeast and some salt and sugar, water and oil.
Spaghetti a la Diablo: I'd save the smallest chicken breast for this dish. The original recipe calls for only 1/2 cup cooked chicken. Half the can of tomatoes, a dash of sugar, a pinch of cayenne, salt and pepper, 1 onion. The original recipe does call for mushrooms but there were none in the store, so I'll skip them. Cook half a box of spaghetti (just 8 ounces are required) and mix with the sauce. Top with a sprinkling of grated cheese (about 1/4 cup). Serve with green beans.
I'd cook the bag of rice then split it up.
Chicken Fried Rice: 1 chopped chicken breast, garlic and ginger powders, soy sauce, onions, a couple of spoons of peas, green beans and corn, 2 cups rice, oil to sauté it all. If I needed to stretch this further, I could add cubed potatoes to it. It wouldn't be authentic, but it would serve more. Half a can of pineapple as a side.
Chicken Vegetable soup: Two cups rice, 1 boiled chicken breast with broth from cooking, an onion, 1/2 can each of peas, corn, and half the can of tomatoes and seasonings. Served with bread this should be quite good.
Bonus dish: Spaghetti and Cheese. Grandmother used to make this rather than make macaroni and I thought it was delicious. Make a roux with a bit of the flour and oil, add milk and shredded cheese, mix with cooked pasta, top with more cheese and bake.
And there are potatoes and onions to spare.
Now if I had it to do over again: I'd skip the can of pineapple and have bought two more cans of vegetables, likely beans and peas.
That's six meals from the foods I bought.
There was $27 spent and that's how I sorted it out as meals. It's not ideal that's for sure, and I come to the end feeling I made pauper meals rather than good solid food.
So, I thought further and came up with fewer meals but better ones, I think.
I could be more generous with meat and vegetables. I'd probably make the spaghetti and cheese, serve it with green beans and stewed tomatoes. Have a chicken pot pie with two and a half breasts and serve peas and mashed potatoes on the side. That would leave potatoes, onions, the can of corn and 2 1/2 chicken breasts to make a big pot of chicken and rice soup. I shouldn't need all the rice for the soup so I could take some of the milk, some of the rice, and serve it sprinkled with cinnamon sugar as a hot cereal for morning meals with toasted bread. In that way one would have three meals for probably two days. All would stretch slightly further to feed more people and it's a little better balanced.
Now I'm curious what you all might have done with the same groceries. Is there a dish your family loves that you might have managed from the same foodstuffs? Tell us in the comments.
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6 comments:
I think you did about as much with that amount as anyone could have, but I agree that the food would taste more like pauper meals that what most of us are accustomed to eating. Your second thoughts were good, too, but let's face it...it is hard to prepare meals on that budget.
The things your post really underscored for me are:
(1) It is difficult to shop in rural communities with limited options and usually higher prices; and
(2) A pantry can really increase the cooking options and often lower the average price of a meal. For example, many items you bought cost more than I've ever paid for the same thing.
As someone who grew up in a family that was always broke due to lifestyle choices, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next! Pinto beans with a can of tomato sauce were NOT a fave.
Years ago I was going through a very difficult time as a single parent with 2 children, a good job, but bills that were overwhelming due to the divorce. I had $100 for the month and that included the need to purchase hot lunch at school since I didn’t qualify under normal circumstances, gas, and any other incidentals. I remember one meal of lentils, which were super inexpensive. But, I didn’t really know how to prepare them. My children refused to eat them and I came unglued! We survived, but oh my! Fortunately, I got better with lentils! Earlier, when first married and money was tight, I’d created a price list of everything in the commissary we ate/needed. The cheapest meal was a 13 cent can of Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup and a 10 cent box of Jiffy corn mix. My other “go-to” inexpensive meal was creamed tuna on toast. Later, a slice of cheese made it on there. Tuna casserole was also pretty reasonable. And, of course there was Spam. When I was a kid, my mom would actually create the cross hatch cut marks on the top, stick in the cloves, and make a simple fruit glaze as if it were ham. That still makes me smile!
Being from Idaho, I'm kinda appalled by what you spent for potatoes, LOL. However, for your chicken pie, you could have topped it with mashed potatoes instead of the second crust. I would never buy 2 lbs of flour (I realize that was probably your only option) so I would save the extra cup of flour for something else down the road. I don't think this would be any great savings but it might have freed up needed ingredients for something else.
I noticed you did not buy any bread, which is usually a staple with cheap meals. I always buy store brand "wide" bread for about $1.85 loaf and it lasts about a week. If I had a breadmaker and could get flour at a decent price, homemade bread would be much cheaper. When I had a breadmaker (40 years ago and it looked like R2D2) I always used all purpose flour. Bread flour might have made a better loaf but this was fine.
Max, I am appalled myself at what potatoes cost but they are still one of the cheapest foods around and a tasty one as long as you've got some salt, lol.
I did say in the post that I took 3 cups of the flour and made bread with a packet of yeast I'd found in the freezer. I could have added in a carrot from the fridge or bell peppers from the freezer. I don't keep a lot of frozen vegetables on hand and I find I am less and less inclined to pull out a can but I do have them. However, what I didn't have were mushrooms which are pretty much a main ingredient in the Spaghetti a la Diablo acting both as a filler and a minor source of additional protein.
Cindy our cheap meal was peanut butter, a 3 pound bucket of it every month and that was lunch every other day for months. I rarely will touch peanut butter these days...The second lunch we ate was tuna salad. It took me years to even think I might eat tuna again.
It is indeed difficult in a small town like this one. I will not stick to just my town in future but I did for this first post.
Now I'm curious if one could start from scratch and build a pantry reasonably in a small town...
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