Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree soup is a great way to save money. Carrots, garlic, ginger (fresh), chicken stock, few peeled potatoes to thicken, and onions - simmer til soft and blend smooth. Or very small amount of stew meat, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, beef stock - beef stew. Various mushrooms, beef stock, onions, garlic - mushroom soup.

Very easy, nutritious and really tasty. Adding it to a meal or having it as a meal cuts down your food cost significantly.

But how many calories are in this soup?
You're basically serving vegetables and water!!

I have teenage athletes. They need 5000 calories per day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you include takeout in there, I probably spend over $1000 per month just for one person.

Fiji water, kombucha and ProBars (natural meal replacement bars) are killers for me. Also, I’m lazy and don’t like to cook.

Reverse osmosis filter under your sink costs about $50 a year for replacement filters (family of 4), supplies all our water. You can also get reverse osmosis water from the machines at grocery store. Buy a water tester and compare various waters with your fiji water. My filtered water is 15 ppm. My tap water is 175 ppm. I was at costco today and saw so many people buying 48 pack single use waters (kirkland). Like 2 or 4 packs in their cart. I hope they recycle those hundreds of bottles a month.

Anonymous wrote:I agree soup is a great way to save money. Carrots, garlic, ginger (fresh), chicken stock, few peeled potatoes to thicken, and onions - simmer til soft and blend smooth. Or very small amount of stew meat, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, beef stock - beef stew. Various mushrooms, beef stock, onions, garlic - mushroom soup.

Very easy, nutritious and really tasty. Adding it to a meal or having it as a meal cuts down your food cost significantly.

Anonymous wrote:Make soup, for lunches. Here is my recipe, takes 3 minutes prep time. Add prep time if you are adding fresh veggies that need chopping.

Chicken or Beef bone broth. Provides 8 gram protein per cup and no fat. 6 pack of 32 oz at costco or sams club is about $16. They only have chicken, no beef bone broth.

Canned beans or pressure cook a batch of dry beans before hand. I like chickpeas and black beans. Rinse first.

Frozen veggies, such as frozen mushrooms from Whole Foods, green beans, peas, carrots.

Prepare a batch of bean based pasta or whatever pasta or carb you prefer to add to the soup. I do this as general meal prep separately. If you are low carb, skip this step and just eat the vegetables.

Add canned diced tomato. The fire roasted with garlic canned tomato is by far the tastiest version. Buy 12 pack and keep in pantry

Add salt, pepper, and your choice of seasonings.

Anonymous wrote:We have several meals that are dirt cheap but still nutritious that we can sprinkle through the month that really bring costs down. With only three people we can make them last for two nights:

Vegetarian baked ziti with spinach and olives. The ingredients usually come to about $15 (pasta, canned crushed tomatoes, one bag spinach, mozzarella and Parmesan, garlic). Might be a little more now with inflation. I split the recipe between two casserole dishes and freeze one, and one dish will last two nights, especially if combined with some fresh bread (homemade so just a couple dollars worth of flour and yeast).

That’s 12 dinners (3 people x 4 nights) for under $20. So less than $2 per meal per person.

We also do vegetarian rice bowls (mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, green onions with soy sauce, sesame sauce) for a similar amount (but can’t freeze so it’s just a two nigh meal) and red beans and rice (canned beans, peppers and onions, andouille sausage). If we do one meal like this every week (over two nights) it counterbalances nights with takeout or when we do more elaborate, expensive meals and really keeps costs down. Sometimes we’ll just eat like this all month in order to save money so that we can see splurge on an upcoming vacation or holiday without busting our budget. It’s not a hardship— these meals are delicious and easy to make.

We also make pizza at home (with homemade dough that we freeze ahead) instead of ordering pizza. It’s super easy (defrost dough, make simple sauce with crushed tomatoes and garlic, assemble with toppings) and is better than 90% of pizza we’d get delivered — there are some proper Neapolitan places that do it better but they also charge $25 a pie and we’d rather eat there in person. Our at home versions feed us for days and cost, at most, $6-7 a pie.