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Grex > Kitchen > #202: Cooking on a budget, i.e. when you are impoverished. | |
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jaklumen
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Cooking on a budget, i.e. when you are impoverished.
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Dec 12 06:38 UTC 2002 |
We are well below the poverty level. Living with friends right now, in
fact.
Suggestions for cooking, then?
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| 68 responses total. |
cmcgee
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response 1 of 68:
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Dec 12 16:00 UTC 2002 |
Good to see you online again! The Jeff Smith series of cookbooks, probably
available at the libraty, is full of hearty peasant (poverty) food. Also,
cookbooks for impoverised students, talked aabot in various othter items here,
are full of poverty level ideas.
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jaklumen
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response 2 of 68:
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Dec 13 09:57 UTC 2002 |
Frugal Gourmet, eh? I should have thought of that..
I'm sure you're also referring to "Help! My Apartment Has A Kitchen,"
but for my apparent laziness, could you list the others?
I would also appreciate anyone's recipes. Some I've seen in the conf
look marvelous, but some seem to have exotic (and expensive)
ingredients I can't get, especially with foreign food.
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keesan
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response 3 of 68:
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Dec 13 20:52 UTC 2002 |
Buy bulk through a buying club. We get flour for about 1/4 what the local
coop is charging for it. Don't buy prepared foods. Eat oatmeal. (Remember
when you visited us in Ann Arbor:) ). Buy from local farmers - I think you
may be in a potato growing area. Ask them if they have any that are not
pretty enough to sell to stores, cheap. Get a bread machine. Buy 50 pounds
of dry beans and soak them overnight before pressure cooking them.
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jaklumen
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response 4 of 68:
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Dec 14 05:10 UTC 2002 |
Buying bulk through a buying club is not an option here.
We can't really buy from local farmers much unless we buy carrots,
really-- nearby Prosser is a national carrot growing area.
We have a bread machine, but our roomies ask that we buy bread from
where the husband works. They are lazy as far as cooking.
Things will be easier when we have our own place.
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cmcgee
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response 5 of 68:
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Dec 14 18:49 UTC 2002 |
buying in bulk is only an option for those who have more than adequate storage
space. For me, the cost per square foot of obtaining more storage space, is
far more than the amount I could save by storing bulk purchase of food.
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mary
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response 6 of 68:
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Dec 14 20:12 UTC 2002 |
Another option might be to seek our food service employment. Most
restaurants offer their staff at least one meal a day when they are
working. Do either of you have a job? That might be the place to start
if you are both poor and hungry.
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keesan
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response 7 of 68:
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Dec 14 22:16 UTC 2002 |
Food does not need to be stored in a heated area - do you have a basement?
If there is a food coop in town they get deliveries from somewhere, and you
may be able to start your own buying club and buy from the same source.
Does your roommate work at a bakery? If so, can you get day-old bread?
Three-day-old bread?
We store our bulk food on the steps leading to the basement, in 4-gal jugs.
Grains, beans, flours, peanuts. Cheap and filling. Add carrots.
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slynne
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response 8 of 68:
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Dec 15 22:43 UTC 2002 |
I have found that buying whole wheat pasta from the coop and putting
powerdered garlic and olive oil on it makes for a pretty cheap meal.
Cheese isnt too expensive either nor is canned marinara sauce.
Homemade pizza is pretty cheap too.
When I was working a min wage job, I found that I could eat pretty well
as long as I didnt eat meat more than once or twice a week (it was too
expensive). So, in that spirit, I would recommend a vegan diet as a
good poor person's diet. During my poor years I ate a lot of pasta, a
lot of beans and rice, a lot of oatmeal, etc.
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eprom
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response 9 of 68:
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Dec 15 23:10 UTC 2002 |
I'm pretty frugal...so these are staples in my diet.
Bulk no-name brand cereal - if you have a Gordon food store check them out
Ramen noodles - $.20 at meijer
Frozen Burritos - $.33 at meijer
dinner for two - (insert name of grocery store here) brand Mac & cheese.
no-name brand yougart - usually around $.50 to .75 a container.
Bananas - usually very cheap even when not on sale.
I also always check the price-per-ounce listing on the signs when shopping.
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keesan
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response 10 of 68:
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Dec 15 23:28 UTC 2002 |
Eprom sounds like the sort who does not like to cook ;)
We make our nwn noodles from durum flour, our cereal is oatmeal, I have made
corn tortillas from masa harina.
Meat is generaly cheaper than cheese - I think it's govt. subsidized.
If you want to save money on meat find a fish store or butcher and ask them
for the trimmings - fish bones from the fish filets are free here (pay for
the bag). The parts left after making boneless chicken are also cheap.
Supermarkets often mark down somewhat old vegetables and fruit.
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scott
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response 11 of 68:
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Dec 16 00:32 UTC 2002 |
One thing to look into would be farm-style cooking, although I don't know if
there's any such cookbook. Typically it involves trying to use as much of
the ingredients as possible, avoiding having to throw out things with
nutritional value.
Example: Cook meat in a skillet, and instead of throwing away the grease,
make gravy and use it on potatoes or as a sandwich spread. Hard to say how
many such things are relatively doable in a modern kitchen with modern stuff,
but it's something to think about.
Overall you can save some money with cooking, but really it's a drop in the
bucket compared to housing and transportation. Being able to do basic car
maintenance and repairs is very useful; not only do you save on shop labor
but you also tend to notice things which need immediate attention and can
prevent more expensive repairs. Maybe there's a local organization which
gives cheap/free car work classes. Or maybe you could trade some guitar
lessons for car repair lessons and access to tools?
Speaking of things like guitar lessons... have you looked into making a little
money on the side that way? A few years ago I noticed a really interesting
guitar in a new store which needed work, and ended up fixing it to see if I
wanted to buy it. I didn't buy it, but I did end up occasionally doing other
repairs for the store. Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to do that
kind of work on a half-time basis and spend some money on tools, since I'm
the best amp & electronics repair tech to have shown any interest. And while
I was almost exclusively doing repairs on store items (it's a vintage
instrument store) it turned out there were regular service requests from
customers who were being turned away because there was no regular repair tech
to make sure stuff got fixed in a timely fashion. So check out the local
music stores, and if they don't offer lessons ask why - maybe they were just
waiting around for somebody who could actually teach (plenty of people can
play, but not so many can be a good teacher) and was reliable enough to keep
a regular schedule. And if there's demand, well, go with it. You want to
teach professionally, right? The business side might be a little scary at
first, but no worse than academia politics.
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jep
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response 12 of 68:
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Dec 16 03:08 UTC 2002 |
No-brand cereals are creeping up in price, but are still much less than
their brand-name equivalents. Rice krispies and corn flakes are really
cheap. I get the no-name Cheerios equivalent, which are usually about
half the price of the name brand product.
What kind of stuff are you eating now?
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i
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response 13 of 68:
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Dec 16 03:41 UTC 2002 |
Bulk food store oatmeal is cheaper than any no-name breakfast cereal.
Home-baked bread is *vastly* cheaper than fancy-bread-store bread.
(That you had to buy, right?) Can you split the savings with your
hosts ("paying cash for electricity for baking bread") to save some?
Meat/fish/poultry is fairly cheap if you don't mind the least-wanted
stuff & don't expect to fill up on it. (A nice $0.99/lbs. pork shoulder
roast is simmering as i type. It seems to be the piece of the pig that
my favorite butcher can't get folks interested in buying. Another local
store cuts whole salmon into salmon steaks - then sells the lots-of-meat-
but-no-cool-looks tails for $2.99/lbs.
Eating cheap is 1 part penny-pinching attitude, 1 part on-the-cheap
cooking skills, and 1 part having the time.
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jaklumen
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response 14 of 68:
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Dec 16 05:56 UTC 2002 |
We receive foodstamps. We are not really quite worried about budgeting
that, as I bargain shop well. We buy "no-brand" cereal, and we shop at
a grocery store that keeps prices very low by staying less fancy as far
as the store (think Safeway vs. some smaller-chain store) and they have
you bag your own groceries. resp:9 yep, I always check the per/unit
price, too.
Again, bulk is not a great option. Our roomies insist on buying lots
at a time, but space is a bit at a premium, as over 60% of our
belongings are in their basement.
I may be making excuses as to the bread machine, but I have little time
to do it. Yes, the husband does work in the bakery of the grocery
store where we shop at. I doubt we could do day old bread because I'm
sure the wife roomie wouldn't allow it.
Food service employment may not be the best idea right now. I am
really working on finding a living wage, and I have some good leads
that might work.
resp:11 farm-style cooking.. well, I think the mention of "The Frugal
Gourmet" might partially cover that.
I had a friend who helped me with car repair, but he moved out-of-state
to go back to school. Guitar lessons aren't really an option; I don't
play well enough. I'm just trying to figure out how to barter for
lessons for myself. If I had stayed with piano, I might be able to do
that, but the honest fact is, I don't think I can compete.
I think I haven't been very specific.. I'm not really worried about
budgeting and whatnot-- I need help with recipes and meal ideas.
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scott
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response 15 of 68:
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Dec 16 12:28 UTC 2002 |
(You don't have to be a super-whiz guitarist to give lessons - you have to
be OK [which I suspect you are], but mainly you have to have a great deal of
patience to teach 12 year-olds how to fret their very first chord.)
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davel
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response 16 of 68:
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Dec 16 15:21 UTC 2002 |
<sigh> Yep.
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keesan
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response 17 of 68:
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Dec 16 19:13 UTC 2002 |
What sorts of things do you like to eat? And how much time do you have to
cook?
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jaklumen
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response 18 of 68:
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Dec 17 10:07 UTC 2002 |
I talked to Ann and she agreed to help me make bread in their machine.
Off the food subject, Julie is moving Sarah to cloth diapers part of the time.
On lessons, well, existing teachers tend to snap students up and I would be
teaching folk style-- hardly the popular choice of many young teens.
Julie and I are doing Lean Cuisine (and similar) type dinners right now to
make our new diet easier. *sigh* Eventually, I suppose I will be closer to
Sindi's suggestions; but I choose to make changes gradually. A chunk of our
bankruptcy debt was eating out frequently when I was depressed (during my last
days of college, and shortly after, which were miserable). Cooking for 2-3
people is hard for me, and Ann is a picky eater; there are many veggies she
won't touch.
I think we may move out next month.. that will change things slightly. More
things I can cook, but one less person-- I found cooking for 3 easier than
cooking for 2.
Maybe I'm being obstinate.
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orinoco
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response 19 of 68:
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Dec 20 22:25 UTC 2002 |
Cooking for two is much easier if you make enough to have a few days' worth
of leftovers. And, uh, then you've got the added benefit of having a few
days' worth of leftovers. :)
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