Eat for 21 dollars a week

[2Birds1Stone]

Sure, you could live off of cheap fat, sugar, and trace proteins.......but that's no way to live.

[Kriegsspiel]

That's pretty much the way I do it. I think about buying "protein" and calculate the protein/dollar and mostly eliminate the worst protein values.

I lol'd when I saw the "alcohol per dollar" line. I've done that.

Interesting site.

[Seppia]

I did not run the numbers the way he did, but the general results are fairly in line with my approach

[jennypenny]

It's really hard to keep costs that low on a lower carb diet. We spend about $25/week on dairy alone. Eating in season does help keep costs down and I save even more when I buy extra in-season produce and put it up.

Being willing to eat the same thing every day and/or batch cooking helps. Instead of thinking 'what are we going to eat today' I think 'what are we going to eat this week'. Having cooking sessions only once or twice a week also lowers costs.

Hmm, now I want to change my post in the garden thread and put in more vegetables this week.

[Frita]

It seems that not eating out is the biggest money saver, plus one can control the quality of ingredients. I also like to make extra (I.e., quickbread, beans, tamales, chana marsala, etc) to freeze for emergencies, nights I don’t feel like cooking, and in individual portions for lunches.

I had to laugh about those $5 takeout pizzas, which sometimes go on sale for $3.99 midweek. If DH and DS cook dinner, that’s sometimes what we end up getting. Despite it being inferior to homemade pizza IMO, they seem to consider it a treat.

[7Wannabe5]

Efficiency is not everything. This is obvious when, as in the article linked, you go to even just the level of three factor analysis; calories, protein, cost. This becomes much more obvious when you add complex factors such as "taste" and "resilience." For instance, I had stir-fry made from Asian import mega-market wheat sticks, semi-local organic brown eggs, home-grown radish greens, and foraged lamb's quarters a couple nights ago, and it was quite delicious.

So, my 4 factor scale of 10 rating of this meal per calorie provided might be something like:

Cost: 8
Protein: 6.5
Taste: 8.5
Resilience: 7

but I could also rate the other 4 factors on the basis of pennies spent rather than calories provided, OR resilience gained, or deliciousness experienced, or protein obtained. And, it's also not the case that these factors are strictly independent. For instance, obviously, grams of protein obtained is directly related to calories provided absent other caloric sources and in the philosophy of ERE, pennies spent might be regarded as strongly negatively correlated to resilience gained. etc. etc. etc.