Sustenance

The food budget is the most important part of being poor.  One cannot be poor and feel good about it unless a healthy yet cheap, delicious, and varied diet is involved.

Our food budget for two people is $200.  Per month.  We eat like kings.

I'm in charge of the food budget around here.  Not because I am the more domestic one, but because Adam can't concentrate at the store.  He could go there to buy cereal, and honestly spend two hours in the cereal aisle staring at boxes, comparing every detail of each one.  If he doesn't have a list, he will wander around the store (again, for hours) trying to figure out what we need.

Three main factors go into keeping our food budget so low and healthful:  (1) no deal = no deal, (2) skip pre-made stuff, (3) rarely eat out.  

(1)  I buy food at three different places on Wednesdays in order to get the best deals.  Henry's has their sales from the previous week, and the sales from the new week in effect on Wednesdays.  Then, I go to Vons to get the stuff I couldn't get at Henry's.  I only buy things on sale, or  if I have a coupon.  But, I like to double dip and save my coupons until the desired item is also on sale.  All our meals are based on what is on sale, which normally is the same as what is in season.  Last, I go to the farmer's market by our house to get vegetables and fruit.

(2)  The bulk of our purchases are dried goods (beans, lentils, rice, split peas, oats, flour) and fruits/vegetables.  We don't buy any canned stuff, that counts as pre-made.  I buy a 10lb bag of dry pinto beans at Costco for about $15.  Ten pounds of pinto beans makes over 150 1/2 cup servings.  One can of prepared pinto beans costs $1.25-ish on sale, and has only 4 servings.  Not only are we saving money, we're saving tons of energy that is wasted by canning the beans and transporting them to the store.  And, we're saving the can.  And, we're not consuming all the sodium and preservatives and other weird chemicals that are in that can of beans.  Everyone wins.

You're probably thinking "So what, who would want to eat 150 servings of pinto beans.  Boring."  I turn those beans into burritos, tacos, chimichangas, taco salad, and veggie burgers.  And, it is all really good.  We often say that if we got our meal in a restaurant we would be freaking out and telling people that it is the best restaurant ever.  It is all about being creative with what you can afford.  Like I said, we eat like kings.

We make our own bread, muffins, soups, pasta sauce, beer..anything one would buy already-made from a store we make from scratch.  We actually know what all the ingredients in our food are.  We are old school.

(3) We eat out about once a week.  But, "out" usually means a take-out type place where you order and then sit down and wait for them to call you - not a sit-down restaurant.  So, our "out" meal is usually less than $10, and it is usually In-N-Out or a taco shop.  We go to a sit-down restaurant maybe once a month or so.  It's rare to go out because we can make everything we like better than a restaurant can.  And, it isn't hard to cook so don't try giving me that old excuse.  If you follow the recipe and learn some basic cooking skills (the most important is being able to tell how hot to have your pan, and you'll naturally learn that the more you cook - the rest is all cinchy) you can make all your favorite meals for way way cheaper than going out.

I eat tastier food and more healthful food now than I ever have before.  I am more poor than I have ever been before.  If I hadn't been this poor, I probably would have never known how much better (in every way) homemade everything is.  When I have money someday, I'm still going to eat like a poor person.  Except, the word for a well-off person who eats this good is a "gourmet."