Meals on a Budget

After we first got married, we were really concerned about finances.  I'd say we were probably correctly concerned about them, but maybe 2 orders of magnitude more concerned than the typical newlywed couple in grad school, and about an order of magnitude more than if we wanted something approaching marital bliss.

Just to put it in context, it's easy to find "meals for 4 under $10" online when you google "meals on a budget."  That's $2.50 per person per meal.  Sounds wicked cheap, right?  We originally budgeted $100 a month for two.  That's about $0.50 per person per meal.  We quickly upped that to $200 per month, or $1.09 per person per meal.  Our budget for meals included wine, which we purchased in boxes, which left well under $1.00 per person per meal of actual food.  We made it work, even though I was (relatively) new in the kitchen and knew only a couple tricks to cut cost-corners.

That experiment fell apart for the obvious reasons, the most obvious of them being that newly-weds trying to live off less than $1.00 per person per meal have trouble coming to a consensus about whether a $10 grill falls under a  "food" expense or a "household goods and tools" expense.  At least, they have trouble doing so rationally and without emotionally-charged outbursts in the middle of WalMart, in front of strangers and little children.  This is especially true when the trip was specifically to pick up a grill, the grill is already in the shopping cart, and one person has her heart set on grilling the food that is also in the cart, and there's no room in the budget for both the grilling food and the grill if the grill is put under a "food" expense.  It was not a pleasant conversation.

FYI, in my experience, newly-weds have some trouble figuring out how to come to a consensus on something as mundane as to what to have for dinner that night without having budgetary issues to contend with as well.  "Whatever you want, honey."  "How about chinese?"  "I'm not really in the mood for chinese."  "Okay, so what are you in the mood for?"  "Whatever you feel like."  "Okay, Italian."  "I don't usually like Italian.  How about Thai?"  "Ugh, I'm tired of Thai.  Indian?"  "I don't really care, but not Indian."  "I don't really care either.  Mexican?"  "Oh, no, not Mexican, not tonight, how about....."

After a year it becomes, "Hun, we have chicken in the freezer and radish greens from the garden in here.  Sound good to you?"  "Yeah."

After a couple years, it becomes, "Hun, all we have left are chicken and radish greens.  Oh, and a bunch of radishes that I can fry into a hash.  That okay?"  "Yeah."

After a few years, it becomes, "Hun, all we have left are chicken and radish greens.  I think I will hurt someone or something if I have to eat radish greens again.  What do you say we run over to that ethnic market on the corner of X and Y, pick out some things we've never even seen before, and cook them?!"  "YAY!  Let me get my shoes!"

After a few more years, it becomes, "Oh, no, honey, we've tried everything!  What do we do to break the monotony?!"  "I dunno.  Maybe we could try that thing again where you feed us on less than $2 a meal?"  "Wow, you're right, that was, actually, perversely fun."

After pulling out the calculators, we figured out that we can definitely get the calories and protein we need using rice and beans for less than half the budgeted price in our area shopping only at mainstream grocery stores.  Now let's see if we can make it palatable!  Some future posts will be about trials, tribulations, and successes of this second attempt....

Disclaimer:  I already have a stocked pantry with the essentials: flour, sugar, butter, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, etc... and am more-than-well-stocked in cooking implement supplies, even the $10 grill this time, and will not be counting that in the prices.  I also have gardener friends who occasionally give me their surplus, and a small container garden with two new tomato plants and several herbs.  I also have a spice rack (actually, entire two-door cabinet so over-brimming that it cascades down on me in a waterfall of plastic and glass herb jars when I open one of the doors) that would make me the wealthiest girl in mideval Europe, so...  this isn't a fair comparison to folks living on government assistance programs in the inner-city by any means.  Some of the tricks I'll teach you rely on you owning or being able to borrow the correct equipment that would significantly bite into your food budget if you had to buy new.  Some things would seem trivial to a country girl used to making do with what's around, but hey, we have a poly-city-country-readership around here, and I don't want to jyp anyone out of what could be useful information.

Have a great night everyone, and stay hungry!  The next post will probably be on how to cook dry beans and store them until you're ready to use them....  It's really easy, and unless you have a 6-7 figure income, it's something probably actually worth your time to do rather than purchased canned.  I'll run the cost-analysis in the post on beans - I may be surprised.  ...mmm, aren't surprises fun?