I would expect that by “optimizing for raw nutritional content and buying in bulk” you could get your food budget down to about $55/month. For $200/month that doesn’t have to cover lunches at work you should be able to afford much more variety and meat/luxuries etc.
Cooking dried beans, probably in a slow-cooker, would be cheaper than using canned ones. [1] You could cook the rice along with the beans. Chickpeas would also be cheaper dry.
You could probably get below $100/month cooking all your own meals that way. I’d start with dry rice and beans ($0.61/day for the beans and $0.76/day for the rice) which comes to $42/month, add vegetables, small amounts of cheap cuts of meat for flavor, spices, and luxuries for the other $58/month.
(Strangely: I’ve also worked as a dishwasher, I also bring tupperware to work to take home excess food, and I lived on ~$80/month for food for about 2 years. I think focusing on earning more earlier would probably have been a better use of my time than all of those combined.)
I would expect that by “optimizing for raw nutritional content and buying in bulk” you could get your food budget down to about $55/month. For $200/month that doesn’t have to cover lunches at work you should be able to afford much more variety and meat/luxuries etc.
(A while ago I collected lots of food budget numbers: food costs on a scale.)
Really? What items ought I replace?
Cooking dried beans, probably in a slow-cooker, would be cheaper than using canned ones. [1] You could cook the rice along with the beans. Chickpeas would also be cheaper dry.
You could probably get below $100/month cooking all your own meals that way. I’d start with dry rice and beans ($0.61/day for the beans and $0.76/day for the rice) which comes to $42/month, add vegetables, small amounts of cheap cuts of meat for flavor, spices, and luxuries for the other $58/month.
[1] http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2011/07/19/dry-beans-or-canned-beans-a-cost-effective-comparison/
Brilliant! This will shave off ~30 dollars per month, thank you.
(Strangely: I’ve also worked as a dishwasher, I also bring tupperware to work to take home excess food, and I lived on ~$80/month for food for about 2 years. I think focusing on earning more earlier would probably have been a better use of my time than all of those combined.)
Some advice, written when Jeff and I were spending $170/month on groceries for two of us: http://jdwise.blogspot.com/2011/01/living-it-up.html