Okay! Today is the day where we analyse another one of Christine’s extreme grocery budget challenges! In this video, she does her week of food for her family of 6 for $30. It’s tight here, and y’all may feel uncomfortable with what you see in this video because there is so little to do it all with!

I picked this particular video because of how closely what she bought replicates what happens in food bank and pantry boxes. It’s limited stuff and you really need to be creative with it if you aren’t the type of person who can do same ol’, same ol’ every day.

Strap in, y’all. This is probably going to be a very long one, since I am hoping to not 2-part this. Y’all watch the video below so you know exactly what we’re talking about!

During the intro, Christine says that she is addressing the complaints she sometimes gets that when she doesn’t have what she needs from her grocery hauls, she supplements from her own food stores. It really is a valid complaint, because so many people do not have that kind of “extra” in their kitchens, and people who’re utilizing food banks are least likely to be able to spice things up with foods they already had. That lack of ability to fall back on what you’ve already got also makes this a particularly fun challenge, because trying to do a lot with almost nothing is fun for me. I know that’s weird, but it is what it is!

All she gets during this challenge under the “I assume you have this” clause is salt, pepper, and oil. She also addresses the realities than when you’ve got $30/week to feed a large family, you’re looking at heavy limits on the types of fresh foods you can afford. It’s doable to have a veg-rich diet on that budget (and I’ve personally done it on $10/week budgets, both by necessity and by choice), but it gets harder the more people you have to feed. It also gets harder if you can’t let go of meat, because meat and super low budgets don’t like to hold hands or play nicely with each other.

But I don’t need to get my food from a bank

That’s awesome, and we’re happy for you! A lot of people do, however, and a lot more than we’ve seen in this country for a long, long time. In 2020, food banks around the nation served 6 billion meals. Yep. 6 billion. That looks more like this if you add in all the (9) zeroes: 6,000,000,000 meals. That many. They also served 55% more meals than they did in 2019. 40% of the people who were served by food banks and pantries in 2020 were utilizing these resources for the first time ever, and Feeding America anticipates serving around 6.5 billion meals in 2021 through their partner banks and pantries.

This is, for more context on why I think it matters to write these kinds of articles, 48 million (12.5%) Americans who will need food from banks and pantries this year, and that will include around 13 million children. I feel a bit nauseated when I imagine 13 million young bellies remaining empty without these services. If these kinds of numbers also make you feel upset, ill, or similar, please consider volunteering your time and material resources to food banks and pantries local to you. Everyone can make a difference!

I’m skipping all commentary about what she could or could not have done differently while shopping at Wal-Mart, because we all generally understand what it’s like to need to make hard choices.

Grocery haul

Today, Christine bought:

1 package of 2 pie crusts

3 dozen eggs

1 box of Knorr chicken bouillon cubes (each cube makes 2 cups of broth)

3 pounds of spaghetti (I too love these giant boxes of spaghetti)

1 can pasta sauce

5 pounds rice

2 pounds of pinto beans*

1 6-ounce can of tomato paste

2 15-ounce cans of mixed vegetables

2 yellow onions

3 roma tomatoes

2 heads of garlic

1 bunch of 6 bananas

6 golden delicious apples

1 pound carrots

10 pounds chicken leg quarters

1 can cream of mushroom soup

10 pounds all-purpose flour

3 packets of yeast

3 pounds of old fashioned oats

*Note: soy and Anasazi beans contain all 9 essential amino acids, making them complete proteins. This is also true (in seeds we usually call grains) of buckwheat and quinoa. For seeds we still call seeds, chia and hemp seeds do the same. I don’t think anything on this list is what I would call affordable for a lot of people, but if it is affordable, these are great foods to keep on hand. Technically, potatoes are also a complete protein, but you have to eat at least 10 per day for that to be true due to their lower levels of tryptophan, methionine, and histadine.

Below is a screen shot of her total haul, so we can quickly reference what was purchased.

What I would’ve done differently

I can tell you right now that I would not have bought that meat if I needed to feed that many people on so little. Meat is a luxury food to me (due to its higher cost), and while those of you who’re feeding your family on $5/week certainly can do meat, I personally can’t see myself spending 20% of my weekly budget on meat. I live with some hardcore meat lovers, but flexibility is the name of the game when you’re broke. My carnivores are used to not eating meat every day, so that makes skipping meat a lot easier for me to accomplish than some families may experience.

If I really did want a diet rich in flesh, yes $6 for 10 pounds of meat is an excellent value and is the best choice. Chicken leg quarters in the bags generally will give you the most bang for the buck. Also good options are bacon ends and pieces (these tend to be super cheap but give you all that flavor), salt pork (trickier to work with for many people, but a little goes an incredibly long way), or cheaper sausages like the $1 10-ounce chorizo logs.

I might also have picked hearts, livers, or other offal, or favored weird cuts like necks. I admit I’m currently besotted with necks and have been cooking them often, so there’s a lot of bias in that recommendation. My family are so happy I’m on the necks train, because they are getting probably twice as many meat-inclusive dinners per week than they ordinarily do. Necks want long and slow cooking, so you know. On some occasions, I’ve opted to buy andouille sausage, because you can spread that single pound of meat over multiple meals due to its strong flavor.

Instead of buying meat, I would most likely have chosen to increase the amount of vegetables and I definitely would’ve bought more beans and lentils. I have noticed that since the pandemic started, beans, lentils, and grains have dramatically increased in price, so this could cause you to pause to decide which one is the better value. Meat or no meat? It really is going to vary based on dietary needs, preferences, and wiggle room in the budget.

I choose no meat here because for around $6, you can get 8 pounds of pinto beans. For that $6 ($4.50 more than the smaller bag of beans Christine got), you should be able to get all the protein you need (with the addition of the rice) and you’re probably going to have leftover dried beans at the end of the week.

Really quickly, my friend Farah sent me this bean song, and I was overjoyed because I’d wanted something to break this little section up and hadn’t yet figured out what it should be. It should be this. My poor kid has listened to this on repeat for long enough now that she may not even want to eat beans anymore! So I’m passing on the joy or pain, depending on how you feel about this little gem.

If I’m bare bones-ing my food life, I need to know I’ve shopped in a way that leaves me a bit leftover when I go shopping the next week. That leftover food thing is part of how I’ve personally climbed out of the types of financially-caused food disasters I experienced in my younger years. Having the ability to have food leftover each week does increase the amount of food you have stored. It’s just really, really slow, and it means you can’t eat meat (or much of it) while you’re trying to stock the pantry beyond what you need this minute.

When I’m on a small and strict budget, I nearly always discount meat immediately as an option. I do this because you can get protein elsewhere (and generally more cheaply, despite how cheap these quarters are), can have more veggies if you don’t spend on meat, and can generally (albeit slowly) build your food pantry in the process. The massive downside here is that you need to really understand the food you have in order to be creative with them enough to not get tired of eating beans and rice all the time. If you need to not have to think as much about your meal prep, definitely leg quarters. Meat is easier to deal with in terms of idea generation if you don’t already consume a legume-heavy diet.

Christine also talks a lot about the value of those leg quarters, and she’s spot on with this. It’s hard to find meat that’s cheaper than $0.60/pound these days, and this is the most efficient way to do it. Note that you can remove the skins (if you don’t eat them on your meat) and put them in a dry pan over low heat. Very slowly, those floppy skins will transform into crispy bits of yes, and you will be able to save the schmaltz (chicken fat) in a container to add that chickeny goodness to other foods. Also saves you money on oil, so if you didn’t have oil before you started a challenge (or period), that schmaltz gave you some oil to cook with. Also make sure you save the bones (even if you cooked the quarters in non-soups with the bones still in them). You can make stock with them, and that is a great savings and a great flavor option.

If you really do want or need a larger quantity of meat for the week, you’re never going to find something cheaper per meal than these bags of quarters, and in this Christine is right that it’s what you should get. It’s my personal philosophy that meat should be rare when dealing with these kinds of budgets, not a hard or fast rule. It’s my philosophy because I think veggies are more important and they’re definitely cheaper (if you shop wisely and seasonally) than meat ever is. You do you, and go with what works best for your family.

This is the yeast I usually buy. I keep it in my freezer so it doesn’t expire, though usually I also have a small jar on the shelf. I used to buy it at a specialty store, but now it’s sold at most grocers here in Houston. Because I routinely float b… — This is the yeast I usually buy. I keep it in my freezer so it doesn’t expire, though usually I also have a small jar on the shelf. I used to buy it at a specialty store, but now it’s sold at most grocers here in Houston. Because I routinely float between sourdough and commercial yeast breads, with a lot of quick breads tossed in the mix, a pound of yeast lasts me years. I choose my leaven in accordance with how much time I’ve got to deal with the particulars of bread baking. If I have less than 2 hours to bake, I’m all about the baking powder. 4? Commercial is great. Longer? Enter the SD.

The only other thing I would’ve done differently is figured out what I could give up in order to get a jar of yeast instead of packets. Packets are insanely expensive, and most grocers offer a store brand jar of yeast that can be purchased for $2.50-3 (Wal-Mart really doesn’t offer a Great Value brand or otherwise discounted yeast). A 4-ounce jar of yeast yields around 21 loaves of bread made with the standard 2.25 teaspoons of commercial yeast. From that strip of packets? You get 3 loaves. If you can figure out how to make the jar work, it’ll last longer and save you money over time.

Oh! It’s worth noting that since the pandemic rolled in and everyone figured out just how much Americans love bread because there wasn’t any (or supplies to make it), a lot of grocers started stocking 1 pound bags of yeast for an average price of $4.11. That translates into around 84 loaves of bread for around the same cost as the 21 you get from a small jar. For reference, those 84 loaves will cost you $31.36 in yeast packets alone if you don’t find a way to get a jar or pound instead of packets. The packets are amazing and convenient and yes in every possible way if you can’t find a way to cut something else out for more yeast, but if you can, you’ve saved around $27 in yeast alone. This is why I’m harping on about it. It’s nearly a week’s worth of groceries in yeast alone if you let it play out this way for as long as it takes you to make 84 loaves.

Why so few criticisms, Allie?

Honestly, I don’t have a lot of complaints here, because as always, Christine does a wonderful job of shopping mindfully, with a good plan, and a comprehensive understanding of the foods she’s buying so they can stretch as far as possible. I strongly dislike shopping with a plan, but it is the way to do it if you’re on a really limited budget. Some people love shopping with a plan, so it’s really perfect if you’re on a limited budget and have that disposition to meal plan.

She also discusses some of the choices she’d have made differently if this $30 budget was her normal weekly food budget. Make sure you pay attention to that part of the video, because I’m not doing much with it here. Like with what I said above on what I’d do differently, Christine understands that she has the privilege of not being tied to this budget every week. As a result, she does a good job of explaining how to do things a bit differently so you’re slowly building that pantry/food security while eating on an extreme budget if it is your usual budget. A couple of weeks of $30/week for a large family can be planned differently than a routine $30/budget, because you need to worry less about long-term security when it’s a challenge you’re doing rather than the life you’re leading. This feels very different, as we discussed at length in the Dodging Appetite Fatigue posts. That first post in the series is a bit of oof. I’d forgot that the big storm went down while I was writing.

The Prep

And now it’s time to look at the meals! Y’all can probably tell I’m fighting hard to not turn this into a two-part deal. HARD. It’s hard. I talk too much. Let’s quickly review how Christine preps for her meals. For those of you who, like me, start cooking what you’re cooking the day (or day before) you want to eat it, know that this isn’t a practical use of our time. Frivolous use of food prep time does add stress to your life, so if this is your life and you want to shed some daily stress, find a day each week to do some prep. It streamlines the rest of your days if you can do it. I personally am bad at this, but hopefully y’all will do better.

Christine starts her prep by soaking all the beans she bought (2 pounds). You should do that, too, and then you should cook them as soon as they’re soaked. Cooked beans really will last a week in the fridge, so you’re not risking food waste by pre-cooking all the beans you’ll need that week.

She then grabs that bag of flour. I love flour. It’s time to make bread! The recipe she links is simple and will be delicious, so if you need a quick yeast recipe, definitely go with that. Her recipe has the added bonus of using very little yeast. With each packet containing 2.25 teaspoons of yeast and a recipe that calls for only half a teaspoon per loaf, Christine is doing a great job of offsetting how expensive the sleeves of packets are. She can get a total of 13 loaves from the 3 packets with the low yeast method, with a bit leftover to combine with some of the next sleeve she’ll purchase.

Important Potential Bread Recipe Modification

What you want to know about that recipe she’s using is that it uses the exact same ratio as quick breads do. If it’s cheaper for you to buy a tin of baking powder instead of a sleeve of yeast, you can use 1 tablespoon of baking powder in place of the yeast. There will be no rise time, so you’d mix it all up and straight into the greased pan and then oven. Wal-Mart does have a Great Value brand of baking powder (I checked), and it costs $1. At 1 tablespoon/loaf, you’re looking at 14 loaves for the dollar. The principle value here isn’t the 12 cents you save, but the rise time. You don’t have to wait for more than your oven to heat with quick bread, so if you’re trying to manage all of this by yourself on limited time, I would go baking powder. If you have the time to do yeasted bread, I think it’s worth the 12 cents from a flavor standpoint to yeast your loaves instead of chemically leaven. You’d bake this version at 375 for 1 hour.

One quick note: please don’t leave your preheated oven open like is done in the video. It does affect the bake, because your oven isn’t even kind of close to as hot as you think it is nor as hot as it’s meant to be. Opening the oven period generally results in a 25F loss of heat, and leaving it open like that of course worsens the heat loss issue. Not lingering like that would’ve allowed the bowl bread to darken more than it did. I don’t think it would’ve hit the same color as the one in the Dutch oven, but it would’ve been a lot closer. Also, score those loaves before you toss them in if you’re using yeast!

Breakfasts!

First up, for days 1-3, is oatmeal with apples. We already know this is a nutritious and perfectly frugal breakfast, so it doesn’t need a lot more detail. If you need to not make oatmeal on the stove, you can mix the oats and water in a bowl and microwave them for 3 minutes. This is what I do every single time I didn’t plan breakfast for Child Tester if I hadn’t fully woken up before it was time to feed her before school. It’s easy to microwave a bit of oatmeal. I often use a spoonful of jam instead of freshly chopped fruits on my laziest of days. She loves it.

Breakfasts for days 4-5 is sliced bread, fried eggs, and half a banana. Also an excellent, frugal choice! You can mix it up with the toads in a hole above, if desired, or do boiled eggs or whatever floats your boat.

Breakfasts for days 6-7 is the same as days 4-5, minus the banana. I might’ve offer some carrot sticks on the side, if I thought it wouldn’t affect my lunch and dinner schedule.

All of these are solid choices that I think, at the end of the day, don’t have as much to do with how cheaply you can get breakfast as other options might’ve read to me. These are pretty standard American breakfasts, so I think it’s excellent that her breakfast choices this week the frank simplicity and affordability of some of our standard American breakfast choices.

This is the most plebeian lunch I could find a picture of in Getty. I’m not gonna pretend I understand why that is, but it is what it is. That said, it looks pretty yummy with what I think is some kind of bean paste (perhaps hummus, perhaps another … — This is the most plebeian lunch I could find a picture of in Getty. I’m not gonna pretend I understand why that is, but it is what it is. That said, it looks pretty yummy with what I think is some kind of bean paste (perhaps hummus, perhaps another bean), fresh fruit (avocado/tomato) and veggies (radish/onion), and a sauce I’m deeply uncertain about. I am fussy about sauces, but I’m sure whatever this is is also tasty. This is not a particularly cheap meal, but it could be refashioned into one with less costly types of tomatoes and maybe only avocado if it’s on sale. I personally would like to eat that with smoked herring and perhaps instead on rye, but that’s just me. cleo stracuzza/Getty

Lunches

First: I love that in this section, she shows you what she wanted to use in these meals that weren’t part of her grocery haul. I think it’s important to keep those things in mind, because sometimes you really do have bits and bobs of leftover foods that can be integrated into these flexible lunch options!

Days 1-3 is Dominican rice and beans. Christine cooks her beans in the pressure cooker, which is also how I now usually cook them, but cook them in a pot or slow cooker if you don’t have an IP/similar. I really love that she makes all 3 days of lunch in one shot, adding just some garlic and onion, plus broth made from the Knorr cubes and half a can of tomato paste. That paste really does stretch much farther than a tiny, inexpensive can should, so do remember to grab some paste for the pantry if you can afford it. Christine also offers other additions like cilantro and bell peppers (can use chiles, also) that she wanted to add, if you’ve got budget space for them.

If there’s baking soda in the house to go along with that flour, I’d personally be inclined toward making some yaniqueques, using some of that chicken fat in place of butter.

Days 4-6 are chicken fried rice. I don’t know if this needs t obe said, so just in case: you want old rice for fried rice, not freshly made. It’s really not as good with freshly cooked rice. This is a meal where she really includes a lot of her other veggies. I am, however, confused as to why there’s such a large percentage of this dish that’s meat. I assume it has more to do with the fact that everyone in her family does some kind of athletics than anything else. To me, fried rice is a great dish for using less meat than you otherwise would to feed the same number of people. Y’all know I’m obsessed with properly integrated meat meals, though, so your mileage may vary here.

Day 7 is pasta with the rest of the paste. She mixes the paste with water to thin it down to a sauce (I assume salt and pepper went in, too). This is pretty straight-forward, but if you’ve got extra veggies or spices to add to the mix, dew eet. Ditto extra meat.

Dinners

Day 1: chicken and rice casserole

Casseroles really are a no brainer for small budget eating. Really any budget eating, but casseroles are often less work to clean up and easier to make than meals with various uncombined parts. What is particularly yes about this particular casserole is that you don’t need to cook the rice first. Win on the dishes front!!! You’ve also got cut pieces of chicken, broth from the Knorr, more water, and that cream of mushroom soup can in here. Christine also offers additional spice options here, if they’re available to you.

What I would’ve done differently here is cut that chicken up into small pieces rather than leaving big chunks on the bone. Not only does it allow me to more easily save the bones up in the freezer for stocks and broth, it also allows me to use less meat. Ditto removing the skin so I could reclaim all that delicious schmaltz.

The single biggest issue I have with the vast majority of American meat dishes is that they tend to be Meat as the Star dishes. Integrated meals use substantially less meat without feeling like there’s less, which saves money and also allows you to get more meals from your meat. If I were going to make this, I’d skin and debone the chicken, then cut it into smaller chunks. Then you can get some meat in each bite without me using as much meat as I’d otherwise need to.

That finished casserole is really beautiful, though, so based on that alone it’s possible I’d leave those pieces whole. Like Christine says, any leftovers can be easily repurposed into lunches on a later date.

Chicken pot pie is a classic, which is what we see eaten for dinners 2-3. My family love these, but I don’t ever make them because I just cannot with pie. Fruit pies are bad enough, but meat pies are so freaking no to me that I can’t even talk about it further. But for most people, these truly are a phenomenal choice for dinner, and especially dinner on the cheap.

Christine cooks her chicken in the Instant Pot, which is great because she gets broth out of it as well. You can totally do this on your stove. But again, pull those skins off first so you can render and save the fat. Especially if you cannot afford oil, butter, or margarine to round out whatever the food bank or pantry offered. Never waste those animal fats, please.

To render chicken fat, place the skin, fat side down, in a dry pan. Turn onto low heat. Come back later and nom your crispy skins and put the fat in a container for later use.

The chicken, once it’s been cooked, is then cut up and mixed with the cans of mixed veggies. Save those bones for stock later, too! Seriously, y’all, the single most important thing you can do when eating on the cheap is to not give up the nutrition and calories from foods that are available to you. A zero waste approach to these foods is how you do that.

She also makes a lovely gravy from the saved cooking liquid, plus a bit of oil and flour. Skimping on two crusts is a great way to maximize the value of that pie crust, too. Without the willingness to go bottomless, you only get 1 pie from that box. More bread can be had from the baked bread instead of the crusts, as Christine opts for, with no diminishment of the enjoyment of the meal or its caloric content.

I particularly appreciate that she mixed the filling in the baking dish. I will never, ever, ever ignore tips designed to help you wash fewer dishes. Ever. No one who cooks as much as I do should hate doing dishes this much. It’s a real issue.

Day 4: spaghetti and tinned sauce. This is perfect. It’s low fuss, easy, fast, and who doesn’t love pasta with sauce? One tip to streamline your time spent cooking and doing dishes is to simply not heat up the sauce. If you pour the sauce in as soon as that pasta is drained and back in its pot, the pasta will heat the sauce up and make less work for you across the board. When I’m doing homemade sauces, I often make them ahead of time and let them sit on the counter for an hour or two before I make pasta. Then I can do this trick and put the rest of the sauce straight back into the fridge.

Day 5: leftovers! I usually do 1-3 leftovers dinners per week. This is because I am not good at cooking “the right amount.” A lot of the time, we also eat leftovers for lunches. Leftovers are good and save you work.

Days 6-7: Chicken noodle soup. Excellent, wholesome, inexpensive, and yes. Soups are a go-to for me on the frugal meals (and dishes!) front. All other commentary I could make on the soup is stuff y’all already know.

Note to self: never, ever, ever again search for “saran wrap” on Getty. Wow y’all don’t want to know what all was in there for that search term! I will never again try to select a photo solely for “wrapping up” sections. Y’all don’t want to see what… — Note to self: never, ever, ever again search for “saran wrap” on Getty. Wow y’all don’t want to know what all was in there for that search term! I will never again try to select a photo solely for “wrapping up” sections. Y’all don’t want to see what got wrapped up in there! Ronise daluz/Getty

Wrapping Up

This post is really meant to be about food bank and pantry boxes, even though I largely wrote it within the framework of $30/week grocery budgets. I did that because some people may still be unwilling to access the services that could help them, and this means they may well be trying to feed their families on $30 or less each week. Also because this haul really does closely replicate what most pantries give out, so through that framework it’s more about using up a mismash of seemingly disparate items than it is about the dollar value of said items.

USDA provides some guidance here (in this specific instance, it’s in the form of a not-USDA link, because this link gives a lot of valuable information in plainer language), because they need to come up with these sorts of cost ranges so as to create guidance on how much each family should receive in SNAP dollars. According to USDA, a “thrifty” monthly budget for a family of 4, which is what SNAP provides, is $568-651/month. Obviously, this is quite a lot more than the $120/month we’re doing in this article for a family of 6. At the top rung of their recommendations, a “liberal” monthly budget allows for $1,106-1,296 for a family of 4.

For people in need who are utilizing food banks and pantries, y’all already know that this isn’t hugely dissimilar from what you’re getting in each box. Sometimes there isn’t fresh meat, and sometimes you see all juices, canned fruits, and canned veggies instead of fresh stuff, but in general this is fairly representative of the breadth of what happens in the boxes.

These numbers on how much people should/do spend on food truly do reflect how poorly Americans tend to understand how to maximize their food dollars and the food itself, though they also allow some cushion on the outrageous rise in grocery costs in the last year. They’re also the reason I spend as much time as I do trying to educate people on how to eat delicious and healthful meals without those kinds of price tags. In general, I tend to spend an average of $50/week for my family of 3, which does typically include 1-4 meat dinners and a lot of grains/seeds, vegetables and fruits. I’m saying I “average” that much, because during many weeks I only spend money on more coffee and a few more veg, and other weeks I spend waaaaaaay more than $50 because I’m buying several months of meat at once or grabbing more grain or legume type things to replenish my food stores. I never feel like I’m eating “poor food,” but my knowledge base and strong focus on not wasting anything is part of why I’m able to do this more easily than so many others are able to.

Those of you using pantry boxes and/or eating for these low weekly costs who’re struggling to figure out what to do with it all should feel free to shoot me an email. I have a special love of crafting delicious meal plans out of what looks like nothing, and I am happy to help you up your skill levels!

Last, I do hope y’all will check out more of Christine’s extreme challenge videos, because they really do provide a wealth of ideas and information, and this is probably the last analysis of her work that I’d do. Again, y’all let me know if there are ways I can help y’all maximize your food dollars; I really do love doing that kind of stuff!

Food Bank Skills