Is It Possible to Live (eat) on $5/Day?
 

I drove by BK tonight and saw the daily $1 special and thought “it isn’t the best stuff for you but at least you get fed for a $1”. It got me wondering, what is the minimum amount you could spend on food and still have a healthy diet. I’m thinking of giving this a try - as a “Social Experiment” mind you – don’t worry guys, my income is very healthy. I’m just naturally curious about this. Remember, I was a Vegan for 4+ years and that started as an experiment. Next is my color diet but that’s another year.. Of course I would set out some guide rules:

1) eat somewhat healthy – no Ramen Noodle dinners, no catsup soup
2) if someone offers you food, take it but don’t beg
3) free coffee / tea / soda at work is ok but no more than 2 a day
4) have to eat at least 3 times a day

So I figure that a Banana and Coffee / Tea for breakfast, PBnJ for lunch and a salad for dinner with a can of Salmon or Tuna or Chicken every other day or every third day.

A pound of Bananas is about $0.65 – a bunch = $3, good for a week, a jar of PB and Jelly is $3 to $4 each but would last at least a week. Bread is $2. Greens about $3/bag, last about 3 days, cans of chicken, tuna or salmon go for a $2 to $3.

I think $5 a day is doable!

eating off the $1 menu will cause you to get sick eventually-

apples, protein shakes and banannas most of the day, and a somewhat reasonable dinner works well, esp. for dieting.

After awhile, you like eating that way - you generally feel better, with stable energy..

Oatmeal or grits and a boiled egg, rice and beans and some fruit, potatoes with a vegetable...

You can eat healthy for a lot less than $5/day, but most would consider it to be boring food....

Unless you plan on doing this "experiment" with the aid of a nutritionist, I have to strongly advise you to not do this.

Maybe for $6.00.

Breakfast:
Whole grain cereal with lowfat milk. Cost $.75

Lunch:
PBJ on decent bread, plus an apple, raw broccoli and carrots, and yogurt. $1.75

Dinner:
Baked chicken breast, frozen mixed veggies, and a salad. $3.50

after a year with this experiment, dish of lamb chops "priceless">

Depends on how you do it: $5 a day is tricky, but make it $35 in groceries a week and it's a piece of cake.

My breakfast trick, back in the days when i was broke as the 10 commandments, was generic oatmeal for breakfast, with no-name brand raisins added for flavor/sweetness. It literally cost pennies per serving, it's filling, and the fiber's good for you. Not the flavored stuff in packets, plain oatmeal in the round cardoard tube.

For lunch, my thing was pasta. Cheap, filling, easy to heat up, and the sauces are actually pretty cheap. I'd cook some meat to add to the sauce, but not a lot. If tuna was on sale, I went with casseroles. Usually averaged out to $1/day.

For dinner, with $24.50/week to spend I could splurge: I'd make a pizza for the weekend, hamburger or tuna helper for a couple of weekdays, or just throw something together from "The Joy of Cooking." You'd be amazed how cheap a lot of food is when you make it from scratch, like bread (I still make my own every week, by hand). Prepared food is expensive, and junk food is worse - at work, a 1.5oz bag of chips is 80 cents, a 12oz soda 75. Don't even think about what stopping by Starbucks every day would do to such a budget.

But meat is always the most difficult part: you'd be eating more ground round than ground sirloin, chicken drumsticks and wings rather than skinless breasts, etc. They won't be choice cuts and you'll often have the same cuts for days in a row unless you've got a good freezer, like the other meals, but you can eat easily on $35/week.

Do it and let us know what sort of meals you've come up with...this should be interesting...I'm sure you'll lose some weight but that may be a good thing...It's all about the abs my friend.

I can eat for less than $3 per day.
Ramen noodles and a pack of Bar-S hot dogs - $1.10
Ramen noodles and a can of cream of mushroom soup (great BTW!) less than $1.
Pack of Bar-S hot dogs, bread, slice of cheese, mustard/mayo. -about $1.50
Ramen noodles and an egg cooked in . about .20 cents.
2 packs Ramen 3x daily = .60 cents.

I survived on nothing but this stuff for over three years.

A $5 bag of Salad mix just lasted me three days.

I think it's possible but I doubt it would be the best food. I'm a bit of a health nut, and from my experience, eating healthy is expensive. Most of your cheap and easy foods are loaded with fat, sugar, salt. etc...

Back in college we figured out a way to eat for free for an entire semester. . .

Between sneaking into local hotels for continental breakfasts, going to happy hours (they often supplied bowls of snack-type stuff for free), attending local church spaghetti dinners, etc. one of my roommates actually did this.

taters and rice are cheap, especially in bulk, lots of carbs to fill you up.

Man, is this thread bringing down the Porsche marque. My local PCA chapter meets at some posh yacht club every week and we are discussing how to live off lima beans.....

old milwaukee beer would supply all the food groups but the orange ones. you'd have to spring for cheetos or doritos! LOL!

Yep, stuff like rice, beans, potatos... Not processed, carbs for energy, cheap, relatively healthy.

Mc Donalds and Wendys also have a dollor menu... after you get your
dollor selection, go to a Wal-Mart, you can get a Sams Soda for a
quarter. lunch= $1.30 with tax
Not healthy but cheap...can't have everything !

I believe you can do this - with the shopping by the week approach mentioned above.

I have a young friend who rode a bicycle from Medford OR to Baton Rouge, LA this year on under $15 per day. Need lots of calories to ride a bike and tow an 80 pound trailer... It is do-able. He was even able to splurge on a nice designer coffee a couple of times.

angela

Extremely easy to eat on less than $5 a day

I used to know a guy at a previous job that would...

- Get the free office coffee every morn. Many times people would also bring bagels, danish or cake....bonus time.

- At lunch he'd run the circuit of super markets and places like Costco and fill himself on the freebie food.

- Don't know what he did at night but I'm sure he didn't stray too far from this path.

Once in a while when single I'd go to some of the delis in the area where you could (and still can) get huge sandwiches for $4-$5....the ingriedients are also top quality and fresh. Half of one of these badboys would fill you up. When back to work I'd pop it in the fridge and have the other half for dinner.

Plenty of good meat for ~$1/lb--beef short ribs or slow roasted bone-in pork shoulder/butt are obvious and delicious choices. Whole turkey is very cheap. Eggs of course. LOTS of wholesome and healthy cheap protein/fat sources out there.

Cheap Spanish food places in NYC and you would gain weight on $5 a day. Lots of rice & beans...

san felipe baja you can get a shrimp taco for a buck. so 4 tacos and a buck for a corona to wash it all down! now thats healthy eating!

i completely agree that you can eat on $35 per week. EASY! $5 per day is harder. if you buy the load of beans, rice, frozen veggies, oatmeal (i pity the man that doesnt get enough complex carbs), you can come out a real healthy winner. imagine spending $140 for a month??!! wow. lots of car parts/improvements waiting to happen.

Don't forget chicken pot pies and the bag 'o chimichangas... they kept me alive for half a semester :p

why would it have to be 3 meals a day?

Heck, I only eat 1 or 2 a day as it is. Unless you count coffee and chewing tobacco.

How about this. Menu to properly feed a family of 4 for a week on $45.
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/40dollarmenu.htm

if i could feed my targa on $5.00 a day i would be very happy.

Is It Possible to Live (eat) on $5/Day?

Let's ask Rachel Ray? I can just picture her eating a Sheetz Hot dog and rolling her eyes lovingly immediately after downing the delectable morsel:rolleyes: (Anyone else here have issues with that show!)

Re: Is It Possible to Live (eat) on $5/Day?
 

Better check the tuna calculator first unless you want to start behaving like the Mad Hatter:

http://www.ewg.org/issues/mercury/20031209/calculator.php?gclid=CLWssv7or4YCFUBpGgodGiwypg

I can't stand her.
It's too bad she's se friggen' hot! :rolleyes:

Hot in a way most 5'2" 140lb woman are?:confused:

Ya think the eaterys she goes to for her $7.00 dinners are a bit prejudiced by the cameras....lol

BTW, I think she's cute but not really hot...she's kinda build like a boy.

Yeah, definitely possible. In fact, if I changed to $5/day I would eat more, not less, healthy food. It'd force discipline on me, so less fatty prepared foods, more stuff I make myself. What you gain in cheapness of food is paid for in time though. I love cooking, but don't take the time to do it...

... plus getting fruit/vegetables on that budget might be hard at certain times of the year. However, since I don't eat much of them anyway, no big deal :D

My next comment unavoidably comes from the bleeding heart liberal within. You guys know that a family of 4 with $5/day is a weekly budget for food of $140 (that $7k pa). For some families, this'd be an upgrade - see this (note, I'm from the other side of the world, so have no idea how many $$$ in food stamps the theoretical family in poverty would get):

http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour.htm

"That's soooo good, and with only 0.50 tax + tip (for the tipping thread), I have $13.50 left for dinner!":rolleyes:

Its gotta be healthy. I asked a few more people (including my Wife who thinks I'm nuts) wants to include the following:

Blueberries
Eggs
Oatmeal
Apples
Chicken (in the can)
Soup
Carrots
Beans
Potatoes
Oranges
Peanut Butter
Whole Wheat Bread
Rice
Pasta

$5/day? Nope, I'm thinking $3/day when calculated out. The spices and herbs would add to the initial cost but would be recovered soon.

Actually, my college roommates and I did this exact $5/day thing for a summer. Of course, we spread it out to $35/week/person to make the shopping and calculations easier. But it worked out pretty successfully, without having to resort to any mooching or skipping of meals. And we usually had meat on a daily basis (whether it was sandwich cold cuts, or occasionally a roasted chicken or steaks for dinner). Buying in bulk and stuff on sale, and freezing it helped. So did cutting out junk food.

That was 10 years ago, though. I suppose it's still possible with a little bit of work. But you certainly eat better if you spend a bit more (there's a reason why plain-wrap items cost less than name-brand items, and it's not just marketing/profits).

Doesn't look it to me. She looks to be in decent shape. And I do prefer women who aren't so thin I could shine a flashlight up thier butt and use them a nightlight.
And I like short women.
Of course, I don't watch the Food Network a lot, so her shape may have changed somewhat...
My issue with her is that she's incredibly annoying. And she's go no upper "appendages" :D Her facial features is what I was mostly commenting on.

i spend 200 a month on groceries
but that includes dishwasher and clothewasher chems, cat litter and cat food
if i take out the cat grub and chemicals, i probably end up with 150, wihch is 5 a day...


i do have lunch at work, but it's poor quality and i cook every day when i get home...

true, mine are Euro's , but i doubt that a Euro buys you more in Europe then a Buck does in the US, at least not when it comes to groceries...i do not do any ramen noodles or any other microwave crap, but i tend to make large pots, and freeze it in in my own MW dinners ( spaghetti bolognese, soup, macaroni, chicken curry for instance)

If you have time to cook it would be easy to eat on $5.

8:00am - 2 whole eggs
10:00 am - 1 piece of wheat bread w/ crunchy PB
12:00 pm - 1 can chicken w or wo light mayo
2:00 pm - 1 can of tuna w or wo light mayo
5:00 pm - 1 8 oz chicken breast, 1 handle full of brown rice

If you stuck to this diet not only would you be rich you'd be in some insane shape.

Add some weights and cardio = 1 shredded bum.

Terry - Thanks! I bet if I sub a can or 2 of the heavy metal fish with a banana, almonds or blueberries I could bounce a dime off my gut in 3 months!