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

[M.D. Holloway]

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!

[RANDY P]

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..

[competentone]

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....

[87coupe]

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

[LeeH]

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

[GermanP]

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

[epbrown]

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.

[K. Roman]

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.

[WolfeMacleod]

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.

[VINMAN]

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...

[Porsche-O-Phile]

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.

[mschuep]

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

[coldstart]

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.....

[charleskieffner]

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

[masraum]

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

[chuckr]

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 !

[Laneco]

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

[Tobra]

Extremely easy to eat on less than $5 a day

[RickM]

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.

[RallyJon]

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.