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I fed myself on $2 a day for a month — here are my 9 best tips for making it work

Ah, Business Insider. The Buzzfeed of the business world.
 
Pish. Try the college student diet:

1 pack of ramen noodles, and a glass of water; times three. That's less than $2.00 a day. You'll even have some change left over for a snacker from a candy machine. :)
 
Beans, rice, pasta, and oat meal are all cheap. The key is how many serving sizes are in these items. You can get 70 servings out of a 5 pound bag of rice. 8 servings from a one dollar box of whole wheat pasta.

Then from there, you can add your veggies, meats, etc. I think $2 bucks is unreasonable, but $5-6 a day can very easily be done. $2 is the extreme and would take the fun out of food.
 
Beans, rice, pasta, and oat meal are all cheap. The key is how many serving sizes are in these items. You can get 70 servings out of a 5 pound bag of rice. 8 servings from a one dollar box of whole wheat pasta.

Then from there, you can add your veggies, meats, etc. I think $2 bucks is unreasonable, but $5-6 a day can very easily be done. $2 is the extreme and would take the fun out of food.
Yeah, exactly.

Take his 2 dollar foundation, and add another couple bucks for some meats, fish, and veggies - and it's doable!

One could diet and skimp in this manner during the week, then splurge a bit on the weekends and probably live satisfactorily enough like this I think.
 
Interesting article!

So basically, he skipped veggies & protein (except peanut butter), and lived off of bland pasta with no real additives.

I give him credit for doing it, but it's not sustainable.

The Peanut Butter was a good call I think, though.

Lack of proper nutrition, while making your diet cheap could impact your health long term and end up costing you more to be honest.

I always get my recommended 3 cups of veggies a day and two-three fruits. Dairy, meat (usually chicken and fish and the occasional spoil of steak).
 
Lack of proper nutrition, while making your diet cheap could impact your health long term and end up costing you more to be honest.

I always get my recommended 3 cups of veggies a day and two-three fruits. Dairy, meat (usually chicken and fish and the occasional spoil of steak).
Yeah, agreed.

I hope this guy was topping-off with a good multivitamin!
 
Pish. Try the college student diet:

1 pack of ramen noodles, and a glass of water; times three. That's less than $2.00 a day. You'll even have some change left over for a snacker from a candy machine. :)

Mmmm, college! I lived on hot dog fried rice at home but, fortunately, scored a restaurant job to round things out.
 
Mmmm, college! I lived on hot dog fried rice at home but, fortunately, scored a restaurant job to round things out.

Well the college student diet wasn't based on nutrition. It was developed to preserve money for the more important college costs... Partying. ;)
 
Ramen is great as a cheap option and can be spruced up, plus you can use it as pasta though I'd have to go and actually calculate the serving size/cost difference. From reading the article, I got that I should be glad I love beans, in case I need to live on the super cheap =p. Some beans, corn, a fat (like mayo, butter, etc.), onion, and lime is delicious. Can also make a soup of canned beans and corn and either tomato sauce or tomato soup for maybe $3-4?

One thing not mentioned in there is looking for soon to expire things, not always a great deal but can find them now and then, as long as you have a freezer can stock up. Once got $4 hotdogs for .99 cents due to that (the best of the manager specials I found). Used to get a dozen or more donuts for like $3.50 by going a bit after the bakery closed as well.
 
i would suggest you purchase a 20 lb bag of rice, and 20Lb bag of beans costing about $20 at say SAMS.

purchase some chicken and beef, and add a little to the beans to give some favor, when eating with the rice.

fill in with cans of vegetables, or fresh lettuce, tomatoes, for a great mealS at a low price.
 

It's really easy to cut down on food expenses. One of the easiest ways is to grow a lot of your own food. Fruits and many spices are easy to grow in your own backyard, or even a patio if you have one. On top of that, stick to staples like rice and pasta. These are all very cheap and give you the calories that you need. And if you have an even larger yard, you could get a few chickens and there is your supply of eggs if you want more protein.

What I find interesting is the fact that this shows that one can live on far less than the current allottment that you get with food stamps. $2 a day works out to $62 a month at most (and I'd argue that you could go far lower than this if you want to).

Going to this handy food stamp calculator, take a look at what you get:
If you plug in $0 of income and no housing costs, you get $189 a month in food stamp benefits. That is easily 3x more money than you need.

So we have the problem where we're giving out far too much in food benefits (living on food stamps shouldn't be comfortable) and creating moral hazard in the process. It's a lose-lose. This is why many Christian charities in the early 20th century and throughout the 19th century were adamantly opposed to government entry into helping the poor. The ensuant result is a depraved culture that breeds addiction and irresponsibility, the modern West.
 
Pish. Try the college student diet:

1 pack of ramen noodles, and a glass of water; times three. That's less than $2.00 a day. You'll even have some change left over for a snacker from a candy machine. :)

When I was in college sometimes dinner consisted of a hand rolled cigarette and a glass of water.

Those were healthy days.
 
I think the author was in New York City, very expensive.
I think this could be done, in most cities without that much difficulty,
maybe even some meat in the diet.
When I worked at a University (20 years ago) the foreign students,
got much of their protein from eggs, which were under $1 per dozen.
The School nurse told they to try something else, their cholesterol was going up.
 
I would say that I feed my family of four for about...10 bucks a day, possibly even less. And having kids in school makes it HARD, because of the no nut/soy/nut product rule.

And we eat well. In CT. One of the most expensive states to live in.

You gotta know how to make food. And that's what so many people lack.
 
I would say that I feed my family of four for about...10 bucks a day, possibly even less. And having kids in school makes it HARD, because of the no nut/soy/nut product rule.

And we eat well. In CT. One of the most expensive states to live in.

You gotta know how to make food. And that's what so many people lack.

One of the downsides of women working, which no one wants to talk about, is that food expenses soar, as do health problems resulting from poor nutrition.
 
Beans, rice, pasta, and oat meal are all cheap. The key is how many serving sizes are in these items. You can get 70 servings out of a 5 pound bag of rice. 8 servings from a one dollar box of whole wheat pasta.

Then from there, you can add your veggies, meats, etc. I think $2 bucks is unreasonable, but $5-6 a day can very easily be done. $2 is the extreme and would take the fun out of food.

2 dollars a day can actually be done with a non ramen budget. I used to make cowboy stew, which was a stew made of rice noodles tomato sauce potatos and watever else could be thrown in. If made in bulk, it could make enough to be frozen for 4 people for less than a dollar a day, that is here in texas anyways, grocery prices might be much higher elsewhere.
 
2 dollars a day can actually be done with a non ramen budget. I used to make cowboy stew, which was a stew made of rice noodles tomato sauce potatos and watever else could be thrown in. If made in bulk, it could make enough to be frozen for 4 people for less than a dollar a day, that is here in texas anyways, grocery prices might be much higher elsewhere.

More evidence that food stamps are way too easy and breeding dependence.
 
More evidence that food stamps are way too easy and breeding dependence.

I do not know about way too easy, cowboy stew can meet everyones diet needs depending on what is thrown in it, but I doubt anyone would want to make giant batches as a time in a crawfish boiling pot freeze the extras then eat it every day for months or years straight.

Bean soup on the other hand, boiled for 24 hours with a ham bone for flavor, I could eat that every day.
 
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