$20 a Week? What would you buy?

[sidevalve]

If the $20 is for one then is quite doable [assuming food prices aren't ridiculous in the US and TBH I think they are cheaper than here in the UK]. Since retiring we have lived on about £35 - £40 a week and we eat quite well [two of us]. If we had to we could trim that by another £10.

 

[GadgetGuy]

There's a low-price discount supermarket that I go to the next town over from me, which is Chelsea.

It is called Save-a-Lot. When I don't have much to spend, or when I do, and I know that I can get certain things from there, I usually get milk, bread & eggs from there, plus a few more items, such as Diet Papsi and other things. Soda in my neighborhood is just too astronomically expensive, costing over $2 for a 2-liter bottle of it!!! I flatly refuse to pay that amount for it!!

 

[queenbellevue]

I'd buy lots of eggs, maybe some rice/pasta for carbs, whatever other cheap protein, some canned corn/tomatoes since fresh veg is often not that cheap. $20 doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're in college, you manage.

 

[ChanellG]

Twenty dollars a week is quite doable if you are not concerned about variety and carbs.

As you some you already mentioned - eggs, rice, pasta, beans, lentils, bouillon cubes, onions, potatoes, bananas... Or just a crate of ramen noodles works too

That's it completely! If you concerned yourself with having food, rather than the "fun" of variety, it would be completely doable, but don't ever exist on ramen noodles. It's too much starch and it will make you sick. Intestinal thrush is no joke and you will spend the rest of your life trying to figure out what's wrong.

 

[ChanellG]

...It is called Save-a-Lot. When I don't have much to spend, or when I do, and I know that I can get certain things from there...

Sav-a-Lot has great prices, but most of the brands they stock are not ones that I have ever heard of. and I wonder about the product sources. I want to save money on food, but I don't want to find out down the road that what I am buying is GMO or pesticide laden. There's a very high cost of some cheap food.

 

[Berties]

Once a store cupboard has been established ,veg ,pots,pulses and beans may just do it but not good,foraging and hunting if you are that way inclined,would get in on budget,

 

[Food4thought]

There's a low-price discount supermarket that I go to the next town over from me, which is Chelsea.

It is called Save-a-Lot. When I don't have much to spend, or when I do, and I know that I can get certain things from there, I usually get milk, bread & eggs from there, plus a few more items, such as Diet Papsi and other things. Soda in my neighborhood is just too astronomically expensive, costing over $2 for a 2-liter bottle of it!!! I flatly refuse to pay that amount for it!!

I save a whole lot more money by not buying soda. It's not a necessity and it's only a lot chemical sweetner in water or sugar dissolved in water. If I want a sweet drink I'll buy a carton of pure fruit juice and dilute it with water. It lasts longer, is healthier and costs a lot less than Diet Pepsi or anything similar.