Learning to cook and making your meals based on whatever protein is on sale does wonders for affordability without putting you in depression territory (rice and beans, rice and beans).

Cooking more with canned ingredients.

Rice , rice cooker , various sauces , dried beans, peanut butter, making bread is cheap and easy ( I haven’t gone there yet but its coming). I don’t buy shit else unless it’s on sale.

I don’t really make a grocery list anymore other than fruit, veggies, tofu etc and buy non perishable items on sale when I see them and got a serious stock pile going of decent stuff .

I like going to middle eastern and asian food markets where things are a little cheaper and ingredients seem better.

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Plant-based diet. I still see inflation but avoided the worst of it

While pretty much everyone here is taking a moment to talk about beans, peas are higher in a lot of nutrients and a lot easier to digest (I think they are tastier to). You can often get them frozen in bulk if you don’t want to deal with dried and they can disappear into a lot of recipes.

Consider backing up your rice dishes with peas if you aren’t a bean fan.

When I had no money and no time, I relied heavily on a rotation of the following meals, with current 2026 costs in my expensive city:

• Chili Mac: 1 lb dried pasta ($1.25 for 1600 calories, 54g protein) boiled in salty water (let’s call salt and water basically free), a can of chili ($2.50 for 540 calories, 32g protein), 2 oz of shredded cheese ($1 for 220 calories, 12g protein), 0.25 oz of hot sauce ($0.25 for flavor but negligible calories/protein). Total: $5, 2360 calories, 98g protein.
• Stir fried chicken and broccoli on rice: 1 lb chicken thigh ($4.50, 600 calories, 87g protein), 1 lb broccoli ($1.50, 150 calories, 9g protein), 1 lb rice ($1.50 for 1600 calories, 32g protein), $0.50 of condiments/seasoning. Total: $8, 2350 calories, 128g protein.
• Ramen with enough stuff to make it not suck: 1 package of Shin Ramyun ($2 for 500 calories, 10 g protein), 2 eggs ($0.30, 150 calories, 12g protein), 4 oz frozen edamame ($2, 90 calories, 9g protein), 2 oz scallions ($0.20, let’s round down to 0 calories and 0g protein). Total: $4.50, 740 calories, 31g protein.

Bulk on the dry staples. I’ve found that a good hack for saving on having to buy on storage containers is buy the giant pickle jars and then reusing them for beans, rice, and oats. I break down my prices per ounce, so while most of my food comes from Winco, there’s a few things I get at Albertsons on occasion because their overpriced foods are less likely to sell and end up on exceptional markdowns. I hit food banks.

I’m fortunate to have a lot of growing space and ramped up my casual, for fun garden to an actual food producing garden. I’m planting in waves, little fast growers like radishes in the boxes the tomatoes are starting in. Eventually the tomatoes will block but I can get a few cycles of the radishes before that happens. Also built a coop and have four lovely little hens that should start laying in a couple more weeks. The trade off is that all of this takes a lot of time.

I bought quality pressure cooker and make giant batches of beans that can be divided and frozen. About every three weeks I have to cook a batch but they work as burrito filling, nacho topper, taco salad fill. I do a lot of stir fries with frozen veggies and ramen or brown rice I made in the pressure cooker.

Bread machines are a frequent find at thrift shops. People buy them, never use them, dump them, so they’re brand new but 1/10 the cost. You can get fancy with them or just spend about 10min getting the ingredients assembled, set it and forget it. It’s been one of the best investments I’ve made.

Dried, Canned, Frozen, Fresh in that order of preference for us anyways. Off-screen half size chest freezer we’ve finally just finished the frozen sour cherries from the backyard tree last year that’s now budding for spring. Besides that it usually has a bunch of frozen baked potatoes from my backyard again, pork cuts that were on sale, Mennonite colony DIY chicken. Vacuum packing keeps away the freezer burn. I have the choice of three discount grocery/markets near me where I can buy fresh produce it’s just b-grade/misshapen. I’ve been slowly adding more backyard planters too but I focus on fruit tree/berry bushes since I’m a shite veggie gardener. Too lazy for the upkeep so just hardy stuff that I can’t easily kill from neglect in our short growing season, hardiness zone 3B. Potatoes are easy at least but we ran out half way through winter.

Bonus: This week’s slop pots. Metal pot used textured vegetable protein: https://i.postimg.cc/xdm5S0c8/signal-2026-05-14-144201.jpg

Nutrition is expensive, and controlling waste is crucial. So yes, if you can get a price break on anything essential, consider freezing and pickling (veggies) what would otherwise spoil. In general, try to learn about how different vegetables and meats will keep.

Rice, beans, and potatoes are great staples that last a while and are good for you.

Lower-end “potted meat product” and similar canned meats may be less expensive per ounce than full cuts. That said, it’s usually full of sodium and is usually only good on sandwiches and things like that.

Some grocery stores sell cooked rotisserie chicken as a loss-leader (discount). That said, cost-compare against whole birds in the freezer section just in case. Besides, you can’t beat home-made roast chicken, and it’s fairly easy to do.

I was broke-as-a-joke back in the 2000’s. So the following advice may have aged like the milk I bought back then:

• Obviously, go down-market on your grocery store chain. Cost-compare if your time/energy budget allows it.
• Learn how to cook what’s cheap. What’s not imported and in season is usually (not always) in this category.
• Avoid box-mixes (e.g. hamburger helper). Buy raw ingredients and consider seasoning packets or bulk seasoning to make the same dishes.
• Bologna, souise loaf, and pickle loaf (if they even still make that) can be cheaper than non-processed cuts
• Bananas and corn are subsidized as fuck. There are likely others. As a result, they’re artificially cheap.
• Regularly check the store circular (those newspaper things nobody reads) and jump on limited store specials and BOGOs.
• Tofu can be pretty cheap IF you buy it at an asian grocery store; there may even be bulk options. Making these can be a chore, but a huge bargain if you buy soybeans in bulk. It also freezes okay too, but it does change the texture (some recipes use this).

rice, beans, canned meats, food banks.

if you can, grow a garden with staples that you can eat.

squash, tomato, eggplant, potato.

anything to add to a meal that can stretch grocery ingredients out and make them not as expensive.

not enough room to grow your own? find a community garden in your area. not find one? reach out to city planning and ask if there’s anywhere you can use for a community garden. they might even have some funds to help you get it established.

Rice and beans. I can still get a weeks worth of meat for 20$ if I am only serving myself.

Start with a goal of no food waste. If you manage your food inventory like rations in a bunker then the savings on wasted food can help offset the expense.

Together with inventory management is preserving your food. Not jarring your stuff or pickling. Utilizing your fridge and freezer to limit food waste is good at saving you money.

Learning to cook and tapering your food expectations helps a lot with savings. Also learning that cooking with vinegar or acid can extend cooked food just like sweeter food lasting longer.

Or get a partner that came from poverty and learn how to cook(/s).

Stealing/grifting from the conservatives who caused it.

Mine is, just buy cheap food with what you can and moderate it.

I know a lot of people will recommend cooking and baking. But, what people aren’t talking enough of, is that it could take a lot of materials to get recipes done right. And those materials required could be expensive to gather. And once you’re done cooking said meal, you only have the materials to usually make that meal and you’ve got nothing else to lean on that you want to eat readily without cooking.

So what you ideally would want to do is set a budget and try to think to yourself as to what you’re comfortable with compromising, then just work up to that budget between what you want to cook and what you want readily there to eat.

Rice, lentils, potato are super cheap and healthy.

Reduce meat and add protein via plants or milk products. You don’t need to eliminate all meat, just the expensive ones (depends on your location). Aim for 1g per kg of body weight and it’d be a healthy replacement. Reducing meat brings some headache on nutrition planning but a lot of savings as well.