Cheap Meals: Eating on a budget.

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Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Koushirou said:
Had ended up taking a leave of absence from college for a year, and my parents’ deal was always they would pay for my essentials as long as I was in school, so with no job (lived in the boonies at the time) and no school, had to scrape by for a year with whatever was in my bank account. Would just buy the $1 pound spaghetti boxes and a package of the cheapest sausage I could find, make a big ass batch of pasta every week with a little butter and oil. Somehow I never got tired of it.
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If it works it works. Sometimes it's just easier to eat the same thing pretty damn often. Saw an interview with David Lynch a long time ago where he said eats steamed broccoli and chicken salad or something weird pretty much every day and that's it. His reasoning was that he doesn't have to think about cooking and that frees up his brain space for creativity so we can make more amazing movies.
 
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Khane

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I think it makes sense that David Lynch doesn't have taste buds and all his olfactory senses exist in some fucked up part of his brain.
 
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Lanx

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Furry said:
View attachment 520954

I like a full prime rib. Costs 100$ for around 18 lbs of meat when its on sale here. Rice, beans, pasta, bread, potato? Any of those sides will do, and heck, why not all of them as you work through 18 lbs of meat? Cheaper than a family of four getting burgers at five guys. Watching poors buy 6$ bags of potato chips, boxes of cereal, and shitty tiny sodium and science frozen meals sure does make me chortle when I read threads like this.

I pretty much always buy whole cuts. Fuck letting the 70 iq unibrow hack at my steak. Most grocerys wont put stuff like this out, but they'll have it if you ask.
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yea bullshit, maybe $100 for 9/lbs
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Lanx said:
yea bullshit, maybe $100 for 9/lbs
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If it's true prime, you're not getting that for less than $15 maybe. Wasn't the case under Trump, but the price has shot up ridiculously.

This past Christmas HEB had select rib roast on sale and I still think I paid maybe 6 or $7 a pound for two three rib roast. We made one of her Christmas and I still have another one sitting in the freezer. I know it's not prime rib, but they're still tasty.

Only thing I can think of is it maybe getting a relationship with a decent butcher I don't cut you a good deal on a primal, especially if you're buying maybe a half a cow or something.
 
Furry

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My grocery will give me whole rib roast for ribeye prices. Whenever ribeye goes for 5.97 its game time.
 
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Dr.Retarded

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Furry said:
My grocery will give me whole rib roast for ribeye prices. Whenever ribeye goes for 5.97 its game time.
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Is it select or economy? I can see getting select, maybe choice when it's on sale, but never prime at that price, at least nowadays.

I mean if I can get that consistently I'd be buying it up all the time and cutting my own steaks. No reason not to buy a primal to save money and do your own butchering. Enjoy.
 
mkopec

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ITs prob choice, thats what most super makets sell. Or maybe select? Who knows, but its def not prime.
 
moonarchia

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Khane said:
It's ludicrous.
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Peanut Butter Rap GIF by Jif
 
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Big Phoenix

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Go to meal for cheap but also pretty good tasting is

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+

1/2 cup of hamburger, 1/4 cup of cheese, small head of broccoli. Could also easily swap the hamburger for a chicken breast but imo goes better with hamburger.

Looking at around $2 for a good tasting easy to make meal.

Khane said:
When ox tail is $7.99/lb I get visibly angry
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Rustles my jimmies when I see what that goes for when I want to make some soup.

I dont get it as thats basically what its mainly good for soups and stews aka cheap meals yet its always more expensive than ground beef.
 
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Gavinmad

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mkopec said:
Whole chickens are still rather inexpensive. I guess no one wants to break them down or whatever. Costco has 2 whole birds for like $10-$12, Kroger has them for like $6-$8 depending on the size of course. And there is plenty to be had on a chicken for 1-2 people. 5lb sacks of chicken quarters are cheap as hell too. Can make a myriad of shit with any of those. Can also buy the Costco rotisserie chicken for $5 and do a whole bunch of shit with that from sandwiches down to chicken salad or whatever. In fact a lot of places are now selling rotisserie chickens for cheap.

We also make fejouada at home. Step dad was born in Brazil. Package of ham hocks, some smoked sausage of your choice, and like 3 lbs of black beans you can make a huge ass pot of the shit you can eat for a while, freezes well too.
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buy whole chicken, cut breasts from bone, break off leg quarters, bag and freeze carcass until you have enough to make chicken stock out of.

costco also has great pork loin prices. buy 20-30 pounds worth (each whole loin is like 8-10 pounds), cut it up and freeze it. I used to just turn the whole thing into chops and the occasional roast when i was sick of cutting chops but then I took the time to read up on the anatomy of a pork loin. Blade end gets cut off in a single piece to be a roast or pulled pork, center is split between roasts and chops, sirloin end is all chops.
 
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Cutlery

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Fyi for this thread - Walmart sells 10lb bags of chicken leg quarters for under $8. My dogs have eaten chicken quarters as about 50% of their diet for many, many years, and 79 cents a pound is the cheapest meat you can get. Which is why they eat it.
 
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Chukzombi

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as long as you're doing the cooking, you can eat on the cheap very easily. pound of pasta a buck. cheap sauce another buck. chicken quarters a buck a pound. thats like enough food for 3 people for around 5 dollars. breakfast, make some waffles or pancakes, they sell the mix in dollar tree. lunch is some cold cuts an a roll. thats a few dollars there. drink some chinese tea. 100 packets for a dollar or two. its cheap and healthy. its all easy.
 
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Burns

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Gavinmad said:
buy whole chicken, cut breasts from bone, break off leg quarters, bag and freeze carcass until you have enough to make chicken stock out of.

costco also has great pork loin prices. buy 20-30 pounds worth (each whole loin is like 8-10 pounds), cut it up and freeze it. I used to just turn the whole thing into chops and the occasional roast when i was sick of cutting chops but then I took the time to read up on the anatomy of a pork loin. Blade end gets cut off in a single piece to be a roast or pulled pork, center is split between roasts and chops, sirloin end is all chops.
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Yea, I'm pretty sure this has has been discussed before around the forum, but pulled pork is pretty cheap when you can catch the various cuts on sale. Shoulder/butt is often the best for price and once it's done cooking it's not too difficult to pull out the big chunks of fat, which makes it closer to the leanness of a tenderloin roast.

It's super simple to make too. The basics are: Toss the shoulder in a crock pot with fat facing up, cut up a couple onions in quarters or large slices to place on top, then pour a couple cans (or around 1L) of Root Beer or Ginger Ale in. I also sprinkle some paprika and cayenne pepper over the top, but you don't have to do that. Cook for 8 hours on low.

Once it's cooked, and pulled apart with a couple forks, add in a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (or less, if it's not a huge cut of meat) and your done. Of course you can get some pretty cheap BBQ sauces, or not use sauce at all, if you want to make it even cheaper, but I prefer Stub's Smokey Mesquite.

The non-sale price is still good, as far as meats go these days (local HEB):
2024-03-22 06.09.38 www.heb.com 6d8c1e46240b.png
 
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mkopec

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You can also roast the pork butt in oven right on the rack with a aluminum pan below to catch the drippings. Just put some kind of rub on there and roast for 8-10 hours at 260F-275F or until internal temp is about 200F. Let this shit rest for a while and then you can slice it and makes great cuban pork sammies. I used to do this before work, toss it in oven and then when I came home it was close. You can also buy the boneless butts (or with and work around it) and slice them up into pork steaks to make on the grille. Makes great pork tacos. Just be careful of the excess fat because it turns your grille into a flaming inferno, this is why I tend to trim the slices of all the major fat. I mean pulled pork is great too, its just not the only stuff you can do with it. GFS sells butts for like $1.80/lb.
 
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Fogel

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How many of my fellow poors had moms that would "splurge" on cube steak? I usually loaded mine up with A1 or Worcestershire sauce to power through it

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BoozeCube

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I was informed by another thread that Walmart has an eat in the store for free policy. Hard to beat that.
 
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Lanx

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mkopec said:
You can also roast the pork butt in oven right on the rack with a aluminum pan below to catch the drippings. Just put some kind of rub on there and roast for 8-10 hours at 260F-275F or until internal temp is about 200F. Let this shit rest for a while and then you can slice it and makes great cuban pork sammies. I used to do this before work, toss it in oven and then when I came home it was close. You can also buy the boneless butts (or with and work around it) and slice them up into pork steaks to make on the grille. Makes great pork tacos. Just be careful of the excess fat because it turns your grille into a flaming inferno, this is why I tend to trim the slices of all the major fat. I mean pulled pork is great too, its just not the only stuff you can do with it. GFS sells butts for like $1.80/lb.
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i didn'tt find any groceries at gfs cheaper or same as costco/supermarket sale

they are a good browse, recently bought a huge jug of soy sauce

also i found a good way to see what i can buy in my area is to use instacart

i don't use them as a service, i just use them to search
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you can even get costco pricing
ded6a05b38f29c17e76b3ce65ca3be6b.png
 
mkopec

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Lanx said:
i didn'tt find any groceries at gfs cheaper or same as costco/supermarket sale

they are a good browse, recently bought a huge jug of soy sauce

also i found a good way to see what i can buy in my area is to use instacart

i don't use them as a service, i just use them to search

you can even get costco pricing
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GFS has great fried chicken, prob the best fried chicken I ever bought in a store, $8 for 8 piece.They just recently started making their broasted chicken and its great. I usually pick up 2 boxes a week and the wife and kids love it. GFS has great prices on ground meat, but they sell them in 10/lb rolls Like $2.60/lb for 81/19?. Of course the pork butts which I mentioned before are always $1.80 something per lb. They also have these great frozen spicy breaded chicken breasts. Make great chicken sammies/burgers. They have these nuggets that are really close to McDonalds nuggets. But you have to fry them. They have gyro meat frozen in a box which is great for making your gyros at home just pan fry the strips and put on a greek pita with homemade tzatziki sauce. I also buy all my pizza making shit there. The mozzarella cheese they have is great, they sell huge bags of pepperoni plus frozen dough balls for $2.50 a pop which makes great 14" pizza or I make Detroit style in a metal 9x14 pan.
 
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Fogel

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Unfortunately my mom never heard of it, so we got plain ass cube steak
 
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