How to Eat for 3 Dollars a Day.

This is not how to eat delicious food, this is how to eat the cheapest possible food on the planet and barely survive.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• An iron jaw
• An empty bank account
• An iron will

1. THE THREE DOLLAR A DAY DIET
   
   Introduction (a.k.a. the part you skip)
   
   If you consider your daily budget, and we assume you are not in extreme debt, you will probably find that, dollar for dollar, your spending in the areas of rent and food are neck and neck for the top spot. Rent, unfortunately, is a fact of life unless you are homeless, or by some other means have your housing provided for you. Now consider the fact that when young people find themselves flat broke, or in debt, a common solution is, “moving home,” thus eliminating the cost of rent, and hopefully catapulting the debtor back into financial stability. Now consider the fact that the cost of food often parallels or exceeds the cost of rent, and if one were to dramatically reduce their eating costs, roughly the same amount of their financial budget would be freed up. Assuming that your daily food budget is 15-20 dollars, then if you were to reduce it to three dollars, you would free up 12-17 dollars every day, or 360-510 dollars in a thirty day month (from this point on “a month” will refer to 30 days), and keep in mind that 20 dollars a day for food is still a somewhat conservative estimate. Lastly, consider the fact that 500 dollars is, for most young people, the equivalent of fifty hours of work, assuming that your job sucks, which it probably does. That’s twelve solid hours a week to use for other productive activities, sitting on your ass, or doing something in between (writing articles about diets?) If you are interested in reducing your food budget, please continue reading.
2. The Basics
   
   In order to determine the cheapest healthy diet available we must first consider the cheapest foods available. Rice is more or less the cheapest food available in America. Twenty cents gets you a cup of white rice which, prepared, is a large meal in itself, and 600 hearty calories of good carbohydrates. Now, some of you are sitting at home jeering to yourself, “brown rice is better for you.” To you I say, go eat a brown ****, I don’t give a damn. Unfortunately the healthiest possible diet is not the cheapest possible diet, but I will attempt to propose one that is relatively balanced, and healthy. Pasta weighs in pretty close to rice, available at 50 cents a pound, 600 calories (2 and ¼ cups) will cost you about 20 cents. There are other relatively cheap options for carbohydrates but I will only present one solid sample diet in this article, variations are available. Let’s go ahead and use the 600 cals for rice and pasta in our sample diet, putting us at 40 cents, and 1200 calories of carbohydrates, or about half our daily caloric intake. (Yes, this is healthy, protein diets are not.) Pasta sauce is available at a dollar per pound on sale. Half the jar will flavor our pasta, give us 3 or 4 servings of vegetables, and cost us 50 cents. I buy Ragu on sale for 99c a jar, and try to get the kind with a variety of chunky vegetables for maximum nutritional diversity. Dairy is essential to our everyday intake, unless you want to take a calcium pill or something. I’ve heard that the absolute cheapest dairy available is evaporated milk, but my calculations do not comply with this claim and regular milk is relatively cheap anyway. I buy %2 for what boils down to about 25 cents per 8 oz serving. If you buy two gallons at a time, it costs half that. We’ll have two servings providing us with about 300 calories for 50 cents. You can buy any kind of milk you like but keep in mind that this diet is already very low in fat and, believe it nor not, you do need to consume a certain amount each day. (Side note: olive oil is the worlds richest source of monounsaturated fat, which is the best kind, and why olive oil is considered a miracle food, and why Italian women never age, it’s also expensive, so forget I ever said anything.) Protein is the most uniform in price when dealing with “the cheapest.”
3. You can find beans, chicken, pork, or occasionally beef, all for a dollar a pound. Chicken drumsticks or whole chickens sometimes go on sale for 49 cents a pound, but include bone. Pork n’ beans are 50 cents for a one pound can, which will provide us with a full days worth of protein, and also make this diet pretty much vegetarian, except in the strictest sense, aka if you think that Disney movies are real and the barnyard will be stricken with tragedy and gloom as a cost of getting a microscopic slab of pork fat in your can of beans. I’m going to go ahead and devote 50 cents to a whole dollar for a pound of meat or beans per day, which equals about 3-4 servings and 400 calories of protein. You could easily reduce this amount of meat, especially if you drink your milk which actually contains more protein (whey) per serving than beans and most meat, and is arguably more easily assimilated into the body. I like to eat meat though, and also have a personal vendetta against barnyard animals after losing both my pinky toes, and half an ear, in a battle to the death with a rabid sow, whom I lynched from a sycamore tree with her own tongue. This little piggy went to hell. Lastly it is good to include fruits in our diet. They provide sugar (again, this is not bad for you) and vitamins. Unfortunately they are expensive. For some reason store brand apple juice is ridiculously cheap, at a buck fifty a bottle, AJ is about 20 cents a serving. We’ll drink three servings giving us just over 300 cals for 60 cents. (If you want to drink AJ that is less processed and retains a little more nourishment, malic acid in particular, step it up to Trader Joes unfiltered AJ for 2 bucks a bottle). Concentrated apple juice is sometimes cheaper, not always.
4. The Totals
   That leaves us with 1200 calories of carbs, 200 of veggies, 300 of dairy, 400 of protein, and 300 of fruit, totaling 2400. 2400 is about right for a skinny white boy, adjust yours accordingly. If you went with the can of beans instead of meat, then you have spent 50 cents on protein, leaving our grand total at just about 2.50. (I can’t type the dollar sign because my dad spilled orange juice on the 4 key.) If our daily budget is three dollars, then we are left with roughly a %16 variation allowance or, what we refer to in the industry as, a contingency. This can be spent on flavoring your rice (chicken bouillon is a cheap way to go) or seasoning your food in various ways, or can be pocketed at a gain of 15 dollars a month. Now every time you buy a pizza for 12 bucks, think to yourself, “I could have fed myself for four days.”
5. Preperation
   Now, the true economist would point out that, however cheap, there is a hidden cost in the three dollar diet. While eating out is expensive, there is a utility cost to cooking your own food in that it takes time and effort. You may have noticed that the foods included in this particular diet are not only extremely cheap, they are easy to prepare! I have a rice cooker that you put rice and water in and push a button, that’s it. Pasta you boil, beans you heat, juice and milk you drink, that’s it. They are on par with TV dinners. Harness the power of your laziness and have nothing but tons of cans of cheap food laying around. You will be more likely to microwave a can of beans than go spend eight dollars at Chipotle. Wrap the beans in a tortilla, hey, it’s Chipotle! And you’ve done even less work than going and buying a burrito. Harness it.
6. Variations and The Real World
   Now keep in mind that there are a million different ways to eat cheap. Canned vegetables are a dollar a pound or cheaper and could replace pasta sauce, or you could make your own sauce for pennies. Tomato sauce is 40 cents a can and claims to be worth seven servings of vegetables! If you were willing to chop some of the diversity from the diet, mainly the meat and dairy cause they’re most expensive, you could easily come up with a version that is less than two dollars a day, and re write this article with your name on it. More likely, however, one could come up with, say, a five or six dollar a day diet. In the real world it would get boring to eat the exact same foods every day, and sometimes when you’re out and about you get hungry, you want something fast. Dates at expensive restaurants are not permitted, as they could easily drain half of the entire month’s budget (unless they are included in your entertainment budget). Put shortly, the three dollar diet is about principals, not a strict regime. As spoiled Americans we are not able to stick to strict regimes, unless it involves watching Nip/Tuck every week. The diet is about being able to rationally look at a “six dollar burger” and know that you could have eaten for two days for the same price. It’s about realizing the value of a dollar. If you “just like” certain foods or dining out then fine, enjoy your studio apartment. If you have a ton of money, then what do you care about budgeting anyway? Stop reading this and go call your mom for another check!
7. Supplements
   To me the fact that every single American doesn’t take a daily multi-vitamin every day represents what is wrong with the people in our country. It costs two cents, takes two seconds, almost no effort, and could greatly reduce one’s risk for almost every major ailment, especially later in life. It also keeps the body’s systems balanced, and the immune system healthy. A daily vitamin supplement should be included with EVERY diet unless your doctor tells you otherwise. Statistically you will live longer if you take a daily multi-vitamin. There is no reason not to, and the fact that not everyone takes them represents the stubborn cluelessness, and consummate laziness of our citizens.
   The other element (pun intended) to consider is water. The cost of tap water is so miniscule it shouldn’t be factored in. You can filter it yourself or, if you’re really cheap, constantly go to fast food restaurants and ask for water. Legally they have to give it to you, though they can charge you the cost of the cup. Drink plenty of water.
8. Nutritional Values and Rough Statistics
   With this diet, 11.6 cents gets you 100 calories. That’s the last thing I want to do on the calculator so we’ll call it ten calories per cent, or 1000 calories per dollar. It’s hard to determine how many calories you get at your average sit down restaurant, or what the average restaurant is, but let’s say you go to a cheap steak house, get a steak and a side, and a soda or a beer. This will cost you about twenty bucks, and bring in (very roughly) 1500-2000 calories, so we could guess that your meal would run at a penny per calorie. That’s TEN TIMES the cost of cooking your own food, and it’s not like you would only eat a third of the meal, and use the rest as two other meals, which means you would spend even more on food over the course of a day. Even if you did ration the meal, and you ate out once a day, that would run you six hundred bucks a month. Keep in mind, I’m not saying never eat out, just not every day. Consider dining out a luxury that should be included in your entertainment budget because, if you think about it, you’re really not dining out for the food. You don’t intentionally thrust yourself into a socially awkward situation with a disgruntled waitress for the spaghetti, you do it to impress someone, or because you’re being impressed. The dollar bill is the modern tail feather and, because most men are void of any and all other redeeming qualities, must be displayed openly, and in abundance. Also keep in mind you could easily spend more than twenty bucks.
9. Fast food hits a little closer to the mark. McDonalds will hit you with five bucks a meal with 2000 calories. That’s four calories per cent, only 2.5 times more than via the diet. Also keep in mind that twenty cents worth of rice will FILL you up, and a meal at McDonalds, with those tiny ass burgers, will barely make you full. Also, it’s not only about calories. With the diet, your calories are distributed from all food groups, and from healthy food. McDonalds is processed saturated fat. If you eat only McDonalds, you will get fat. Watch the movie. Consider that restaurant and fast food meals have 1500-2500 calories per meal, or more. They are expensive and will result consuming an excess of calories.
   How about those TV dinners everyone’s talking about? A “premium” frozen meal costs five dollars and has around 500 calories. That’s the same price per calorie as a restaurant! And you’re eating something called, “Fish Stick Meal.” (No seriously, I’m literally eating one right now, that’s what it’s called. I got it for free.) How about low end TV dinners? The cheapest I’ve seen are Banquet meals for 69 cents. Fish Stick Meal contains 360 calories. That’s five calories per cent, or about twice as much as the diet. Hey, that’s not bad actually. I’m sorry for insulting you, Fish Stick Meal. Keep in mind that that’s when they’re on sale, and the food in these things is probably the nutritional equivalent to newspaper. Preservatives are toxic and even neurotoxic, which means you will be less smart if you eat too many of these.
10. The Downsides and Arguments Against
    The main argument against this diet would play out something like, “Well this diet is deficient in X, or contains an excess of Y.” If you’ve been brainwashed into thinking that carbs are evil or fat or sugar or whatever is evil then feel free to adjust the diet accordingly. This article’s main focus is not health anyway, and considering that statistically speaking sixty five percent of people reading this are overweight or obese, and thirty percent of you have THIRTY POUNDS of excess body fat or more, you should be reading how to lose weight not how to save money you fat pieces of ****. (given, this is a biased sample which those numbers may not reflect, considering the word, “diet,” is in the title of the article). For the rest of you, the only valid criticism that I personally will accept is, “What the hell am I supposed to eat for breakfast?” For some reason I like cold pasta for breakfast and apple juice, if you don’t, I would suggest cream of wheat or malt-o-meal to replace some rice or pasta, or getting really cheap cereal and using your milk ration on it. If you are interested in saving money but don’t know how to boil pasta, then God help you.
11. Weight Loss and Green Paper
    Bad news folks. If you eat three square meals of fast food a day, that is why you’re fat. If you eat ONE meal of fast food a day, you will steadily gain wait. It is not at all uncommon for Americans to order out, at least their lunches, every day. If it’s fast food, it’s five or six bucks, and it’s the reason for your gut or your saddle bags. If it’s “real” food, then it’s 8 bucks a day. Factor your monthly cafeteria cost, and toss in your daily Starbucks if applicable. Your total is probably something around 250 to 300 bucks a month, and that’s lunch and coffee alone. Bring pasta and a thermos to work, and live in a nicer home. It’s strange how many people out there when asked about their Starbucks habit will respond, accompanied by nervous, quirky laughter with, “I HAVE to have my Starbucks.” Well folks, that is because you are addicts, and losers, and the ideas in this article are beyond the scope of your intelligence. Enjoy the mediocrity and the pacifity of the common masses. Go **** yourself.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember, always take your daily multivitamin