Jesus

[conuly]

Just went to the store, spent over $90 for half a week's groceries just for me.

This is not sustainable, but it's not going to get better any time soon.

I could eat at work, but let's be clear, I don't much like the housekeeper's cooking, they rarely have in stock what I'd need to make my own food the way I like it (other than eggs), and also I have some weird food issues around... I don't really know. Eating other people's food? But not at a restaurant where it's okay? Maybe it's smelling the food? I honestly do not know, that's what makes these issues weird. (But even if I didn't, she boils the poor vegetables to death.)

Comments

[mtbc]

My grandmother used to boil vegetables to death too.

[cactuswatcher]

My mother as well. It was eye opening when my older brother showed me vegetables could be cooked and still be tasty.

[zavodilaterrarium]

That is rough pricing, damn.

Kinda relate to feeling weird eating food made by anyone outside of the household unless it's from a Food Place. It's not a particularly strong sensation for me usually, but I'd guess mine comes from a hard-to-shake assumption that you need both a 'professional' cook and a 'professional' setting to live up to hygiene/quality standards, ignoring my household because I'm used to what happens in it. I've never particularly trusted the cleanliness of other people as a result of being used to my mother's frequent cleaning, and being born a pretty fragile individual who has a 50% chance to be out-of-commission over at any mild health inconvenience lol

[conuly]

And I didn’t get anything spendy ton of meat or ice cream or lox or anything fun either. It’s wild.

I think my food issue - this one, I mean, not the other one - may really boil down to the fact that I can’t reliably distinguish hunger and nausea, if I feel hunger at all. So I smell food and feel nauseated. Add to that my usual bit of social anxiety and I just can’t eat.

[zavodilaterrarium]

Makes sense, that sucks :(

O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yikes. I agree, that's bad.

When we need to save money on food, we usually:

* Hit the local food pantry.

* Shop "seconds" at farmer's markets, where it is often possible to buy mass quantities of imperfect produce to cook down for spaghetti sauce, sloppy joe filling, etc. and freeze for later convenience meals.

* Look up recipes for cheap tasty food. Soul food, Indian, and African are all useful for this.

* Watch for foods on sale at the store, or cheaper versions of a thing.

* Cook more from scratch, which admittedly requires having the extra time and energy for that.

* Forage / garden more in the yard.

* We now have several bargain / salvage groceries in the area. The original up in Arthur, now there's one each in Arthur and Arcola too, all different titles. Charleston is where we get the oat flour to make the world's best blueberry muffins.

* Costco is a great place to buy ingredients. We've still got a couple of the chicken thigh packets in the freezer, which make it very easy to throw together a crockpot or wok meal with whatever else we have.

YMMV. Cheap cookin' is a perennial interest.

Re: O_O

[conuly]

And I didn’t get anything spendy or fun! I think a cart full of potato chips would’ve been cheaper, actually….

Re: O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes. A serious problem today is that junk food is usually cheaper than real food. The government subsidizes sugar but not vegetables. Then in a supreme act of sadism, it tells people to eat vegetables, not sugar. >_

I hear ya on the groceries

[disgruntledgirl]

I grabbed a bag of chicken quarters because they were $8. Decent sized bag, so I recommend keeping an eye peeled for this in the open freezer section. I've seen them in Kroger, WinCo and Tom Thumb for that rather great price. It's currently thawing in my fridge so I can break it up and get parceled into dinner plans.
A big bag of a Normandy mix works a treat, too. A measuring cup full of those veggies nuked in the microwave along with a bowl of ramen - mix: done.

You are very right, we can't keep this up, though. We can swap recipes and ideas; but when basic ingredients get costly - no amount of scrimping is going to help.