My grandma said she fed 5 kids on $40 a week in 1985 and I had to sit down | Budget Friendly Meals - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
My grandma said she fed 5 kids on $40 a week in 1985 and I had to sit down
My grandma caught me complaining about grocery prices at her kitchen table in Toledo last Sunday and just laughed at me. She pulled out an old notebook where she tracked every trip to the store and showed me a week from March 1985 where she spent $40 feeding five kids. She said the trick was buying whatever meat was marked down that morning and building the whole week around it, plus a big pot of rice or potatoes at every dinner. I've been planning meals around recipes I find online instead of around what's actually cheap at the store that day, and it's costing me way more than it should. Anyone else flip their whole shopping style after talking to an older relative about how they used to do it?
Man, my buddy Dave went through the exact same thing with his mom last year. She sat him down and showed him her old receipt book from like 1990 and he said it kinda blew his mind, she was buying whatever cut of meat was about to expire and just cooking it that night, and half her meals were beans or lentils because they were dirt cheap in bulk. He switched to shopping the markdowns first and then figuring out dinner from there, and he swears his bill dropped by like a third. His wife was mad at first because it meant less planning ahead but they got used to it.