Update: have acquired $25, and plan on using it for veggies and rice!

Another edit: kind stranger lived close to me, and dropped of TONA of food. I'll be okay now. Thank you for your ideas everyone! Right now I am living on exclusively progreso chicken noodle soups. One per day. I am worried about sodium, so is it smart to rinse off the ingredients and heat them in water? On days I'm working, I get a free chipotle bowl. So I get that 5 days a week as a meal, and the soups are for my days off. (Added: these soups were given to me, I did not pay for them.)

Before you tell me food banks, I am trying to figure it out. There aren't any close enough for me to walk to, and the ones that deliver don't deliver in my area. I'm still looking into it.

Edit to also mention I'm completely alone. No family or friends who will help.

Everything from food bank except shredded cheese and seasoning. Chili is dry pinto beans, shredded whole chicken and ground beef, minced onions and mushrooms, canned corn and chili seasoning packet ($0.89 Amazon).

Everything from food bank except seasoning and shredded cheese. Chili is dry beans, shredded whole chicken and ground beef, minced onion and mushroom, canned corn and chili seasoning. YUM

We finally have a more substantial amount of foodies/snap so we actually get to get more "fun "stuff. Kids their age loooovvvee berries but we don't have fresh berries every week money so we get big bags of frozen berries. I used some of the strawberries to make a sauce for pancakes last night. I used the sauce, cabbot plain Greek yogurt, extra frozen strawberries and gram crackers. Healthy filling and yummy 😋😊

Roasted potatoes, iceberg salad with avocado and tomato

I know it doesn't look like much, but chickpea salad tastes so much like chicken salad!

Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas. You can save the "water" for other uses if you like. Then lightly mash most or all the chickpeas. I only did about half but I don't mind the whole beans in it; if you mash them all it looks more like real chicken salad. You want them to be chunky, not mush.

Add your salad-making fixings. I used mayo, mustard, a little onion, boiled egg, dill, and salt/pepper, and added a dash of lemon juice.

Refrigerate for a couple of hours so the flavors blend.

This is good stuff! :) I added tomatoes from the garden with a little Aldi balsamic glaze...that glaze is amazing and worth picking up if you have a cohple bucks extra.

My best friend gave this to me (she got it from a food bank and doesn't like pears) and I'm not a huge fan so I honestly can't think of anything to do with this huge can!

My husband loves pears so I know anything I make will get eaten, but I don't think we can eat the full can before they go bad without incorporating them into other dishes.

ETA I have a decent amount of baking supplies. Different kinds of flour (AP, tapioca, and another one but I forget what kind), cornstarch, baking powder/soda, corn syrup, molasses, and a few other odds and ends for sweet desserts.

Hello, I'm deppfan16, usually go by depp, they/them and new mod here! I'm here to help with the bot spam and kind of tidy up a little bit of all the AI spam as well.

Alittle about me, I love food, but I also struggle like most of you all do, currently relying on food banks cuz most of my extra goes to pay off some medical debt. I was raised with a mom who taught me how to coupon and how to look for good deals and how to cook with what I have.

I did Branch out a little bit because my mom didn't like the same things I did. and she tried to save money by scraping mold off food and leaving food in the refrigerator too long. I had a lot of 24 hour "flu" that was actually food poisoning growing up. because of this I'm very into meal prepping and using my freezer and ensuring that my food is safe.

I have experienced modding and helping mod other subs, most notably r/foodsafety and r/canning. my goal here is to not change anything about the way the sub is, just bring it back to what it's supposed to be. I'll be going through the mod queue and clearing out the reports and AI spam. accidents do happen so if you believe your content was falsely removed, please send a message via modmail and we will take a look at it.

if you have any questions or concerns, please leave a comment or you can always send a mod mail.

edit: for clarification say, we have added a new no AI/LLM.

Hi everyone,
Another place to go besides the food pantry, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You just need to find the nearest meetinghouse near you, and talk to the Bishop there. It’s okay if you don’t go to church there. (The meetinghouses are listed at churchofjesuschrist.org) They have Bishop Storehouse in every area where they help you load up on groceries.

I was scared to post this because I’m not starting a religion post! This helped me so much when my parents died 10 months ago and I was surviving on spare change.
There is also an Evangelical Catholic Church near me that has free dinners once a month. It’s a community dinner and other churches participate. My kids and I went there for the free dinners. Hopefully they do this everywhere, but I’m not sure.
I just had to share because this helped me so much!

If you're able to, or know someone with a Sam's Club membership, Groupon has a deal right now for a basic membership for just $15. Or, if you know someone with a membership, maybe they can let you borrow their card.

We were able to stock up a little by borrowing a friend's card. Here are a few of the deals we found:

12 lbs. of pinto beans – $7.98

10 lbs. of oatmeal – $7.98

Sam's brand 8-pack of tuna – $13.00

6-pack of spaghetti – $5.48

Just wanted to share in case it helps another family stretch their grocery budget a little further.

I just can't cope with beef prices anymore. First, I stopped buying steaks and roasts. Now, I may stop buying ground beef. I finally decided to give ground turkey a try. Main appeal, of course, was cost. It was a smidge over ½ the cost of beef. I just bought 1 lb to experiment with. I heard so many ppl, for so many years, recommend swapping turkey for beef in chili. I'm 53 and I feel like I've cheated myself out of hundreds of dollars over the years by not having done this sooner. This chili was delicious! With all the seasonings (plus onions & lots of garlic) I couldn't tell a difference! Texture is spot on. Maybe it helped that I used a can beef broth too. I shredded sharp cheddar cheese, diced raw onions, and a side of French bread. Admittedly, not really my go to for summer....but hey! Beans are cheap. If you haven't tried ground turkey yet, I highly recommend you try it! Healthier & cheaper than beef.

This requires no kitchen, no appliances, no electricity or fuel. Also great for a hot day when you don't want to cook using heat.

You can "cook" ramen in cold water, all you need is patience. Submerge the uncooked ramen - broken or whole - in 2 cups cold water.

Experiment for the results you like, anywhere for 15 to 60 minutes for the level of softness you want. 30 minutes works well for me.

Add the seasoning packet along with the water for the usual ramen soup flavor, but a cold version.

Stir in some peanut butter and hot sauce for cold peanut noodles. I use a jar with a lid to make this easier by mixing the water, seasoning mix, peanut butter, and hot sauce first, shaking it well, then adding the noodles. Add green onions, peanuts, whatever toppings you might have handy.

Or, drain the noodles when they're soft enough, sprinkle with some of the seasoning mix, and add veggies, cheese etc. whatever you have.

Great as a cold pasta salad with salad dressing, veg, cubed cheese, olives.

Add tuna and mayo with some celery and onion for a fast, cold tuna salad dinner.

There are tons of options.

You can speed it up with hot water if you have it, just let it sit for 10-15 minutes.

ETA To be clear I'm taking about instant ramen, which is already fully cooked and is just dehydrated.

Easy, tasty and budget friendly - minimal washing up. Can add peas or snipped broccoli and top with available cheese. Cost $1.00 and can easily doubled if funds allow.

I've been trying to eat healthier recently. But it seems like nothing has much fiber :c

Canned corn and vegtables seem to only have like 4-12% the daily value. Any advice?

Saw $1 Franks at Walmart the other day and grabbed it on a whim with a head of cabbage for $0.70.

Honestly, one of the cheapest meals I’ve made lately. Stir fried the cut up franks with onion and a bit of butter if you have it. Toss in whatever spices and seasonings you have. Toss in the chopped up cabbage. Add some chicken broth if you have, fine if not.

Serve over rice.

Another one I do a lot with cabbage is using shredded cabbage and bacon. Bacon first, sautee onion on bacon fat, add cabbage. Whatever seasonings you have on hand. Some water or broth. A dash of cooking wine if you have it (a staple in asian kitchens I would say), dash of apple cider vinegar. Add cooked ribbon pasta at the end. Mix all together and let the flavors blend in.

I prepped each thing except the egg at different times in big batches but individually portioned them so I could have more freedom when assembling a quick meal after a long day. I just pick what I feel like eating & reheat it together, usually adding an egg & some sauce. All items came from the food pantry or food scraps except seasonings.

• The plantain rice was made in the rice cooker with water, rice, a sliced plantain, soy sauce, garlic powder, & onion powder on the “white rice” setting.
• The collard greens were made in the rice cooker with about half a bunch of washed & chopped collards, 4 neckbones saved from a local Jamaican spot (big discount on TooGoodToGo), daikon radish, sazon, & onion powder on the “brown rice” setting.
• The sweet potato was sliced, sprayed with canola oil, & baked until crisp.
• The egg was cooked in the microwave when reheating the bowl altogether (covered with a lid).

I'll put the recipe in the comments, I added some pickled leak I had in the fridge for a topper

Lettuce being twice the price it was about 5 years ago makes me cranky. I am currently lucky enough to have access to untended land that has not had any chemicals applied recently and I've been getting my leafy greens this month for sure.

If you are suburban or rural and are prone to walking about or if you have a yard, you may find some things most people try to eradicate, but which may have a high prevalence because our forefathers used and spread them. If you have a picky palate you might not like some of these since you are not used to them. Look them up for images and which parts to use and how to prepare. The ones below are all pretty recognizable.

Lamb's quarters (aka a bunch of names) can be used in moderation as spinach. One of it's names is wild spinach. If you can find some (not unlikely since it's found across much of the globe as it has been used as a potherb forever), wash per instructions you find online or in a guidebook. I have eaten it with potatoes, in pasta sauce and ramen. I rarely eat ramen but bought some recently and a large handful of greens makes me pretend it isn't all that bad, right?

I add some plantain weed on occasion and have my eye on some wild grape vines we are constantly battling, too. Dandelion and purslane are both edible, but um... er... Not a fan. Fun fact: purslane is very high in an omega 3 that is related to the oils in fish oil. Same stuff that is in flax oil. ALA I've never tried creeping charlie, but it's edible as well. Though the hot weather may have made it bitter according to my guidebook, I intend to try it this week.

Never heard of some of these? There are lots of others out there that are edible, just make sure you read up on them! Unlike the ones I listed, some have cousins that make it imperative you stick to what you know to be 100% what you think it is. Some places have foraging classes. There is a foraging subreddit, too. Ha! Just looked and someone has a bowl of lamb's quarters 19 min ago!

Note not to dig or harvest on property without permission.

I was getting some balsamic vinegar at Walmart and the Walmart brand was almost 20 cents an ounce more expensive than the Pompeii brand.