Can you live by eating three $3 meals a day?

OOhhh; now you peaked my interest, we can do it the hard way - DRY - too, Since I'm a patriot...... Cover the kids eyes....

FWIW: the expensive, fancy cup-o-noodles is only $0.98 around here.

 

I have never quite understood why members of the best watered nation in history have started carrying around little bottles of water.

 

16oz. Great Value Spaghetti: $0.98.
If you live where people tax food - a few pennies more.

Water: Free....unless you live where it's illegal to collect rain water, in which case it's a few pennies more.
Tap water is nearly free to totally free....UUUUUUnless you live in some Mad-Max hellscape where you do not have access to clean drinking water from the tap.

Electricity: Really? It should not take a THOUSAND WATTS of electricity applied for an entire hour (or 1 kWh) to cook spaghetti unless you really suck at cooking, science, or energy conservation....or all three.


....and if you DO need that much??????
GOOGLE says that the 'average 'merican' pays 16.07¢ to 17.98¢ per kWh (as of Jan 2026.)

Or?





Finally....

He said WET noodle.
Not cooked noodle.

 

You guys are correct though; everything listed above is survival food, except for the pizza (exceeds $3 meal) and Mendel's meal (lots of prep work and bulk purchase price break-down). Requires heating/cooling, storage, cooking hardware - so basically a home.
I actually have a few cans of Chef Boyardee, in the cabinet for the grand-kids. If they drop by and are hungry, but can't wait for me to cook them "a proper meal". It's something that's fast and they like; though I personally think it's SLOP....

I certainly don't want to live that way, and would likely move for my own mental and physical health. I would only do those as my choice; not because I have to, at this point in my life.....

 

The OP's question, asked AND answered is: "Can You?"
Maybe start another thread about "Wanting to live on $3 a day."

Given global mean income?
Living on $3 a day for food is a LOT tougher for people who HAVE TO do so.

https://youtube.com/shorts/QLcDNDe1u5g?si=T4wYKGtzCtF3L5yl

 

Wait, it was not $3 a day, but $3 a meal, right?

As I posted, I am doing it now -- no big deal. But I grew up in a poor fam. My dad had polio and had limited income. We also believed in living within our meager means. No welfare, (etc) ... did they have that in 50s, 60s? Those lessons have stayed with me. Wifey, hmm, not so much.

 

Yep; I just shake my head when I see today's teenagers ordering boba through door-dash and whine about how everything is so expensive.
FWIW; the boba is $10 plus delivery & tip - FOR A DRINK, no special occasion - No alcohol....?????? WT*???
It seems like they want everyone to wait on them hand and foot, but don't want to pay the bill.... ROYALTY???

 

I had to look up Boba.

While at it, I looked up kombucha.

I feel so "with it" now.

Now I just have to figure out the attraction of frap-doodle-caramel-mocha-venti. Or whatever passes for "coffee" now.

Maxwell House works for me. And that I only drink once or twice per week.

 

The kombucha is easy to make at home.

 

The question being who would want to.

Offices across the country people seem to filter in each morn with what appears to me to be mostly fancy milkshakes. 'Course, I don't know anything about the actual contents. Maybe they are all really "coffee likker"

 

Pancakes on the griddle this morning!



Don't get me started about knackered teflon; one day maybe all that crap will flake off. Leave it for the need to vent thread.

 

If one lives in a house, apartment, or even an RV there are lots of ways to save money on food. Storage is "free", electricity, gas, and water are relatively inexpensive, cooking modalities and refrigeration are available. In that scenario, it is possible to eat for $3/meal - in direct food costs - because many of the other costs are being filed under "housing". Eating healthy for that price would be tricky, but eating well enough to stay alive for a while is possible.

For people who are completely unhoused none of those things are readily available, and that drives the cost of a meal way up. Eating for $3/meal is not trivial when everything you own is in a back pack, suitcase, or shopping cart.

I recall seeing a discussion once about how $3/meal (it was less at the time, this was quite a while ago) was a reasonable goal. Turned out they were talking about "for farming families". Kind of a cheat I think, much easier to grow your own food on a farm than to do so on the streets of a city.

Try collecting rain water to live on when unhoused in Los Angeles. It only rains a small part of the year, often torrentially, with not a drop of rain the rest of the year. All you have to do is store up enough to last from March to December (approximately), and don't forget that there will be months where every day is above 100F. Let's say somehow a person can get by on an average of a gallon a day for 270 days. I don't recall seeing any homeless people wheeling around a tank containing a bit more than a ton of water. The problem would be even worse in Phoenix and some other south western cities.

 

I see current US grocery prices at

Early Ad Previews | Weekly Sales Ads | Circular Sneak Peeks

It informs me that cooking at home can go under $3/person/meal, but with de emphasis on chicken or pork, and rarely any beef. At restaurants one carries fixed costs and staff costs, and $3 is generally exceeded.

==
If this discussion moves to international (esp in low-median-income countries), I might contribute.

 

Wildly exceeded. Factor of 2X in the best of circumstances, 3X at list prices in a few cases, and more like 4X in any place that could reasonably be classified as "good". (Not great, not excellent, just good.)

Unless there is a special going is it ever possible to eat a "meal" at McDonald's these days for less than $3?

A single egg McMuffin runs around $4.90 (prices vary by location) but sometimes they are like 2 for $5, so if your buddy eats with you $2.50(ish, there is tax) on the single sandwich is possible. No drink, no side dish. It isn't really a meal, but at least it has a measurable amount of protein, and they will provide a cup for water for free.

Their "Hamburger" is about $2.70. But those things have been a joke for decades. A tiny piece of "meat" on a bun which is mostly air.

Burger King is a little better, there is usually a way to get some type of hamburger and a small fries for close to $3, it might need a coupon though, and the final price will probably be just over $3.

Single tacos in any place where they are worth eating will be more than $3.00. I believe a cheese, bean, and rice burrito at Taco Bell may still be less than $3. However, eating out of a dumpster may be a better choice than eating there.

Premade supermarket sandwiches or salads can be as low as $6 or $7. Ralphs (Kroger) often puts the 2 day old ones on sale for half price. That is about the best deal for complex food (not just a single thing, like a block of cheese) I see on a regular basis, but they may or may not have any of these at a given point in time.

 

Biscuit an’ egg!

 

let's talk about the cost of healthy eating, instead of processed foods

 

I make it, though have trouble getting the bottles fizzy as I like. Do have some champaign yeast in the fridge though

The only coffee I drink is cold brewed and on the latte end of the spectrum. I never get it from a cafe. Home made or by the bottle from ALDI.

Looks fine with the grease.

Did consider removing the teflon from some nice stainless pans. Figured would be more trouble than it was worth.

 

Was looking up cookie sheets; looks like Teflon’s becoming ubiquitous there as well.

 

Fast, Healthy, Cheap.
Pick two.....

I'm reminded of an article I read about Biosphere-2 where the 'Biospherians' lost 16% of their body weight, maintained an atmosphere that would have forced ANY combat submarine or spacecraft to end their mission, and endured....um....infighting and managerial drama worthy of a barely believable mini-series.....
HOWEVER (comma!!!!) At the end of the...30 something month long 'mission' the 'spherians had health markers (from the neck down!!!) that were extremely healthy!

Kudo's to anyone who names the replacement manager that BS2's board flew in on a helo to try to salvage the programme!!!

We've been using cast iron down on the Redneck Riviera for ages now!
Nature's original NON-STICK cookware.

If you're a Gen-Z'er and cannot abide simple, time tested solutions there's always nitrided steel cookware.
The GOOD news for normies is that (a) it's nearly for-sure to be healthy for you and (2) once the Z'ers find out where and why nitrited steel was developed? Those prices will come tumbling down!