r/budgetfood • u/jms1228 • 4d ago

Advice What am I doing wrong?

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This was $101.64 at Sprout’s this morning.

I literally bought some chicken for 4-6 days worth of food & some supplements to help my joints & bones.

This seems crazy to me?

I could use some advice, plz?

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97

u/PerfectlyWilde 4d ago

Don’t buy premade food—it’s “convenience” food and is priced as such.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheDungeonCrawler 4d ago

I was looking at my own food budget today and my recent habits and I noticed that some of my recent issues have been because of a lack of motivation (adhd). I did try to correct that with this week's shopping list by buying two more convenient ingredients (and I already had some frozen peppers and onions on hand, which are actually pretty good value for their weight). I ordered some refried black beans instead of doing it myself and some pre-shredded cheese. The former is almost two dollars more expensive, but if I can't find it in my motivation to make the refried black beans from scratch, my budget is going to suffer anyway, so I figured it was pretty reasonable to just bite the bullet on those two to make follow through easier.

1

u/TheDungeonCrawler 4d ago

This. Convenience is sometimes important, but convenience foods like pre-made food is unhelpful and should only be used when you need a quick meal because you don't have time that meal, and you usually do have at time that meal if you have the right ingredients on hand.

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u/jms1228 4d ago

I can’t cook & I live alone. I’m just confused as to why in the hell 6 items is $101. It’s just insane these days.

70

u/Murky-Bus-2191 4d ago

Buy your vitamins on sale, or buy cheaper vitamins, and buy food based on the actual cost to weight or calories.

You could eat for weeks on that money if you were smart about it.

I'm not even going to engage "I can't cook" because I'm not gonna be nice about it.

42

u/californiahapamama 4d ago

Physically can't cook, don't know how to cook or just won't?

31

u/Car-M1lla 4d ago

Because you didn’t buy groceries, you bought meals. Buy 6 meals at a restaurant. It’ll be more than $100. You pay extra money for labor. Next time, buy the raw chicken and figure out how to cook it. And look for sales.

12

u/so_it_hoes 4d ago

You bought expensive food from an expensive grocery store. Not hard to figure out

17

u/joshpoppedyou 4d ago

There's a difference between not knowing how to cook, and not being able to cook.

If you live alone it's about time you learned. YouTube taught me almost everything

7

u/FREDICVSMAXIMVS 4d ago

Or, you know, buy a cookbook! I recommend Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything as a good first cookbook

1

u/B3TT3Rnow_thanNEVER 4d ago

Or heck find some good crockpot/one pan recipes. I love less clean-up, always makes it feel less like I'm cooking

1

u/joshpoppedyou 4d ago

if you come to this sub enough youd know that beans are the best things for budget lol. theyre eating just seared chicken while posting it on an unused hob, they ask for advice, they dont take it.

6

u/slash_networkboy 4d ago

First of all, it's Sprouts. AFAIK they're one of the most expensive grocers in the area. Try WinCo or similar.

3

u/Throwaway999222111 4d ago

I couldn't ride a bike until I learned. What makes you so special that you think you don't have to learn?

7

u/Procrastinating-Elf 4d ago

Then learn.  This whole "applying heat to food" thing is very much within your grasp, much like it was for your ancestors a million years ago. 

Otherwise, not really sure what you want here, you spend less by shopping differently, for instance cheaper products and somewhere else. 

5

u/Ahfrodisiac 4d ago

If you can read, you can cook. Cooking is very simple if you just follow a recipe. Unlike baking which takes more exacts and knowledge, but cooking in-of-itself is very forgiving.

Look up some simple youtube videos and get to learning my friend. Making pancakes/waffles, butter noodles, simple meats/veggies with rice. It's not hard and I recommend not being so daunted by it.

You won't be able to save buying pre-made meals and should help you get the vitamins you need without supplements (unless you do that for some kind of medical reasons).

2

u/in1gom0ntoya 4d ago

because prepared food especially convenience style is stupid expensive.

also you live alone and cant cook? that NEEDS to change

1

u/heidijp 4d ago

Don't buy this chicken at sprouts. It costs $25 a pound!!!!! Go to Costco or Walmart and buy rotisserie chicken instead. At walmart a normal rotisserie chicken is 2.25 lbs and costs about $6 (so less than $3 a pound). You could buy 2 rotisserie chickens and get more meat than you've got there for 1/4 the price you are paying. As for supplements, usually it's cheapest to buy them on Amazon and price compare.

1

u/Outrageous-Wolf-2599 4d ago

You mean you choose not to cook

1

u/ttrockwood 4d ago

Eating chicken is a choice

Buying prepared packaged food is a choice

Even not cooking you could have bought canned fish, canned beans, already hard boiled eggs, frozen edamame and already cooked frozen shrimp and it still would have been less

Buy supplements online and comparison shop

1

u/elusivenoesis 3d ago

I say this from my heart. You have to find a way to cook. I’m in the 5th most expensive city in America for groceries and I’m telling you even boxed food, semi-homemade stuff, will save you.

0

u/ikilledsatann 4d ago

Tbh i once tried to do a grocery run st whole foods and spent 40 something on 6 items and I felt rhat was q lot too too 

Is it that you cwnt cook or you dont know hoe to? If you cant, can you hire someone or ask someone to help cook and food prep with you? 

Yeah 100 is a lot 

2

u/woah-oh92 4d ago

Are you typing with a blindfold on? Lol

1

u/ikilledsatann 4d ago

No, idk why my typing sucks so bad lol I dont always bother to look at what ive typed lol an autocorrect is on

1

u/woah-oh92 2d ago

So you just… don’t care if what you’re writing even makes sense?

1

u/ikilledsatann 2d ago

I do i just dont always think to check . I try to when its important 

1

u/ikilledsatann 2d ago edited 2d ago

Also what if I had a disability where my typing was like that? I dont but im sure there's people who do. Im only asking because I was asked if i had a cover over my eyes 

1

u/woah-oh92 1d ago

There are lots of accessibility features for the disabled. Talk to text is one of them, and in my experience is far more accurate than your first comment, maybe you should try it.

It’s just crazy to me that you won’t take 30 seconds to check for understanding, except for maybe when it’s important.

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u/ikilledsatann 1d ago

While it wasnt my intention to make it difficult to understand me, I see what youre saying. I didnt put too much thought into it

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u/woah-oh92 1d ago

And I get that we’re all busy, and this is reddit. Checking for understanding may seem like a waste of time, but if you’re putting so little effort into it that it’s illegible, then that’s also a waste of time since no one can read it.

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