One of my relatives can't manage his money and is close walk to Woolworths, IGA, Aldi and Coles. He can shop at one or walk to any and mix if necessary
Needs a food budget from today of $40-$50 in groceries if it can be done. For one week until next Friday or Saturday. Now he is a big lad goes to gym everyday early 20's, so I'm presuming proteins, veggies and meat.
Can it be done? I'm thinking those 89 cent tuna cans from Aldi?
Oh yeah has to include coffee as he drinks this before gym.
humblebrag 💪 ?
Plot twist OP is the relative…
Yeah this seems rather self evident
Get new bank account, setup auto transfers on pay day with grocery budget, use this card only for groceries.
Actually quite a good idea. There are a few free prepaid debit card apps with budgeting tools built in.
This can definitely be done. I would turn it into a positive and try intermittent fasting or stack the carbs and focus on cardio for the week.
Compare prices at all the supermarkets in a spreadsheet before purchasing items at their cheapest location.
If he wants three meals a day I would go with oats, rice beans, eggs, cabbage, tuna, frozen veggies. Keep an eye out for specials and replace the frozen veggies with fresh if possible. Look out for specials on mince meat. After that week do not eat tuna for a while. It contains mercury and needs time to clear from your system.
Hopefully he has some oil, spices or condiments at home or likes spicy food. Adding chilli until you can’t taste the food has its benefits when meals are bland.
Find a local fruit shop always cheap deals on fruit and vegetables at my local.
Look for quick sales at woolies and Coles, some pretty good deals to had.
Maybe if your super generous, help him out by buying him some food… least you could do for spreading his business on the net lol
fresh chicken, canned tuna
fresh veg, frozen veg, canned beans
rice, lentils.
12 different combinations and shouldn't get too boring.
Give him this url and tell him to work it out for himself then check his workings. You can feed a man a fish and he will eat for a day, if you teach him how to fish he will eat for a lifetime.
Not very good fishing in most metro areas.
You must be using the wrong bait or your weren’t taught properly 😜
"meta" was cheap carbs + proteins. So pasta or rice, sweet potato as the main carbs, then eggs, chicken breast, mince, tuna. Then add frozen veggies + mixed herbs and spices for variety. Other optionals are sweet potatoes or onions. Can add peanut butter and milk for bulking or just to fill you up. Eggs + veggies can be cheaper at Asian stores in bulk or bulk chicken breast at butchers.
Good & economic source of protein:
- Chicken (whole/ drumsticks)
- Eggs
- Dried legume can be had for about $5-6 per kilo. It will require soaking and cooking but a lot better bang for bucks then tined beans. I usually cook one cup at a time and that would gives me enough to go into many meals throughout a whole week (if not longer). Just don't cook the whole bag in one hit as they will go off after a while.
He can go to the kiddies fruit basket as his emergency fund .
Buy in bulk saves money in the longrun, shop for sale items only, discounts shops like NQR
dahl—-lots of protein easy to cook and can eat with pretty much anything rice, bread, noodles, on its own
I just thought of something cheap and delicious. Hamburger patties and rolls or bread, fried onions, slice tomato, fried egg, slice pineapple, slice beetroot. lettuce. Emprty any cans into a plastic container.
Gym everyday of the week and coffee?!
Can't manage money you say 🤔
It's nice you're watching out for this person but how will you deliver this budget to them? Do they just accept this new budget and say thanks? Such a weird situation.
Or is this you buying the items for them and sending it?
Either way you'd have to buy in bulk and eat the same thing all week to make the budget work. Coffee alone for the week will zap that budget so maybe teabags can provide the caffeine?
Is this for your grandson?
cheap white bread from alcolesworth and canned goods of choice
As a uni student, I've picked up a few tricks.
Get to know what times your woolies does date checks, Im terrible at deciding what to have for dinner that little orange sticker makes up my mind for me and I save heaps. Keep an eye on the specials, the Leggos ravioli half price is only $4 packet. The deli section will occasionally have 20-40% off chicken breast/ thigh fillets, I will usually stock up and freeze. Also, my biggest tip is buying the short-dated fancy fruit juices (Nudi/Juice brothers) you can catch a $6 bottle for like 2 bucks, fresh fruit can be super expensive I find this to be a decent substitute (I doubt it's as healthy but it keeps the scurvy away). My meal plan is something like:
Brekkie: Bacon egg avo wraps ~ $18.5
Bacon (from the deli) $5
Eggs (buy caged ones) $3.7
Avo (3) $3
Sauce (franks red hot + BBQ) $3
Hash Browns $3.5
Lunch: Toasted Ham+ cheese ~ $13.5
Loaf of bread $2
Cheese (500g sliced) $6.5
Ham (The Primo 2 for 5 special) $5
Dinner: Ravioli + Frozen veg ~ $16.3
2x Leggos Raviolli $4 each ($8)
2x frozen Broccoli and Cauliflower $2.15 each ($4.30)
2x Pasta Sauce $2 each ($4)
OR
Dinner: Teriaki Chicken, Rice, and veggies ~ $16.3 - $21.3
Chicken (breast or thigh whatever is on special) 1kg $6 to $9
Rice 1kg $2
2xMarinade (your choice i like that ayam brand) $2-3 each ($4-6)
2x frozen Broccoli and Cauliflower $2.15 each ($4.30)
For my coffee, if have a pod machine so it's $6 for a 10 pack of pods that lasts me a week, I buy fancy milk but normal milk will be $2 or $3. Plus $2 or $3 for short-dated fancy juice.
It's a little bit over the $40-50 but it's so much better than shity pasta and tuna every day. Hope this helps :)
I think if you eat the same thing everyday it's super off-putting and you'll probably "break" it more quickly. Better to plan out what you are gonna eat for some variety so you can actually stick to it. Also if you go to multiple supermarkets random add on purchases are more likely to happen, so I'd stick to aldi. If he can eat tofu it's like ~$3 packet at aldi and could go for 3-4 serves of protein along with veggies.
Roids r expensive.
Who are you? Why isn't he trying to work it out…. stop buying rubbish. Of cause you can live on $40 …. soup… pasta… corn flakes… tell him to work it out
Tinned tuna, bagged salads and soft-boiled eggs + oat porridge with milk will work out just fine, as well as using 1kg coffee grinds from ALDI or Coles.
None of this works if he's not up to the challenge of eating bland.
achew
'scuse me
Go to supermarkets near the end of the day and pick up the copious amounts of meat they mark down to get rid of, then freeze it.
We regularly get great cuts of meat that we would never pay full price for, for a fraction of the cost.
Same with fruit and veg. We just bought 4 bags of blood oranges from Coles for 45c each (down from $4.50 each) simply because the best before date is today.
If he can't figure out how not to starve to death in this day and age when bread is $2 a loaf and beans $1 a can, makes me wonder what else he needs help with.
Is he toliet trained yet? Or does someone else wipe for him?
This may not be appealing but I actually love it. Minced meat, stir a few eggs in at the end and mix it with rice. Good source of protein and carbs and fairly cheap. He can make the meat in advance and cook the rice daily. Just make sure to leave the rice out as the fridge sucks the moisture out completely. Again, not for everyone but it’s cheap. Could mix in some veggies too.
Peanuts, milk powder, raw brown sugar and cocoa powder. Mix and match as needed.
Add some vegetables.
The good ol asian poor way.
add veg (it's cheaper than meat)
aim of the game, minimal meat, bulk with carbs, get nutrients from variety of veg.
most of the stuff he can get from those food kitchen sales at churches and other volunteer food programs for fraction of the price (at near expiry).
What does fried rice with left over KFC taste like?
For $40 a week you aren't going to be getting the protein required to make daily gym effective, meat is expensive.
Only option to do so would be to go to a food charity place & try & get a bunch of high protein stuff (meats, eggs etc) then cook meals around that. Most of it will be short dated so freeze or use immediately.
I personally add protein powder (the flavourless ones) to a bunch of meals. Its cheap when bought in bulk, far cheaper than most meats.
Other than that, buy a big bag of rice, frozen mixed veg, eggs & base your meals around them. If its not a $40 hard limit but an average $40 per week, buy a bunch of herbs/spices & use them to add variety.
Tomatos, onions, cabbage, carrots are also good for fresh veg volume.
I did $5 a day meals for a few months just to see if I could, didn't even miss out on much, just buy in bulk, cook more, rice & mixed veg for volume, smaller meat portions if you are paying for it.
Plenty of free coffey deals on ozzybargin
Save the dollarydoos on buying coffeyy
Lentils are pretty cheap and have quite a bit of protein. I'd maybe watch out for mince, can be quite a bit of fat in there and you might be getting more bank for your buck just getting actual meat. From big chains with a $40 budget though, probably not. Kangaroo used to be super cheap too but not anymore :(
Since I've hit my 30ties, I've realised, I want to be a bit more generous on my food budget and save elsewhere.
I want to enjoy the foods I want to eat and pay for quality produce.
Food is also about nutrition and we pay the price in the longterm.
Reading through the comments I'm just grateful I'm not related to you tight empathy deficient bastards.
It could easily be done. It's not uncommon for students or pensioners to live like that.
Porridge, bread, eggs, bag of six odd bunch avocados ($3.90), bag of 30 aldi dim sims ($5), milk, sausages, pasta, pasta sauce, whatever cheap fruit/veggies available, loacker wafers.
Peanut butter is a super food.
Yep easily done. Average woolies prices
Protein:
Can Tuna- 2x 425g tuna cans for $6
Chicken - 1kg drumsticks for $4
Eggs - 12xEggs $5
Subtotal $15
Vegies/Fruit
Vegetables - Frozen Mix $3/kg
Carrots - 1kg bag - $2
1-2 fresh veggies on special - $5
Fresh fruit - Buy large orange bags (lasts 2 weeks) $6 bag ($3 per week)
Apples - $3
Bananas/other fruit for 3-4 days per week - $4
Can tomatos - $1
Subtotal $24
Carbs
Bread - $3
Rice - $2
Pasta - $2
Oats - $2
Subtotal $9
Dairy
Milk - 4L for $5
Pantry
Coffee - woolworths classic should last at least 2 weeks $2/week
Subtotal $5
Total=$55
This is being relative conservative with prices.(Somethings might be cheaper but I'm also missing a few things). So should be able to go under $50. I've put a fair bit of money on fresh veggies. Most people probably don't eat enough but if you they want to be fit and healthy shouldn't skimp on it.
As other's have said using plant based proteins sources such as lentils/chickpeas will also cut costs.
Perhaps the big lad could carefully reconsider all of his expenses so that a couple of good meals every day is not the last thing to be budgeted for? May be they could cut down on other expenses in order to eat healthy food? May be they need some guidance given that they are fairly young. But that's just my thinking.
If it's only for one week, put the gym membership on hold and he'll have another $15-20 to spend on food for the week.
To add to all the fantastic grocery lists is also buy a $50 bag of proteins powder. It should be plenty to help him hit his macros and tastes really great with milk or if he wants a bit more fancy with milk + bananas + one scoop. That way in terms of whole foods we can reduce the expensive meats and go for cheaper cuts and more vegetables (Whichever is on special like broccoli or frozen vegs / fruits)
As for coffee, he can get cheap coffee from 7-11 or if he wants get blend or something cheap.
Do such people exists ?? I never seen one like this
I guess low income earners & pensioners but it can be anyone that cant manage money.
I visited a old friend in a DEpt OF HOUSING block last week and was surprised to see so many welfare agencies dvertising financial counselling on their noticeboards
Tell him to stay home
User name not checking out here…. What’s in it for you?