Ask Lemmy

Spending a few hundred a week for the two of us to eat a basic equivalent diet to that available in Europe. I brought back all my shampoo, body wash, moisturizers, etc in a 50 lb suitcase which I loaded up at carrefour on my last trip to France.

I've just stopped eating, I'm hoping it will make the survival aspect a moot point after awhile.

I haven’t starved yet. I know from experience that if I get calorically restricted for too long, I will do anything to fill my stomach. So fortunately, it hasn’t got to the point where my morality starts to degrade yet.

Step 1) plant potatoes Step 2) cry

I shop at grocery outlet and ultimately eat very little.

Ramen keeping me alive.

Haven't noticed any difference. I buy non-processed foods only (meat, vegetables, grains, spices) and everything has been pretty stable for decades.

i shop bulk as much as i can, eat oatmeal for breakfast daily, and after i had my gall bladder removed i got in the habit of eating 2-3oz portions of animal protein no more than 5 times a week. i spend a bunch of time in the kitchen every week but it definitely softens the blow. it also helps that i have a couple of cheap staple meals i can make for less than $5 per serving.

i also shop around for value. i live near 4 different grocery stores so i dont spend a lot of time doing it, but i do make a run to grocery outlet every month in order to get discounts on bigger items but it can be hit or miss.

Buying cheaper stuff. Doing fine I guess

I mostly buy ingredients and cook bulk batches of food. Before, we were splurging on instacart, but they got crazy expensive with their upcharges (MINIMUM 15% increase in item cost, + service charge, +delivery fee (or the annual delivery fee), +tip (it started to feel like 15% was too low, on top of the 15% grocery upcharge).

We stopped that and we actually spend less now even after this inflation.

I'm doing a lot more cooking that's for sure

Pancakes can really go with anything, they're basically a large flat biscuit. Not to mention they keep quite nicely if frozen or simply put in the fridge

I was actually contributing a fair bit to savings with the last job I did, but for anybody making 14 or less I can imagine it's a real struggle.

My prices have come down quite a bit over the past few months. It was a stretch to feed myself on $250 but now I’m ending the month with a few dollars left over

Bulk buys

Bought instant noodles in bulk. I could have gotten the cheap, tasteless kind, but I prefer the more expensive Asian ones. Still ends up being much less expensive than groceries anyways. I have a good portion of the pantry filled with just different types of instant noodles, all of which were bought in bulk. I do buy groceries, but I avoid the more expensive foods as much as possible. Just stuff like milk, eggs, spinach, fruits, etc.

I don't eat instant noodles every day, but if I don't feel like cooking or if I'm running low on food, I can "supplement" the meal with instant noodles. Having instant noodles as "backup" helps takes a bit of the edge off with regards to grocery spending, although I do admit that I could take more drastic measures to save. Despite living in an area where the cost of living is absurd (one of the highest in the country), I feel somewhat well off in that I can get by with just supplementing my meals with instant noodles every now and then.

Woodman’s

I am lucky enough to have a yard, so grow leafy greens in most seasons and some other veg.

Other than that, what I noticed about the food inflation is that prices converged, whole foods were already expensive but their prices came down a little while our regular grocery and the cheaper place increased theirs a lot, regular grocery prices worse than whole foods in quite a lot of the things I actually buy so I just buy stuff at whole foods and local ethnic groceries now, not much from the chain grocery.

Dried beans and canned beans we use for near every meal but have always done, that's not a change.

Housing here has increased way more than food. Rent and purchase prices went crazy and are now dropping so slowly.

I've been shopping at WinCo, it's a further bike ride than Fred Meyer or Trader Joes but the prices are hard to beat. This year I'm looking at buying into a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). The one I'm looking at is $400 for 12 boxes of food spread across 24 weeks. We'll see if it's a good deal. I'll be planting a garden soon too. Hoping to get a 3 sisters plot or two as well as some potatoes in containers