Calling Cheap Ass Bachelors!

Canadian_Man

Canadian_Man

CAGiversary!
I've been living on my own for a couple of months now.

Being on a short leash for money and in attempt to save money, I decided to buy myself canned ravioli so that I would only be spending a little more than 5$ a week on lunch, rather than 10$ every day that I work to eat out.

The sodium content of these cans recently came to my attention and I was looking for healthier alternatives (less junk would be more appropriate) that remain cheap.

A simple solution would be sandwhichs, but I must admit that I absolutely detest them. As of now, I drive a short distance home for lunch, so time is a factor. I'm open to oven top cooking, as long as I can cook and eat within 40 minutes (10 minutes travel both ways).

Anything come to mind to any of you cheap ass bachelors?

:bouncy:
 
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I buy these Sara Lee mini bagels. You get like 30 in a bag for around $6 (like three or four are perfect for lunch). Buy a bag of those and some cream cheese and you're set.
 
Cook a big pot of spaghetti to eat so you can take some each day with you to work that way its cheap and you can eat it at work to save on gas.

I normally make mine with ground turkey cause it has less fat than ground beef. This costs around $10 and can last you all week.

Another meal if you work with ground turkey is turkey burgers if you don't want just a sandwich and they shouldn't take more 10 minutes to cook.
 
Learn to cook eggs.

Keep bananas around to fight off hunger.

You can eat ramen noodles and use like the half packet flavoring (still a lot of salt) or spring for the nongshim hoo roo rook, the noodles aren't fried so it is marginally better.
 
The pasta suggestion is a good one. Any kind of thing like that you can cook in a big batch and take left overs for lunch for a few day.

I'm a sandwich guy myself. My packed lunch is a sandwich (whole wheat bread, whatever low fat lunch meat I have that week, cheese, lettuce, brown mustard) an apple, a banana and a diet soda.

Repetitive, but healthy and cheap and easy to eat at my desk while working or taking a goof online. break. I'm not a cheap ass, but just want something quick and healthy for lunch. But always good to save money. Rather put that food money towards eating a couple nice meals out a week rather than fast food lunches etc.
 
[quote name='Canadian_Man']I've been living on my own for a couple of months now.

Being on a short leash for money and in attempt to save money, I decided to buy myself canned ravioli so that I would only be spending a little more than 5$ a week on lunch, rather than 10$ every day that I work to eat out.

The sodium content of these cans recently came to my attention and I was looking for healthier alternatives (less junk would be more appropriate) that remain cheap.

A simple solution would be sandwhichs, but I must admit that I absolutely detest them. As of now, I drive a short distance home for lunch, so time is a factor. I'm open to oven top cooking, as long as it doesn't take I can cook and eat within 40 minutes (10 minutes travel both ways).

Anything come to mind to any of you cheap ass bachelors?

:bouncy:[/QUOTE]

Make your own food instead of buying premade garbage.

Cook pasta, chicken, or chili, the night before and heat it up when you get home. All of those are good, cheap ideas.

Bean burritos are also good. A can of beans costs about $1, a thing of shells $2-3, a pack of cheddar cheese $3. A little bland (go take some sauce packages from Taco Bell or buy a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce) but it is possible to get a week or more out of it depending on how many you eat and how much you put on them.
 
There are a gajillion things you could cook up and reheat the next day or even cook on the weekend and reheat during the week (that's how we do it most of the time). Mac and Cheese, spaghetti, any kind of pasta really, soup, beans, etc. Most of those are pretty much the same reheated as fresh and you can make a shit-ton at once to save both money and time.

To save money (while being reasonably healthy) you've gotta learn how to cook.
 
Costco is awesome for things like this. A pack of 12 croissants for $6 is great. You can make sandwiches out of them or just enjoy as a breakfast snack. You can also buy a bunch of good stuff from their frozen food section. I bought a pack of 25 grilled chicken burgers that have been my lunch every other day.
 
Fruit salad might be cheap enough, and should last you a business week. Beyond that, the spaghetti suggestion is really great, especially if you happen to like reheated pasta, like me. Just don't buy that Ragu crap, buy something tasty, like Bertolli.

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This thread has greatly surpassed my expectations, thank you all for some excellent ideas that I will likely put into practice.

Expect a follow up post in about two weekends time, once I've grocery shopped and eaten for a week.

PS: How much does a Costco membership go for?
 
My daily lunch:

Turkey sandwich w/ 7grain whole wheat bread, light mayo, and fresh deli cheese
A cup of red grapes
A cup of mixed fruit

It's not exciting but it tastes good and is relatively healthy.
 
[quote name='nddave']Sounds like your funds are your problem get more funds eat whatever you want[/QUOTE]
Although I agree with the logic presented, understand that I do my 40h/week and I'm not stupid with my money by any means.

Financially, I could just eat out and still be fairly comfortable as I am just barely under. I am taking these measures so that I can see the light of day, I don't like spending money I don't have and putting things on credit. I eat well for breakfast and supper, but lunch out everyday for 10$ a piece seemed like the easiest thing to cut out. I am trying to continue to do this and trying to improve my diet as well.
 
[quote name='Maklershed']My daily lunch:

Turkey sandwich w/ 7grain whole wheat bread, light mayo, and fresh deli cheese
A cup of red grapes
A cup of mixed fruit

It's not exciting but it tastes good and is relatively healthy.[/QUOTE]

Also try the above with Boarshead brand salsalito turkey, soo good. The cajun roast beef is also great.

Personally, I am partial to whole grain or soy wraps over any sliced bread -as I am much more concerned about avoiding refined carbohydrates( di-uh-beat-us runs in the fam) than I am sodium. These are usually much lower in calories as well.

Also, consider buying one of those $6 rotisserie chickens (I like lemon pepper and mojo) for dinner. With the left overs you can make chicken salad for lunch the next day and then chicken and rice (again I'd do whole grain) the next night for dinner (that Uncle Ben's ready rice is great for 99cents and it nukes in only 90 seconds). It's a super-cheap way of making one meal stretch into three.

Beans & rice and rice & beans.
 
Get bags of dried beans: Black, Pinto, Red, Kidney, Lentils, etc. They are cheap and easy to rehydrate plus loads of fiber and protein. I recently made some refried beans (mashed pinto beans, green pepper, and onions) and put that with some lettuce and a piece of avocado into a tortilla.

I also boil a package of chicken breast, use two forks to shred the cooked meat, cut up some white onions, green peppers, red peppers, a couple roma tomatoes, and a little bit of green onion. Place all this in a large bowl and mix with a little bit of light mayonnaise. I usually put it on bread for a chicken salad sandwich but it can be used for anything.

Tonight, I cook some roma tomatoes, white onion, a clove of garlic, can of corn, enchilada sauce, and chicken breast together in a pot for some easy chicken enchiladas. Cook some rice and scope the chicken mixture on top for an easy lunch.

Lunch meat typically has a large sum of sodium in it as well.
 
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Crock pot and crock pot cookbook. I'll make something on Monday, eat it for dinner through Wednesday, and still have plenty of leftovers for lunches.

The list of options is endless: pot roast, beef stew, chicken and dumplings, curry, pulled pork, cajun beans, jambalaya, really anything that's primarily liquid, toss in a bit of meat, a bunch of vegetables and you're ready to go. Add a starch like rice or fresh biscuits in the evening, and you've got a well rounded meal.
 
my favorite easy to make/eat things
~egg salad
mash up a dozen boiled eggs and take the yolk out of most of em. put some relish, mayo (lite), salt and pepper. mix em and get some bread. theres a sandwich. get fancy and put some diced up red onion and celery (this is key for me).
~tuna
same thing as egg salad. drain the tuna juice from the cans and mix em up with diced onions, celery, etc. get bread and eat it.
~chicken wrap
my method for this is very easy since there is no cooking and the same ingredients are being used. first, go get a whole rotisserie chicken from costco ($6) or wherever. now manhandle this and rip apart the legs and wings to eat for later on its own. with the breast, just rip it apart into bite sized pieces. zip lock or tupper ware this meat. so using celery, onion, lettuce, tomatoes and the breast put it all on a whole wheat wrap (costco has 20+wraps for $4) and roll up. must use italian dressing or thousand island. I suppose others will work fine. thats it.

all these ingredients are interchangeable so it makes for easy cooking and it really is tasty. Make a good amount and you will be forced to eat it throughout the week. its quite healthy as well. I like to prepare all those ingredients and put em in tupper ware so I can take them out whenever and they are still fresh. save time and money and you still eat fresh.
 
[quote name='Canadian_Man']This thread has greatly surpassed my expectations, thank you all for some excellent ideas that I will likely put into practice.

Expect a follow up post in about two weekends time, once I've grocery shopped and eaten for a week.

PS: How much does a Costco membership go for?[/QUOTE]

Costco membership is like 50 bucks a year.

You can A) Take advantage of the soda/(giant)hotdog combo for $1.25 and change and/or B) Do laps around the daily free sample people. Should make back the cost of membership in a few months just from that.

To make costco worth it for a bachelor however you would probably need to invest in a vacuum food sealer.

Also look into getting a slow cooker and/or a ronco rotisserie grill, both are easy to use and clean and let you make food without constantly watching over it. And practically anything you make in either is good for several leftovers (pulled pork and chili in the slow cooker and chicken salad etc. in ronco).

As mentioned before learn to cook things like lentils and eggs, I make my own granola and it is dynamite.

Last but not least give up soda in favor of tap water or seltzer
I buy Ito En Green tea from costco or Lady grey and keep jugs of cold brew tea handy
and start shopping at closeout shops (like Big Lots) for toiletries such as shampoo.
 
Yeah, the problem with Costco is so much of the food is in quantities just to large for anything other than a family of 4.

Somethings can be frozen etc., but it's pretty useless for produce etc. as most of it is just way to much for 1 or 2 people households.
 
Switching off what foods to eat I've found I can save a lot of money doing the following....

1. Print off coupons from online sites like coupons.com. Grocery stores will often double their value. Also try looking through the weekly mailers that go out. I get one every tuesday that includes coupons from all the local grocery stores.

2. Turn your ac up 2-3 degrees during the day while you're at work. At least for me, it saves about $10 a month. YMMV of course.

3. Since you're on this site, you likely having a gaming habit to feed. Try sites like Half.com. I've found their "like new" games are basically brand new minus the celophane and I've managed to pick up games like Heavy Rain for less than $30.

4. If you have a home phone, dump it. I did that a few years ago and haven't thought about it twice. Cell phone = no home phone.

5. If you can work from home, even if it's once a week that saves a lot on gas.

6. Buy store brands instead of name brands when you can. Store brands are often cheaper and use the same ingredients. Food can be tricky since not all store brands are up to the same level but stuff like over the counter medicines, you're wasting $ by buying a name brand.

And my personal fav...you can rent a boatload of movies for free if you know where to look. For example if you search facebook for Redbox or blockbuster express, you'll often find lots of free codes posted. I almost never pay for a movie from either service.

Hope those help. Costco, like someone else said, is a giant bag of win. The membership cost is daunting up front but man you save a lot shopping there. I get all the stuff I use for lunches there and save a fortune each year.
 
You can't beat turkey, on whole wheat, with a slice of tomato, and pepper jack cheese... Mmmm... I think I'm going to subway.
 
[quote name='Canadian_Man']This thread has greatly surpassed my expectations, thank you all for some excellent ideas that I will likely put into practice.

Expect a follow up post in about two weekends time, once I've grocery shopped and eaten for a week.

PS: How much does a Costco membership go for?[/QUOTE]



$50 bucks. But 1 account can have 2 members. So get a friend and split it 50 50. Comes out to $25 for the year or a little over 2 bucks a month.
 
[quote name='Quillion']Crock pot and crock pot cookbook. I'll make something on Monday, eat it for dinner through Wednesday, and still have plenty of leftovers for lunches.
l.[/QUOTE]

Seriously.

You can buy a whole chicken for around 5 bucks (more for organic or natural but not much more). Spice it up, stick in a crock pot for a 6-8 hours and you have food for several days.

I wouldn't recommend Costco for a single guy if are are only buying food unless you can split it with someone. You can find deals in smaller portions if you check around. However if you are buying any electronics or traveling, Costco has great deals.

finally, I found this blog to be really interesting. Guy lived on $1 a day. Pretty extreme but some good ideas throughout.

http://www.grocerycouponguide.com/articles/eating-well-on-1-a-day/
 
Eat leftovers from dinner. I eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, leftovers for lunch, and cook a decent meal for dinner. Wash, rinse, repeat. Go out once or twice a month for lunch, just to treat yourself.

Also, be glad you get an hour for lunch. I only get 30 minutes.
 
Costco would be great if you buy from their frozen or ready made section. A true cheap ass knows how to get by the membership fee ;)
 
It requires knowing someone with a membership. Have that person purchase a costco cash card for you. Once you have the cash card (which is a gift card) you can go to costco to use it without having a membership. If the amount on the cash card is less than what you are spending you can simply pay the balance with cash or debit. The downside is that only the member can reload it for you. I used to do it this way for a while until a rep came by and I went in with three co workers on membership.

Also, out here reps go to local businesses and offer a four for the price of one membership. It wouldn't be a bad idea to contact your local costco to see if they offer that.
 
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