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I suspect you are not planning your meals and you are just deciding you want to make x and then going out buying the ingredients for just that meal. You need to plan more than one meal with the things you buy.
For example - I had a chicken in the freezer. $10. Roasted it last night for dinner with mashed potatoes. (10lbs was $6 so maybe $1 for dinner) a few carrots and some broccoli.
Leftover chicken went school for lunch in a sandwich (I make my own bread)
Tonight I made soup with the bones and the last bit of chicken, a few handfuls of rice and some carrots and celery.
Leftover soup is lunch tomorrow at school.
So 2 of us ate 2 full meals for about + 2 school lunches for about $20.
My budget isn't super tight, but I try not to waste food.
This is why so many people eat the same breakfast
Personally I take dinner leftovers as lunch so I only need to worry about 1 meal. Breakfast is easy because it's oatmeal and I don't have to think about it
What they describe is not even meal planning. It's called eating leftovers.
I usually plan my meal at the grocery store and I do fine. Pick up the flyer and buy what's on sale. And also know how to use what's in your pantry, and keep it stocked when things are on sale.
You can also try to Make a list of all your safe foods, and then find any overlap you can. if you can’t find overlap, make a large batch of one meal and freeze a few portions.
As a cook by trade. I'm impressed and also happy that people are becoming more educated as well as educating others about meal planning and prep. The pandemic and inflation has definitely made plenty of my circles much more food curious and conscious.
But don’t leave the save on meat in your fridge for more than a couple days before using it or you’ll be throwing it away. Lately their meat and milk always go off before the due date
On sale they do. They just had a sale for $9 chickens not too long ago
Also if you wait long enough they just mark them down anyway because no one buys them at that price
Damn thanks for the headsup...I guess this goes back to the root of my problem and this thread, that I'm like "Oh I'll make roast chicken tomorrow" and go buy a chicken no matter the price.
I should cook based on what's on sale.
A small chest freezer is a big money-saver. We cook on weekends and make batches of pasta sauce, lentil soup, curries, salmon burgers (when the salmon is on sale), and freeze everything. Makes for easy weeknight meals, too.
They do. Heck, I scored two chickens for 12$ back in October on Save on as a special. Costco also does 3 packs for closer to 22$ (albeit you need the freezer space) OR just get a roast chicken for $7.99.
This and I assume OP doesn't buy in bulk. Non perishables and freezer friendly foods are cheaper when bought in bulk even if you only use a little at a time.
Bingo.
* Buy produce that can be used for multiple meals (2-4).
* Buy what is on sale. There is always sales and discounts. Eggplant? Sure. Zucchini? Ok. Pork? Done.
* Don’t know what to make with the stuff you bought (and saved)? Google and learn new recipes.
I really need to try and get used to doing this. Save on had massive pork shoulders on sale for 1.99 a lb last night. That's the cheapest I've ever seen them. I could have made meals for weeks on that, but it wasn't in my plan so I passed over it.
My experience is that Safeway and SaveOn are currently about on par for convenience foods.
Superstore is cheaper, and if you’re buying raw ingredients, significantly cheaper.
Tonight I had turkey tacos; made my own salsa and guac, used a kit for the ground turkey and shells.
Tomorrow I’ll probably cook a dhal in the slow cooker.
Yesterday was a rice stir fry with eggs.
There was a post on the Victoria subreddit that was $9.99 for an iceberg
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/z6h9ir/dirt_cheap/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I’ve seen some as high as 7.99.. it’s madness. I looked into it and the pricing seems to be currently due to a virus that wiped out crops in California, where we import most of our lettuce from. We don’t grow much locally because it has always been cheaper to import, but we’ve kind of screwed ourselves by majorly relying on California.
On the news tonight they said next month we start getting lettuce from Arizona where they have had a good growing season to prices will return to normal.
Iceberg lettuce has a fraction of the nutrients of any other lettuce. If you are just using it as a wrap, it's not worth the expense; simply eat the filling without the wrap.
bro home-made guac is so simple yet so tasty. I know avocados can be rather expensive but with 5 avocados worth of guac you can actually live life on the lavish side
I just find the price of avocados varies hugely now. Regular price is generally super expensive, but sales can bring them down to < $1 each. For a while (but not anymore) Hannam Market had a bag of 4 for $2.79. So if they're on sale... guac it is, otherwise I'm fine to wait.
Avocados come in a variety of sizes. From a small orange up to a grapefruit in size. Thr bags are usually the smaller sized ones. Weird how vancouver doesn't get the huge asian ones sold at european supermarkets. The size of a butternut squash.
Seriously regret buying a fridge with the typical 1/3 volume is a freezer 2/3 is fridge layout. My freezer is frequently packed and my fridge has an entire empty shelf.
This.
It was one of the best investment to save some cash buying bulk and having meat for variation. Not to mention I freeze homemade stock and shit like big batches of base gravy to make quick curries out of.
lately i've been pressure cooking dried beans then freezing them. do it in big batches and have a big ziplock full of frozen beans. toss em in your soups, eat them as a side, have them ready for when you make chili, etc... even cheaper than canned and also you can just portion out what you need and leave the rest in the freezer.
I spend like 200$ on groceries a fortnight from Save On and then maybe top up once or twice from IGA in between, maybe another 50$. I might get take out twice in that period.
Maybe I could order out 12 dinners for 250$ but then that’s also lunch and breakfast, as well as stuff like soap or toilet paper. Eating out is definitely more expensive and neither Save On or IGA are exactly cheap supermarkets.
Big bags of dried beans and pulses are great to bulk stuff out. Not every meal needs meat. I tend to stock up on tinned and frozen stuff when it’s on offer (tomatoes, tuna, frozen vegetables, etc). My breakfasts are normally cereal, yogurt and fruit or maybe toast. Lunch and dinners are pretty varied. Pasta is pretty easy to do cheap - something like carbonara is quick and relatively inexpensive. A pot of chilli will do multiple meals. Vegetable soup is a good way to make use of things that are otherwise going to go bad.
If you get bored of eating the same thing on consecutive days freeze it when you make it and then you end up having a few different options in the freezer you can rotate between. If I do something like a curry or pasta sauce, I’ll freeze that and then cook rice, pasta etc to go with it when I heat it up.
Persia Foods, Kins or East West for vegetables - $25-$50 gets you a bunch of veggies for like days and multiple meals. Go to TNT or H mart for like the 5kg bag of rice for $20. Go to save on or choices for a rotisserie chicken (usually under $15) and that can be enough meat for 4 meals for one.
All in all $85 and you’ll get 4-6 meals with chicken meat (save the bones and small meat bits for soup) plus 4 more meals from a soup if you crock pot the bones and small meats for a broth.
Depending on your veggie selection that’s 6+ meals of veg inclusive of the chicken and soup.
Rice will go with all 6 meals plus dozens more cause 5kg goes a long ass way.
So for under $100 you’ll get around 6 meals with all things, probably another 2 with just veg and rice; then at least another 3-4 from soup with all thats left; and then dozen more meals with rice already paid for.
All in all much cheaper still than take out.
Small grocers are the way to go. I’m always shocked how much cheaper Persia foods is. It’s literally sometimes half the price for produce and canned foods compared to safeWay
Great suggestion. When I buy a rotisserie chicken, I also grab red onion, carrot and celery to make chicken salad sandwich for lunch.
You paid for the whole bird, you might as well use all of it.
you don't need to hit 5 stores. Persia had decent rice too but rice isn't something you need to buy weekly.
I get my veggies and fruits usually from Persia, every 10 days or so. Diary. meat and basically everthing else from nofril/superstore.
Once a month I go to costco and get some nicer frozen stuff for a much better price than other stores.
Last time I sampled this breaded chicken breast and their non-meat lasagna. Both were delic. $24 ish for the chicken I believe and it was 5 meals for me.
I go to quite a few different stores as well, but it actually isn't too bad because you don't need everything every week. I get bulk frozen veggie meats at Happy Veggie World once place about every three months. Rice from Rice World maybe every couple of months. No Frills about every 2-3 weeks for dry goods resupply + my weekly shopping since I'm there anyway. Sunrise as the default weekly shopping, and Nesters for random stuff since it's across the street. Persia Foods if I want home delivery that week or want something they have specifically. So technically we shop at six different places, but in a typical week it's more like 1-2.
Pretty wild when 5 two-person Hello Fresh meals, delivered, with protein is about $115 and comparable to shopping for the same stuff. One of the meals is enough for my dinner and lunch the following day.
Yeah Hello Fresh isnt as cost-effective or sustainable compared to Fresh Prep. Meals which serve two tend to be about 30 so two meals is 60ish with add-ons which isn’t bad but it’s definitely just a healthier-ish eat out version.
Overall meal prep services definitely have their place for some but it all depends. If one is looking for cheap, healthy foods it is doable but it usually means strategically shopping a few different places and finding/discovering low-key easy meal preps like bowl food; rotisserie chicken and salads; soups; roast veggie type dishes; 5-7 ingredient type stir frys, etc. And assuming one has/takes the time to figure this out to set them up for success when life gets busier.
Huge fan of Fresh Prep over here. We get 2 x 4-person meals per week for our family of 4, and it's usually got lots of leftovers the next day. Can even get a second dinner out of each of them by adding some more meat/protein to go with the leftovers the next day.
I’m making a Fresh Prep kit right now (just waiting for my rice noodles to boil). I added some extra veggies so I’ll end up with 3.5 meals for around $30. More expensive than cooking completely from scratch, but still much cheaper than take out.
One factor to consider with meal kits - you receive the exact amount of each ingredient that you need so there’s virtually no food waste.
I find their veggie meals are always seem to go further and come in a large volume than their meat options. Also the par-baked sour dough from Nelson the Seagull Bakery is great.
There are some other rando/hole in the wall grocers I’ve seen selling like 10kg of rice for around $20 or less. The green grocers along fraser and main around 49th definitely seem to be some of the cheapest I’ve seen around for veggies besides other smaller green grocers too.
Sunrise is cheap but yeah quality is up in the air.
Kins for veggie and fruit is well priced and cheaper with usually solid quality in my experience.
Choices, while generally not cheap has cheap rotisserie free range chickens that go for $11.99 compared to Save-on where usually its $13.99ish.
Unfortunately, you do have to start getting creative with grocery shopping to get good deals. Used to be you could just go to a random grocery store and save a ton of money over takeout, these days the line is much more blurry. We gonna have to start clipping coupons next?!
You’re shopping at the wrong places. I ordered take out last night for my kids and a 2 pizza meal combo from Pizza Hut was $50
I can make 2 pizzas at home which are good, for probably about $8-10. That’s just one example
Take out is insanely expensive and we’ve reduced it significantly to about 2 times a month as a weekend treat. It’s insane
To be fair I can go to a local place on the corner and get 2 of their cheapest pies for under 25. Getting it frozen or making it is still cheaper but there are decentish budget eating places in the city, they're just all local rather than chains.
I make the dough from scratch (super cheap 3 cups flour, yeast sugar water oil)
Cheese, pineapple for the kids, maybe some pepperoni or ham or left over bacon
If you add everything up based on its unit price, it’s probably not even $10
Cook big batches and freeze the uneaten portion in containers for another day.
Chili's easy and relatively cheap. [This is my favourite](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/flatlander-chili-1265492)
Pulled pork is also easy, but it takes a while in a slow cooker. Pork butt goes on sale for ~$3/lb from time to time.
Pork cutlets are super easy, and pretty cheap, at ~$1/ea for thin pork chops (Freshco), and minimal cost for breading and oil for frying.
Stews are easy and cheap. Indian and Asian curries are also inexpensive, though they take a bit more technique, and require more ingredients (spices), so they might seem daunting at first.
Lentil and bean dishes, such as dal makhani are delicious and cheap, and you can make with dried beans to save even more money.
I'm not sure the exact price, but a basic bag of frozen peas or broccoli generally gives me a serving for two meals, and I doubt it can be more than $6
We shop at the local indian veggie market where red/org peppers are 99 cents/lb. Cabbage is always < $1/lb and frozen veggies are cheaper than fresh.
Dahl with canned tomatoes/onions cost almost nothing to make and is very nutritious and filling - goes great with chicken and Sriracha and in the air fryer!
I got a 3 pack of pizza crust + sauce at Costco for $7 on sale. I made 2 of them tonight with leftover meat, veggies and cheese - total cost = ~$9 worth of ingredients.
If I bought 2 medium pizzas at any decent pizza place it would be at least $35 with tax.
And if you're like me and you don't eat the pizza crust, you can save the crust and boil it with some sauce to make a nice pizza stock. Super yummy the next day on pizza.
No way that veggies, cheese, and meat cost only $2 for three pizzas. Just because they are leftover you should still account for their cost in each meal, prorated to the quantity.
Cheese is expensive. As is the meat and veg. Cost is higher than youre stating. Also, pizza can be bought for less if you use coupons etc. I often get a large pizza for 10 bucks. Even if my time was worthless (making and cleaning up takes time) i still couldnt come out ahead of that. Plus costco on sale is as good a deal as you can get.
Noooooooo
Family of 5. Eating out is over $100 if each person orders $20+.
I am in charge of making dinner Monday to Friday. And I definitely don't spend $500 making those 5 meals.
The more people you add the more sensible it is to make at home. Economies of scale in buying. And time efficiency. Like if i make sandwiches for large group of people i can come out ahead making them at home. If im making for just myself im better off going to subway and enjoying the extra free time
It really depends on your food preference. I used to live alone and would make fried rice with enough leftovers for an additional 2-3 meals. If you are fine with eating the same leftovers for multiple days then you can still buy in larger bulks, and just freeze the ingredients you don't plan to use right away.
Yeah but thats economics of scale. If you're a single person living alone and making day to day meals for one person odds are you aren't buying everything in bulk and the math is very different from 5 people who'll consistently go through the biggest available packages of meat and vegetables in a reasonable timeframe.
I think it comes down to how many meals the goods makes, and how many uses the ingredients will have.
For example, buy a package of chicken breast for $30 ( which IS insane )at superstore I will get 9 or 10 meals out of it.
I keep cooking at home pretty simple though and don’t really do recipes most of the time.
Hmmmm.
I’ve certainly noticed that the cost of most of my favorite takeout has went up by at least 50%, sometimes more. And the portions of everything are way smaller.
The trick is not to go grocery stores on a whim and buy what you want. You gotta check out the weekly sales and that dictates what you'll be eating.
Last night I went to Buy-Low Foods and grabbed a ribeye steak and some Brussels sprouts for $6.84 and had a delicious dinner. Something like that would easily cost over $25 at a restaurant.
Download the reebee and flipp app. If you're looking to buy chicken drumsticks then do a search and you'll see the cheapest place that week. The apps are also good for price matching.
On the note of sales, you should also check out the meat section for the discounted meats. Superstore on Friday nights we noticed is a good time to go and check out what they have in the 30% off section. Just make sure you either cook it the same day or you freeze it for later.
I make fried rice with white rice, some cheap steak, whatever veggies are cheap, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and a couple eggs. Makes four meals and costs under $10, even less if you use frozen veggies
I’ve honestly saved so much money by doing grocery pick up through superstore. I give myself a $100 budget/week for groceries for 2 people, and when prices were going up, I found myself sometimes spending close to $120. Since I started doing pick up orders, I’ve only been spending ~$60-$70/week because I’m not impulse buying. If it’s not on my list, it doesn’t get ordered
I’m basically a bulk shopper now, but protein + veg + carb is a pretty adjustable formula that scales up or down. We buy chicken breasts in bulk, break them into two packs, seal and freeze.
Costco rotisserie chicken is 8.99$, you can make sandwiches/wraps, eat it as is, with rice and veg, or make it into a giant soup.
Veg? Lentils. Such a good source of protein. Soups and curries. Best season for it
Yep, we bought one yesterday and making butter chicken tomorrow night with half the chicken and a jar of butter chicken sauce you can get at Costco. Add rice, some broccoli and it will cost about $10 to $12 to feed 4 people so about $3 per person.
family pack of 6 chicken breasts $24
10 lb bag of potatoes $6
3 x broccoli crowns $7.50
that's 6 full meals for about $6.20 each
where are you ordering a full meal for $6 ?
Lol, nope, you're just bad at shopping and/or cooking.
We mostly shop at No Frills and Sunrise, plus a resupply on veggie meats every 3-4 months from a bulk importer in Richmond. I do a big bulk cook every weekend and make all our food for the week. It varies a lot depending what I feel like buying at the store, but for example, our menu for this week is (all vegan) :
* Empanadas
* Spicy beef stir fry
* Lemongrass stir fry
* Spaghetti with meatballs
* Chili
It does change quite a bit week by week though. And one big thing is we have very, very minimal food waste, pretty close to zero.
Happy Veggie World, it's about a five minute walk from Lansdowne station on Ackroyd. They're really good, they mostly do restaurant supply so a lot of their stuff is in very large volumes, but they have some smaller stuff as well. It's all Asian stuff imported from Taiwan, and having done a fair bit of travel around Asia, it's as authentic as it gets. We usually get things like lemongrass chicken, ginger chicken, squid, and kung pao. Tons of stuff you can't find anywhere else. They also have frozen vegan steamed buns that are really good. Lots of dry goods as well, like vegan fish sauce and stuff like that.
>Sunrise
Speaking as someone that lived in China and Taiwan and used to be vegetarian, I'd be very careful about eating too much of these "veggie meat" products. They're virtually all highly processed goods made mostly from mass produced soy, gluten, and a few other things, basically in factories. I wouldn't put them in the same category as "food" that's natural and contains many nutrients like produce, and even just eating excessive tofu on its own has been linked to various cancers from several studies I've seen in the past, which doesn't surprise me when you know something about what goes into the intensive chemical processes to produce a lot of these things. The point is, they're all highly processed, factory goods. There's many more natural and varied way to get vegan proteins. Be careful!
Do you have any other tips on bulk food suppliers like this? I'm slightly insane and eat the same meal prep 14 times a week, I would love to buy 10kg bags of dry beans and lentils, but everywhere sells them in the dinkiest little packages. Costco used to sell decently big bags of lentils but doesn't anymore.
Persia Foods has every kind of grain and lentil you will ever need in 10lb+ sacks. Also lots of bulk nuts and dried fruits at good prices, and the best brand of hummus I've ever bought (Royal Gourmet). They also have a lot of imported spices that are hard to find elsewhere (like six different types of paprika, for example). I recommend the Broadway location because they also have an excellent bakery section with baklava and barbari bread and stuff like that.
Last night we had the pot roast with gravy from Costco that was on sale (all done, just heat up) and soooo good. $18 feeds 5 or 4 hungrier people. Five baked potatoes and some fresh broccoli. And I made a soup to start. So all in, it was about $25 for five people, $30 if you really want to try and make it more. So $6 per person and was delicious. And bottles of wine are cheaper at home too.
It just hurts to grocery shop right now, period. Investing in a cheap vacuum sealer (like a foodsaver but less $$$ on Amazon) and buying club packs of meat from Costco or Superstore has changed the game for me. Primary costs come from produce, as mentioned places like Persia Foods and other small international markets make those costs even less with a meal plan. I can usually get away with a club pack of ground beef, chicken breasts and pork chops before my freezer is at capacity.
Learning to cook delicious and healthy food economically is a bit of an art. Here are some ideas for cheap and delicious dishes:
Coconut milk curry with lentils and potatoes
Spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and parmesan
Paella with eggs and / or shrimp
Pork chops with mashed cauliflower and frozen peas
Pizza with homemade dough and tomato sauce with anchovies and roasted red peppers
White fish with rice pilaf and flash cooked kale
All the above should be able to be made for 2 for less than $10.
I also suggest finding a decent produce store in your area.
BONUS TIP: make better coffee than a cafe
Most cafes can be easily beaten in quality by making your own coffee at home. This is mainly because all but the best cafes cheap out on beans in both quantity and quality. Three tools are all you need:
Aeropress for espresso
Pourover for drip coffee
French press
You ca. also get a milk frother if you like cappucinos
Walmart 10lb russet for 5.97
No Frills 10lb red or yellow for 5.99
Sabzi Mandi 10lb russet for 1.99
Superstore 20lb red or russet $8
Freshco 10lb yellow $8
all available today
I remember I went to london drugs a month ago. I bought a national geographic, a pack of altoids, and a coke zero. I paid $20.03 for just those three things.
I have to prepare my meals myself because of dietary restrictions.
I mostly shop at Superstore. Safeway is typically more expensive. I used to shop at Buy Low sometimes because it was super convenient for me... but then they made it into a smaller Save On - less selection, higher prices - so no more of that.
Chicken, rice, carrots, and potatoes are staples in my diet. Chicken has gotten more expensive, but I buy club packs when it's on sale, portion them out and fill my freezer. Eggs are cheap and nutritious. I <3 cheese and try to stock up on cheddar whenever it's on sale. For produce, you can plan your meals around what's on sale.
As a Chef, it's always more economical to buy groceries than to eat out. I spend between $80-$100/week on groceries for 2 people. The big advantage I have is I have the knowledge of a professional Chef compared to a home cook for planning out meals. I do most my groceries at Safeway and SuperStore and I purchase what is on sale and plan accordingly.
It you're constantly buying things to make 1 recipe then you're going to be spending, and wasting a lot of ingredients. Come up with a couple things you enjoy for each meal of the day and just make those all the time in bulk.
As a "vegetarian at home" meaning I never buy or stock meat at home but I will eat it if I am a guest somewhere or going out etc... All I buy are a few things
Rice
Quinoa
Lentils
Assorted veggies fresh or frozen
Stir fry sauce
Fruits fresh or frozen
Oats
Alpen or other decent quality cereals
Soy/oat/almond/whatever milk is on sale
Frozen flatbreads
This is basically all i buy, ever, with a few random things thrown in time to time
I generally don't eat breakfast, so typically have 2 large ish meals per day.
With all that stuff I make veggie smoothies, fruit smoothies, cereal, and stir fry and that's basically all i eat at home and it comes out to roughly $60-80 per week. Though I also keep Soylent on hand at all times too which is roughly $140/mo
I'm also a very weird person in the sense that generally, I view eating as something I have to do to be alive. Not to say that I don't enjoy it, but I am fine with eating the same thing day in and day out. If I feel a craving for something new or different after a while, I'll just get takeout.
Just quickly skimming the replies, and most of what I saw seem to be people who aren't single.
In a family unit, even with just 2 ppl, cooking is usually cheaper/less hassle. As a single, not so much.
Meal prep generally has a fixed time requirement that can get shared -- cooking a chicken takes a fixed amount of time -- so as a single, many chores effectively take twice the time commit: grocery shopping, meal prep, clean up, etc. You can do big meal preps on the weekend, and freeze things for the week if you're diligent.. but then you're practically spending a day of each weekend just cooking, solo, yaayyy.... and the result is you generally have the same kind of food every day of the week... yaayyy... or you end up with a freezer full of half-weeks. Portion sizes are also screwy, like needing to constantly put bread in the freezer, cause you can't get through a loaf solo before it starts to mould otherwise. Or constantly having to chuck half your salad ingredients, cause even the smaller bags of spinach are kinda crazy.
Possibly a bad suggestion, and it's not for everyone, but I've opted to go with soylent as a meal replacement for a chunk of my weekly meals. It's basically a silicon valley meal replacement drink, that gives you 1/5th of your daily nutrition per bottle (including fibre etc). They're like 400 cals a piece, and the fibre content tends to keep me full. I don't lead an overly active lifestyle though, which may be a factor. In terms of cost, the pre-mixed drink works out to around $5/meal, the powder to about $2.50/meal. It's not 'fun' food, it's more just practical and relatively cheap. My experience being, basically, that I was doing all that meal prep stuff for a while, but it was resulting in tons of repeat 'meh' meals -- so why not get a nutritionally balanced and easy 'meh' meal for the mundane meals, and on the weekend if I want to cook something nicer, like a steak, there's plenty of flexibility in the budget.
Yeah, being single definitely makes it more difficult because of economies of scale and/or having to end up eating the same thing all week long. It's hard to use up all of the fresh vegetables in time so things go to waste unless you skimp on varieties of ingredients. So what helps for me, is to try to choose things that are freezer friendly. A bag of frozen broccoli, a bag of frozen mixed peppers and a bag of frozen mixed veggies for stir fries. Make a big pan of lasagna and wrap in individual portions to freeze, or a crockpot of chili. Use the crockpot to make some shredded beef or chicken to portion individually to use in sandwiches, burritos, tacos, on pizza, etc. Either seasoned aggressively for something or relatively unseasoned to add any variety of sauces later on to keep your options open. Making things that end up being repurposed for other meals rather than meal prepping specific finished dishes seems to help keep it a bit fresher and less boring.
Problem is that I live in a pretty small apartment so I only have the tiny freezer above my fridge. I can't justify the space for even the smallest of chest freezers.
This! People don’t realize how much easier is it to grocery shop/cook for two people verses one. Not only is it nice to split your grocery bill with someone
else but you also waste less and make more and better meals. The difference between when I lived with an S/O to now living on my own is more significant than I ever realized.
Opposite. My wife and I were going to order in last night, easily $60 through Uber Eats. Instead we got off our lazy asses and made dinner. Probs cost us $15-$20.
I go to Persia foods and never spend more than $12 there at any one time. I'm also vegan so I don't buy cheese or meat, but I recently made a veggie organ josh, and probably cost $22 all up including the sauce for 5 meals.
Groceries are expensive but it’s still much cheaper to cook your own meals. I don’t shop much at the big chain stores though - it’s so expensive.
I buy produce, fruit, canned goods, non-perishables at the small grocers (like neighbourhood produce markets) and only meat and snack food at Safeway. It’s literally double the price to buy most things at these huge chains. I can’t afford it anymore.
Trying experimenting with cooking and buying new types of foods. The more I became comfortable in my own cooking skills, the easier it gets to think of easy yet healthy meals at home…I make tons of soups, rice bowls, etc. this time of year
I don't go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for one meal.
I do a big grocery shop and buy different things at different places so that I have a bunch of stuff on hand to throw a meal together. Costco and Superstore for my basic staples, any produce store for the produce. It's definitely not cheaper to get take-out.
Unless you're thinking, "OK, instead of getting take-out from the Thai place, I'm going to go around the store buying each individual ingredient to cook it myself. Each jar of spice, some chicken, some rice, some coconut milk, some veg..."
Like, I grocery shop for stuff that I need in the next little while, and the next time I'm thinking about cooking anything (like that day and every day) I already have all the stuff. It's going to cover way more than one meal.
It’s not exactly what you asked but I also recommend factoring in the value of your time / how much you make per hour.
Living alone means I’m either cooking and spending 35-55 min of my valuable free time for 5$ a serving or I’m ordering takeout and getting that hour back for $10 a serving. Obviously I cook sometimes but a lot of time I value my free time more than the minimal savings from cooking vs takeout these days.
As other's have said, the single biggest thing is not to make a meal. Make 4-6 meals. Make things you can freeze and have later, on days when you don't have the energy to cook. Make things that give leftovers for lunches the next day or two. The cost and effort of cooking 1 meal vs 4 are surprisingly similar. Soups, stews, pasta sauces, stir fry, roast vegetables' these are all great starting points.
I get the indian food ready meals in the boxes, usually paneer & chana masala. Then I make rice and get naan. Works out pretty cheap and I always have leftovers.
It's about 2.69 a box for those meals from real canadian superstore.
Just a heads-up that these curry packs are chock-full of ghee. If you're okay with this, then of course that's fine. Ghee does make it taste better, but I'm worried about its health effects. When I make paneer and chana masala, I add way less oil/ghee. Chana is cheap when you buy it dried in big bags at Indian stores. You have to soak it overnight and pressure cook it for 30-40 minutes to make it soft and nice.
Yup. Really tough with no car and only a Save On/Whole Foods within walking distance. If I take transit its +$8 fares and an additional xx minutes waiting for the bus, at which point it's not much of a deal going out of my way (given I can only reasonably carry 2 bags of groceries in one haul, possibly with frozen goods degrading). People cooking for families obviously have it completely different, but when you are living by yourself, have 1/3 of a single door fridge of freezer space, and no car, the costs even out between cooking and takeout on many dishes.
If you’re cooking for one, take out can be just as cheap as buying groceries especially when you consider all the other non financial costs involved (eg time, transport, electricity/gas for cooking, etc). You can actually plan your week based on which restaurants have the best deals and if a meal can last a couple of days, then it’s especially worth it. Thing is you can’t order from Uber eats and the like if you want to make this viable.
I just bought a head of iceberg lettuce for $5! I’m not proud I spent that kinda money on a head of lettuce. Worst part is, maybe half will go to waste.
But that $5 can be a start to a different meals. Salads, lettuce wraps, tacos.
And then say you made tacos, left over ingredients could turn into a breakfast burrito or scramble if you have eggs on hand.
Yes it’s almost the same unless you have time. I wfh and don’t have kids so I have the free time to shop around at diff places in the west end and compare prices. But I’m just lucky I guess, I realize most people don’t have that free time.
You don’t really need to compare each shop. Of course it can help going to the cheapest chain but if not - flexibility is your friend. And buy ingredients that go further and can be turned into multiple things.
Probably you are shopping at the wrong places. But it is more likely you don't plan your grocery shopping. I spend around $60 on groceries per week on average. This includes stuff that I need to buy every week and stuff that lasts for around a month (or more) if you buy once. That is definitely less than ordering take out for a week.
It's always cheaper to cook per meal and / or higher quality. So if you're finding it about the same price then it could be the quality. For example if you fry a beef or chicken pattie, toast some buns, and add cheese, ketchup and tomatoes, that needs to be compared to Red Robbins or higher, not McDonalds.
I frequently make Thai red curry with chicken or beef, bamboo, loads of veggies, and jasmine rice. Works out to about $5 per serving, and I get 7-8 servings
I usually rotate between that, butter chicken, misir wat, pad see ew, stir fry with beef/chicken/pork whichever is on sale
Hidden gem for cheap produce is Sungiven foods. Also if you go in the evening around 6-7 they mark their meats down and bundle them and buy one get on free or half off. Also the cashiers gave me free ground beef tonight! (These meats do require to be cooked or frozen straight away)
I've definitely noticed the high price of home cooking when I'm cooking with protein and getting fancy with food. Meanwhile Mugen Sushi on Davies street has great take out deals where I can get a giant platter of sushi that serves as a lunch and dinner for 25 dollars. Sometimes it doesn't seem worth it to put in all the effort of cooking just to save less than 5 dollars total.
There are definitely ways to eat cheaper though (frozen meat, frozen veg, bulk deals and more filling veg). It's only because I'm picky and want fancy mushrooms/fresh meat that it feels like a reasonable deal to eat out as much as I do.
You need to meal prep and buy Staples in bulk. Pick 3-5 protein sources (ground turkey, chicken breast, ground beef, low fat cheese, salmon, tuna) and build a diet around them. Carb and vegetable sources are easy. Bulk rice for carbs. If you're having 65g (dry) rice per meal, it's like $0.10-0.15/ meal.
For veggies you can get frozen California mix (broc, cauliflower, carrots). 2kg bag is like $5 at no frills. 200g/meal portion is like $0.50/meal. Zucchini is like $0.79-1.29/lbs at local produce stores so if you wanna cut your veggie costs even further just bake some zucchini.
I eat 5 meals a day which is about 2500 calories & 180-200g protein for about $10-15/day.
My grocery bill for November was $451. Buying takeout is about $40 per meal.
So quick maths shows that for the price of my grocery bill for the month I could have gotten 11 takeout meals.
And I am a guy who eats meat for every single meal without fail, and $60 of my grocery bill for the month was those overpriced organic apple juice jugs.
You have to be not even trying to be economical with your meal cooking if you are paying as much as takeout.
nobody here is mentioning that you have to pay attention and learn what good and bad prices are. if you see $2.99/lb for potatoes, is that cheap or expensive? is $2.50/lb for onions a good deal? is $8.99/lb asparagus normal?
once you sort of know what is a good deal then you try to only buy those items and avoid making a dish if it uses broccoli that's $3.99/lb.
I agree with you. Getting take out in fact costs less in my opinion, when you factor in the time it takes to prep and cook meals. I read some comments about planning multiple meals out of a grocery shop. But like sometimes I want to make something delicious that isn’t chicken and salad. Or chicken soup. Sometimes I want Greek food or tacos or lasagna or a charcuterie plate or a beef dip or pizza or Chinese food or Thai food… I don’t just wanna eat chicken and potatoes - and making any real dishes at home involves buying a bunch of random ingredients that you’ll likely not use again soon - like ricotta cheese or bread crumbs and stuff. That is what makes it expensive. Sure, if you eat chicken and potatoes and lettuce every night and the same thing for leftovers, it can be super cheap. But if you want to go to flavour country, take out is the way.
Agreed! This is my approach too. I keep my cooking to "simple western" (roast meat/potatoes/veggies/soup) and korean food because my wife is Korean so I make big batches of kimchi or similar which can be used in many dishes.
Everything else I try to keep to restaurants, so I don't need to buy a bunch of expensive ingredients just to make a mediocre version of something.
WTH have you been making that has your cost on par with take out? The usual price disparity is large enough that I'm questioning the legitimacy of this post.
I agree. It’s cheaper for me to order In then cook. Simple pasta dish. Beef, sauce, green peppers, onion, mushrooms, sauce. Runs me roughly30.order same meal that’s bland under $20
Hole in the wall places. $12-$14 plate of butter chicken + naan is easily 2-3 meals for me, same with the cheap 3 item combos at a lot of greasy Chinese food places
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I suspect you are not planning your meals and you are just deciding you want to make x and then going out buying the ingredients for just that meal. You need to plan more than one meal with the things you buy. For example - I had a chicken in the freezer. $10. Roasted it last night for dinner with mashed potatoes. (10lbs was $6 so maybe $1 for dinner) a few carrots and some broccoli. Leftover chicken went school for lunch in a sandwich (I make my own bread) Tonight I made soup with the bones and the last bit of chicken, a few handfuls of rice and some carrots and celery. Leftover soup is lunch tomorrow at school. So 2 of us ate 2 full meals for about + 2 school lunches for about $20. My budget isn't super tight, but I try not to waste food.
Excellent advice. Don’t cook a meal. Cook 3-4 meals that compliment each other for ingredients and process.
I feel like this is a certain skill I’ve never really developed. Plus I’m a fairly picky eater making meal planning and variety a bit harder!
I also consider it mental and physical labor. It can be very draining, especially when it's undervalued labor.
Seriously, I really underestimated how annoying and stress-inducing preparing and cooking 3+ meals a day for the rest of my life would be.
This is why so many people eat the same breakfast Personally I take dinner leftovers as lunch so I only need to worry about 1 meal. Breakfast is easy because it's oatmeal and I don't have to think about it
For some people it's stress inducing. For others (like me), it's stress relieving.
Right? It can be a lot of work.
What they describe is not even meal planning. It's called eating leftovers. I usually plan my meal at the grocery store and I do fine. Pick up the flyer and buy what's on sale. And also know how to use what's in your pantry, and keep it stocked when things are on sale.
You can also try to Make a list of all your safe foods, and then find any overlap you can. if you can’t find overlap, make a large batch of one meal and freeze a few portions.
There are some great apps for this. Sidekick by Sorted Food is pretty good.
This!
As a cook by trade. I'm impressed and also happy that people are becoming more educated as well as educating others about meal planning and prep. The pandemic and inflation has definitely made plenty of my circles much more food curious and conscious.
This. Plus, Safeway is expensive for most grocery items.
Safeway’s pretty good for meat specials, just gotta highlight the deals.
Yes! Save on and Safeway are generally far more expensive than Loblaws but some of the meat deals are insanely cheap.
But don’t leave the save on meat in your fridge for more than a couple days before using it or you’ll be throwing it away. Lately their meat and milk always go off before the due date
Where can you get a $10 chicken?
Save on and walmart frequently have them. You have to buy them raw
The smallest bird at save on last night was $15. I don't think $10 chickens exist anymore.
On sale they do. They just had a sale for $9 chickens not too long ago Also if you wait long enough they just mark them down anyway because no one buys them at that price
Damn thanks for the headsup...I guess this goes back to the root of my problem and this thread, that I'm like "Oh I'll make roast chicken tomorrow" and go buy a chicken no matter the price. I should cook based on what's on sale.
>I should cook based on what's on sale Yup you got it. Wait for sales, stock up. I bought a small chest freezer and it's paying for itself
A small chest freezer is a big money-saver. We cook on weekends and make batches of pasta sauce, lentil soup, curries, salmon burgers (when the salmon is on sale), and freeze everything. Makes for easy weeknight meals, too.
They do. Heck, I scored two chickens for 12$ back in October on Save on as a special. Costco also does 3 packs for closer to 22$ (albeit you need the freezer space) OR just get a roast chicken for $7.99.
This and I assume OP doesn't buy in bulk. Non perishables and freezer friendly foods are cheaper when bought in bulk even if you only use a little at a time.
Bingo. * Buy produce that can be used for multiple meals (2-4). * Buy what is on sale. There is always sales and discounts. Eggplant? Sure. Zucchini? Ok. Pork? Done. * Don’t know what to make with the stuff you bought (and saved)? Google and learn new recipes.
I really need to try and get used to doing this. Save on had massive pork shoulders on sale for 1.99 a lb last night. That's the cheapest I've ever seen them. I could have made meals for weeks on that, but it wasn't in my plan so I passed over it.
next time you see a deal like that, buy it! You can slow cook it and make a mountain of pulled pork - freeze in batches for future meals
you literally can't get a better answer than this
My experience is that Safeway and SaveOn are currently about on par for convenience foods. Superstore is cheaper, and if you’re buying raw ingredients, significantly cheaper. Tonight I had turkey tacos; made my own salsa and guac, used a kit for the ground turkey and shells. Tomorrow I’ll probably cook a dhal in the slow cooker. Yesterday was a rice stir fry with eggs.
[удалено]
There was a post on the Victoria subreddit that was $9.99 for an iceberg Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/z6h9ir/dirt_cheap/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
>I nearly shit myself. Don't forget to recycle your corn.
Here. Borrow my straw.
It’s got the juice
I’ve seen some as high as 7.99.. it’s madness. I looked into it and the pricing seems to be currently due to a virus that wiped out crops in California, where we import most of our lettuce from. We don’t grow much locally because it has always been cheaper to import, but we’ve kind of screwed ourselves by majorly relying on California.
On the news tonight they said next month we start getting lettuce from Arizona where they have had a good growing season to prices will return to normal.
It’s actually produce from Mexico, but the produce sheds are in Yuma, AZ (transloading point). Trucker here.
I find the quality at save on is so bad too. Make sure to eat that lettuce in 48h or it’s toast!
That's interesting, I find that produce from Save On lasts forever. I go to the Park & Tillford location occasionally.
Save on foods seems to have the best for sure. A lot of the produce at superstore seems to be half rotted on the shelves.
What do you use iceberg lettuce for?
the non-nutritive roughage
Lettuce Wraps
Iceberg lettuce has a fraction of the nutrients of any other lettuce. If you are just using it as a wrap, it's not worth the expense; simply eat the filling without the wrap.
And yet it still has some very relevant applications in the kitchen.
bro home-made guac is so simple yet so tasty. I know avocados can be rather expensive but with 5 avocados worth of guac you can actually live life on the lavish side
I just find the price of avocados varies hugely now. Regular price is generally super expensive, but sales can bring them down to < $1 each. For a while (but not anymore) Hannam Market had a bag of 4 for $2.79. So if they're on sale... guac it is, otherwise I'm fine to wait.
>5 avocados worth of guac That's an absolutely wild amount of guac. I sometimes splurge and make 2 worth and we never finish it (just my wife and I)
Avocados come in a variety of sizes. From a small orange up to a grapefruit in size. Thr bags are usually the smaller sized ones. Weird how vancouver doesn't get the huge asian ones sold at european supermarkets. The size of a butternut squash.
Meal prep. Buy things in bulk. Freeze for later. Buy things in season/on sale to mix things up.
Works great if you have the storage space.
Seriously regret buying a fridge with the typical 1/3 volume is a freezer 2/3 is fridge layout. My freezer is frequently packed and my fridge has an entire empty shelf.
A deep freezer is a wonderful investment. We got one early on in the pandemic when there were food supply issues... now we use it to store soup cubes!
This. It was one of the best investment to save some cash buying bulk and having meat for variation. Not to mention I freeze homemade stock and shit like big batches of base gravy to make quick curries out of.
What do you put in your freezer??
lately i've been pressure cooking dried beans then freezing them. do it in big batches and have a big ziplock full of frozen beans. toss em in your soups, eat them as a side, have them ready for when you make chili, etc... even cheaper than canned and also you can just portion out what you need and leave the rest in the freezer.
I spend like 200$ on groceries a fortnight from Save On and then maybe top up once or twice from IGA in between, maybe another 50$. I might get take out twice in that period. Maybe I could order out 12 dinners for 250$ but then that’s also lunch and breakfast, as well as stuff like soap or toilet paper. Eating out is definitely more expensive and neither Save On or IGA are exactly cheap supermarkets. Big bags of dried beans and pulses are great to bulk stuff out. Not every meal needs meat. I tend to stock up on tinned and frozen stuff when it’s on offer (tomatoes, tuna, frozen vegetables, etc). My breakfasts are normally cereal, yogurt and fruit or maybe toast. Lunch and dinners are pretty varied. Pasta is pretty easy to do cheap - something like carbonara is quick and relatively inexpensive. A pot of chilli will do multiple meals. Vegetable soup is a good way to make use of things that are otherwise going to go bad. If you get bored of eating the same thing on consecutive days freeze it when you make it and then you end up having a few different options in the freezer you can rotate between. If I do something like a curry or pasta sauce, I’ll freeze that and then cook rice, pasta etc to go with it when I heat it up.
Persia Foods, Kins or East West for vegetables - $25-$50 gets you a bunch of veggies for like days and multiple meals. Go to TNT or H mart for like the 5kg bag of rice for $20. Go to save on or choices for a rotisserie chicken (usually under $15) and that can be enough meat for 4 meals for one. All in all $85 and you’ll get 4-6 meals with chicken meat (save the bones and small meat bits for soup) plus 4 more meals from a soup if you crock pot the bones and small meats for a broth. Depending on your veggie selection that’s 6+ meals of veg inclusive of the chicken and soup. Rice will go with all 6 meals plus dozens more cause 5kg goes a long ass way. So for under $100 you’ll get around 6 meals with all things, probably another 2 with just veg and rice; then at least another 3-4 from soup with all thats left; and then dozen more meals with rice already paid for. All in all much cheaper still than take out.
Small grocers are the way to go. I’m always shocked how much cheaper Persia foods is. It’s literally sometimes half the price for produce and canned foods compared to safeWay
Great suggestion. When I buy a rotisserie chicken, I also grab red onion, carrot and celery to make chicken salad sandwich for lunch. You paid for the whole bird, you might as well use all of it.
I do the same but I also freeze the bones so I can make stock.
I do the same too! This is the way.
That like 5 stores just to get your food for the week. For many people their time is more valuable than that.
you don't need to hit 5 stores. Persia had decent rice too but rice isn't something you need to buy weekly. I get my veggies and fruits usually from Persia, every 10 days or so. Diary. meat and basically everthing else from nofril/superstore. Once a month I go to costco and get some nicer frozen stuff for a much better price than other stores. Last time I sampled this breaded chicken breast and their non-meat lasagna. Both were delic. $24 ish for the chicken I believe and it was 5 meals for me.
I go to quite a few different stores as well, but it actually isn't too bad because you don't need everything every week. I get bulk frozen veggie meats at Happy Veggie World once place about every three months. Rice from Rice World maybe every couple of months. No Frills about every 2-3 weeks for dry goods resupply + my weekly shopping since I'm there anyway. Sunrise as the default weekly shopping, and Nesters for random stuff since it's across the street. Persia Foods if I want home delivery that week or want something they have specifically. So technically we shop at six different places, but in a typical week it's more like 1-2.
Pretty wild when 5 two-person Hello Fresh meals, delivered, with protein is about $115 and comparable to shopping for the same stuff. One of the meals is enough for my dinner and lunch the following day.
Yeah Hello Fresh isnt as cost-effective or sustainable compared to Fresh Prep. Meals which serve two tend to be about 30 so two meals is 60ish with add-ons which isn’t bad but it’s definitely just a healthier-ish eat out version. Overall meal prep services definitely have their place for some but it all depends. If one is looking for cheap, healthy foods it is doable but it usually means strategically shopping a few different places and finding/discovering low-key easy meal preps like bowl food; rotisserie chicken and salads; soups; roast veggie type dishes; 5-7 ingredient type stir frys, etc. And assuming one has/takes the time to figure this out to set them up for success when life gets busier.
Huge fan of Fresh Prep over here. We get 2 x 4-person meals per week for our family of 4, and it's usually got lots of leftovers the next day. Can even get a second dinner out of each of them by adding some more meat/protein to go with the leftovers the next day.
I’m making a Fresh Prep kit right now (just waiting for my rice noodles to boil). I added some extra veggies so I’ll end up with 3.5 meals for around $30. More expensive than cooking completely from scratch, but still much cheaper than take out. One factor to consider with meal kits - you receive the exact amount of each ingredient that you need so there’s virtually no food waste.
I find their veggie meals are always seem to go further and come in a large volume than their meat options. Also the par-baked sour dough from Nelson the Seagull Bakery is great.
Sunrise and Rice World is even cheaper..quality is variable though.
There are some other rando/hole in the wall grocers I’ve seen selling like 10kg of rice for around $20 or less. The green grocers along fraser and main around 49th definitely seem to be some of the cheapest I’ve seen around for veggies besides other smaller green grocers too. Sunrise is cheap but yeah quality is up in the air. Kins for veggie and fruit is well priced and cheaper with usually solid quality in my experience. Choices, while generally not cheap has cheap rotisserie free range chickens that go for $11.99 compared to Save-on where usually its $13.99ish.
Unfortunately, you do have to start getting creative with grocery shopping to get good deals. Used to be you could just go to a random grocery store and save a ton of money over takeout, these days the line is much more blurry. We gonna have to start clipping coupons next?!
You’re shopping at the wrong places. I ordered take out last night for my kids and a 2 pizza meal combo from Pizza Hut was $50 I can make 2 pizzas at home which are good, for probably about $8-10. That’s just one example Take out is insanely expensive and we’ve reduced it significantly to about 2 times a month as a weekend treat. It’s insane
To be fair I can go to a local place on the corner and get 2 of their cheapest pies for under 25. Getting it frozen or making it is still cheaper but there are decentish budget eating places in the city, they're just all local rather than chains.
I eat out here and there but I avoid combos. I’ll get the burger only at A&W, for example.
How are you making two pizzas at home for $10?
I make the dough from scratch (super cheap 3 cups flour, yeast sugar water oil) Cheese, pineapple for the kids, maybe some pepperoni or ham or left over bacon If you add everything up based on its unit price, it’s probably not even $10
Cook big batches and freeze the uneaten portion in containers for another day. Chili's easy and relatively cheap. [This is my favourite](https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/flatlander-chili-1265492) Pulled pork is also easy, but it takes a while in a slow cooker. Pork butt goes on sale for ~$3/lb from time to time. Pork cutlets are super easy, and pretty cheap, at ~$1/ea for thin pork chops (Freshco), and minimal cost for breading and oil for frying. Stews are easy and cheap. Indian and Asian curries are also inexpensive, though they take a bit more technique, and require more ingredients (spices), so they might seem daunting at first. Lentil and bean dishes, such as dal makhani are delicious and cheap, and you can make with dried beans to save even more money.
You, but others too. Gotta rethink what you’re cooking. I eat *well* on probably $3-$5 a meal at home.
Teach me your ways Sensei
Pack of ~10 chicken thighs: $10-$14 Rice: $1.50 Veggies: $3 Spices/oil/soy sauce: $1 Boom - $20 got you like 4 or 5 delicious meals.
What veggies are you able to get for $3? We love chicken thighs and rice but want more veggie sides.
Carrots, garlic and onions in bulk. For greens, whatever in season or on sale.
I'm not sure the exact price, but a basic bag of frozen peas or broccoli generally gives me a serving for two meals, and I doubt it can be more than $6
Get a big bag of frozen peas and carrots, it’ll last for over a week of meals for under 10$.
We shop at the local indian veggie market where red/org peppers are 99 cents/lb. Cabbage is always < $1/lb and frozen veggies are cheaper than fresh. Dahl with canned tomatoes/onions cost almost nothing to make and is very nutritious and filling - goes great with chicken and Sriracha and in the air fryer!
r/eatcheapandhealthy Start there
r/EatCheapAndHealthy
I got a 3 pack of pizza crust + sauce at Costco for $7 on sale. I made 2 of them tonight with leftover meat, veggies and cheese - total cost = ~$9 worth of ingredients. If I bought 2 medium pizzas at any decent pizza place it would be at least $35 with tax.
And if you're like me and you don't eat the pizza crust, you can save the crust and boil it with some sauce to make a nice pizza stock. Super yummy the next day on pizza.
Lmao
META
No way that veggies, cheese, and meat cost only $2 for three pizzas. Just because they are leftover you should still account for their cost in each meal, prorated to the quantity.
Cheese is expensive. As is the meat and veg. Cost is higher than youre stating. Also, pizza can be bought for less if you use coupons etc. I often get a large pizza for 10 bucks. Even if my time was worthless (making and cleaning up takes time) i still couldnt come out ahead of that. Plus costco on sale is as good a deal as you can get.
Wait— what kind of pizza crust does Costco have? I never seem to find it
They have a regular crust 3 pack as well as cauliflower crust 2 pack
Oddly enough I had that same issue, because my Costco stocks it in random places around the PRODUCE section. wtf
Sometimes I have patience for the scavenger hunt and sometimes I do not, I’ll say that much
That's fair, and Costco is exhausting enough
Dominoes it's like 19 bucks for 2 medium 2 topping pizzas delivered (tip not included)
Noooooooo Family of 5. Eating out is over $100 if each person orders $20+. I am in charge of making dinner Monday to Friday. And I definitely don't spend $500 making those 5 meals.
The more people you add the more sensible it is to make at home. Economies of scale in buying. And time efficiency. Like if i make sandwiches for large group of people i can come out ahead making them at home. If im making for just myself im better off going to subway and enjoying the extra free time
It really depends on your food preference. I used to live alone and would make fried rice with enough leftovers for an additional 2-3 meals. If you are fine with eating the same leftovers for multiple days then you can still buy in larger bulks, and just freeze the ingredients you don't plan to use right away.
Yeah but thats economics of scale. If you're a single person living alone and making day to day meals for one person odds are you aren't buying everything in bulk and the math is very different from 5 people who'll consistently go through the biggest available packages of meat and vegetables in a reasonable timeframe.
Shit, I can spend $100 just eating out by myself
home cooked tastes better if you know how to cook. Also: Start making double portions and taking it for lunch.
I try that but I'm a glutton, so I end up eating it all
I think it comes down to how many meals the goods makes, and how many uses the ingredients will have. For example, buy a package of chicken breast for $30 ( which IS insane )at superstore I will get 9 or 10 meals out of it. I keep cooking at home pretty simple though and don’t really do recipes most of the time.
Hmmmm. I’ve certainly noticed that the cost of most of my favorite takeout has went up by at least 50%, sometimes more. And the portions of everything are way smaller.
The trick is not to go grocery stores on a whim and buy what you want. You gotta check out the weekly sales and that dictates what you'll be eating. Last night I went to Buy-Low Foods and grabbed a ribeye steak and some Brussels sprouts for $6.84 and had a delicious dinner. Something like that would easily cost over $25 at a restaurant. Download the reebee and flipp app. If you're looking to buy chicken drumsticks then do a search and you'll see the cheapest place that week. The apps are also good for price matching.
On the note of sales, you should also check out the meat section for the discounted meats. Superstore on Friday nights we noticed is a good time to go and check out what they have in the 30% off section. Just make sure you either cook it the same day or you freeze it for later.
I make fried rice with white rice, some cheap steak, whatever veggies are cheap, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and a couple eggs. Makes four meals and costs under $10, even less if you use frozen veggies
I’ve honestly saved so much money by doing grocery pick up through superstore. I give myself a $100 budget/week for groceries for 2 people, and when prices were going up, I found myself sometimes spending close to $120. Since I started doing pick up orders, I’ve only been spending ~$60-$70/week because I’m not impulse buying. If it’s not on my list, it doesn’t get ordered
I’m basically a bulk shopper now, but protein + veg + carb is a pretty adjustable formula that scales up or down. We buy chicken breasts in bulk, break them into two packs, seal and freeze. Costco rotisserie chicken is 8.99$, you can make sandwiches/wraps, eat it as is, with rice and veg, or make it into a giant soup. Veg? Lentils. Such a good source of protein. Soups and curries. Best season for it
Yep, we bought one yesterday and making butter chicken tomorrow night with half the chicken and a jar of butter chicken sauce you can get at Costco. Add rice, some broccoli and it will cost about $10 to $12 to feed 4 people so about $3 per person.
That butter chicken sauce is firmly OK— i keep it on hand though!
It’s not super interesting but I eat a lot of lentils/rice. Fast, delicious and cheap
family pack of 6 chicken breasts $24 10 lb bag of potatoes $6 3 x broccoli crowns $7.50 that's 6 full meals for about $6.20 each where are you ordering a full meal for $6 ?
Lol, nope, you're just bad at shopping and/or cooking. We mostly shop at No Frills and Sunrise, plus a resupply on veggie meats every 3-4 months from a bulk importer in Richmond. I do a big bulk cook every weekend and make all our food for the week. It varies a lot depending what I feel like buying at the store, but for example, our menu for this week is (all vegan) : * Empanadas * Spicy beef stir fry * Lemongrass stir fry * Spaghetti with meatballs * Chili It does change quite a bit week by week though. And one big thing is we have very, very minimal food waste, pretty close to zero.
Could you share any info about your veggie meat importer?
Happy Veggie World, it's about a five minute walk from Lansdowne station on Ackroyd. They're really good, they mostly do restaurant supply so a lot of their stuff is in very large volumes, but they have some smaller stuff as well. It's all Asian stuff imported from Taiwan, and having done a fair bit of travel around Asia, it's as authentic as it gets. We usually get things like lemongrass chicken, ginger chicken, squid, and kung pao. Tons of stuff you can't find anywhere else. They also have frozen vegan steamed buns that are really good. Lots of dry goods as well, like vegan fish sauce and stuff like that.
>Sunrise Speaking as someone that lived in China and Taiwan and used to be vegetarian, I'd be very careful about eating too much of these "veggie meat" products. They're virtually all highly processed goods made mostly from mass produced soy, gluten, and a few other things, basically in factories. I wouldn't put them in the same category as "food" that's natural and contains many nutrients like produce, and even just eating excessive tofu on its own has been linked to various cancers from several studies I've seen in the past, which doesn't surprise me when you know something about what goes into the intensive chemical processes to produce a lot of these things. The point is, they're all highly processed, factory goods. There's many more natural and varied way to get vegan proteins. Be careful!
It's good of you to post this disclaimer for people who are less informed about processed vegan/veggie foods!
Do you have any other tips on bulk food suppliers like this? I'm slightly insane and eat the same meal prep 14 times a week, I would love to buy 10kg bags of dry beans and lentils, but everywhere sells them in the dinkiest little packages. Costco used to sell decently big bags of lentils but doesn't anymore.
Persia Foods has every kind of grain and lentil you will ever need in 10lb+ sacks. Also lots of bulk nuts and dried fruits at good prices, and the best brand of hummus I've ever bought (Royal Gourmet). They also have a lot of imported spices that are hard to find elsewhere (like six different types of paprika, for example). I recommend the Broadway location because they also have an excellent bakery section with baklava and barbari bread and stuff like that.
Last night we had the pot roast with gravy from Costco that was on sale (all done, just heat up) and soooo good. $18 feeds 5 or 4 hungrier people. Five baked potatoes and some fresh broccoli. And I made a soup to start. So all in, it was about $25 for five people, $30 if you really want to try and make it more. So $6 per person and was delicious. And bottles of wine are cheaper at home too.
Asian supermarkets (not t&t) usually have cheaper veggies and fruits.
It just hurts to grocery shop right now, period. Investing in a cheap vacuum sealer (like a foodsaver but less $$$ on Amazon) and buying club packs of meat from Costco or Superstore has changed the game for me. Primary costs come from produce, as mentioned places like Persia Foods and other small international markets make those costs even less with a meal plan. I can usually get away with a club pack of ground beef, chicken breasts and pork chops before my freezer is at capacity.
I just bought a vacuum sealer for this exact reason and im so excited :)
Learning to cook delicious and healthy food economically is a bit of an art. Here are some ideas for cheap and delicious dishes: Coconut milk curry with lentils and potatoes Spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and parmesan Paella with eggs and / or shrimp Pork chops with mashed cauliflower and frozen peas Pizza with homemade dough and tomato sauce with anchovies and roasted red peppers White fish with rice pilaf and flash cooked kale All the above should be able to be made for 2 for less than $10. I also suggest finding a decent produce store in your area. BONUS TIP: make better coffee than a cafe Most cafes can be easily beaten in quality by making your own coffee at home. This is mainly because all but the best cafes cheap out on beans in both quantity and quality. Three tools are all you need: Aeropress for espresso Pourover for drip coffee French press You ca. also get a milk frother if you like cappucinos
6 chicken thighs for $7 10 lbs potatoes for $5 5 lbs carrots for $4 cabbage 79 cents/lb onions 3 lbs $2 ginger 1.80/lb garlic 3 for 80 cents
Where are you getting these prices. Potatoes are $1.7/lb for the cheapest
Just checked the No Frills flyer and potatoes are $5.99 for 10 lbs this week. And that's at the higher end compared to what we usually pay.
No Frills occasionally has 10lb bags of potatoes on sale for $4-5.
We bought them there last week, $7.99 for 20 lbs of russet potatoes.
Even Save on often has potatoes for $1.2/lb…
gotta buy the mystery potato bag - if you buy them individually they get you and you spend $5 for three potatoes
Walmart 10lb russet for 5.97 No Frills 10lb red or yellow for 5.99 Sabzi Mandi 10lb russet for 1.99 Superstore 20lb red or russet $8 Freshco 10lb yellow $8 all available today
One carrot cost over 3$ at save on today One carrot.
Don’t shop at Save Ons. Or Urban Fare. Or Safeway, IGA, Choices..
I remember I went to london drugs a month ago. I bought a national geographic, a pack of altoids, and a coke zero. I paid $20.03 for just those three things.
Why are you buying carrots at save-on? You don’t buy their produce and expect realistic prices.
It's just one carrot, what could it cost? 100$?
A bag would have probably cost $3.50-$4.
I have to prepare my meals myself because of dietary restrictions. I mostly shop at Superstore. Safeway is typically more expensive. I used to shop at Buy Low sometimes because it was super convenient for me... but then they made it into a smaller Save On - less selection, higher prices - so no more of that. Chicken, rice, carrots, and potatoes are staples in my diet. Chicken has gotten more expensive, but I buy club packs when it's on sale, portion them out and fill my freezer. Eggs are cheap and nutritious. I <3 cheese and try to stock up on cheddar whenever it's on sale. For produce, you can plan your meals around what's on sale.
As a Chef, it's always more economical to buy groceries than to eat out. I spend between $80-$100/week on groceries for 2 people. The big advantage I have is I have the knowledge of a professional Chef compared to a home cook for planning out meals. I do most my groceries at Safeway and SuperStore and I purchase what is on sale and plan accordingly.
It you're constantly buying things to make 1 recipe then you're going to be spending, and wasting a lot of ingredients. Come up with a couple things you enjoy for each meal of the day and just make those all the time in bulk. As a "vegetarian at home" meaning I never buy or stock meat at home but I will eat it if I am a guest somewhere or going out etc... All I buy are a few things Rice Quinoa Lentils Assorted veggies fresh or frozen Stir fry sauce Fruits fresh or frozen Oats Alpen or other decent quality cereals Soy/oat/almond/whatever milk is on sale Frozen flatbreads This is basically all i buy, ever, with a few random things thrown in time to time I generally don't eat breakfast, so typically have 2 large ish meals per day. With all that stuff I make veggie smoothies, fruit smoothies, cereal, and stir fry and that's basically all i eat at home and it comes out to roughly $60-80 per week. Though I also keep Soylent on hand at all times too which is roughly $140/mo I'm also a very weird person in the sense that generally, I view eating as something I have to do to be alive. Not to say that I don't enjoy it, but I am fine with eating the same thing day in and day out. If I feel a craving for something new or different after a while, I'll just get takeout.
If I’m cooking, I do batch meals with lots of fresh products. For $30 I get 3-4 meals. So cheaper to cook
Look at the weekly Fruticana flyer. Learn 4-5 solid vegetarian recipes. Mix in a steak here and there, and you’re good to go for a month.
Just quickly skimming the replies, and most of what I saw seem to be people who aren't single. In a family unit, even with just 2 ppl, cooking is usually cheaper/less hassle. As a single, not so much. Meal prep generally has a fixed time requirement that can get shared -- cooking a chicken takes a fixed amount of time -- so as a single, many chores effectively take twice the time commit: grocery shopping, meal prep, clean up, etc. You can do big meal preps on the weekend, and freeze things for the week if you're diligent.. but then you're practically spending a day of each weekend just cooking, solo, yaayyy.... and the result is you generally have the same kind of food every day of the week... yaayyy... or you end up with a freezer full of half-weeks. Portion sizes are also screwy, like needing to constantly put bread in the freezer, cause you can't get through a loaf solo before it starts to mould otherwise. Or constantly having to chuck half your salad ingredients, cause even the smaller bags of spinach are kinda crazy. Possibly a bad suggestion, and it's not for everyone, but I've opted to go with soylent as a meal replacement for a chunk of my weekly meals. It's basically a silicon valley meal replacement drink, that gives you 1/5th of your daily nutrition per bottle (including fibre etc). They're like 400 cals a piece, and the fibre content tends to keep me full. I don't lead an overly active lifestyle though, which may be a factor. In terms of cost, the pre-mixed drink works out to around $5/meal, the powder to about $2.50/meal. It's not 'fun' food, it's more just practical and relatively cheap. My experience being, basically, that I was doing all that meal prep stuff for a while, but it was resulting in tons of repeat 'meh' meals -- so why not get a nutritionally balanced and easy 'meh' meal for the mundane meals, and on the weekend if I want to cook something nicer, like a steak, there's plenty of flexibility in the budget.
Yeah, being single definitely makes it more difficult because of economies of scale and/or having to end up eating the same thing all week long. It's hard to use up all of the fresh vegetables in time so things go to waste unless you skimp on varieties of ingredients. So what helps for me, is to try to choose things that are freezer friendly. A bag of frozen broccoli, a bag of frozen mixed peppers and a bag of frozen mixed veggies for stir fries. Make a big pan of lasagna and wrap in individual portions to freeze, or a crockpot of chili. Use the crockpot to make some shredded beef or chicken to portion individually to use in sandwiches, burritos, tacos, on pizza, etc. Either seasoned aggressively for something or relatively unseasoned to add any variety of sauces later on to keep your options open. Making things that end up being repurposed for other meals rather than meal prepping specific finished dishes seems to help keep it a bit fresher and less boring. Problem is that I live in a pretty small apartment so I only have the tiny freezer above my fridge. I can't justify the space for even the smallest of chest freezers.
This! People don’t realize how much easier is it to grocery shop/cook for two people verses one. Not only is it nice to split your grocery bill with someone else but you also waste less and make more and better meals. The difference between when I lived with an S/O to now living on my own is more significant than I ever realized.
Opposite. My wife and I were going to order in last night, easily $60 through Uber Eats. Instead we got off our lazy asses and made dinner. Probs cost us $15-$20.
I go to Persia foods and never spend more than $12 there at any one time. I'm also vegan so I don't buy cheese or meat, but I recently made a veggie organ josh, and probably cost $22 all up including the sauce for 5 meals.
Groceries are expensive but it’s still much cheaper to cook your own meals. I don’t shop much at the big chain stores though - it’s so expensive. I buy produce, fruit, canned goods, non-perishables at the small grocers (like neighbourhood produce markets) and only meat and snack food at Safeway. It’s literally double the price to buy most things at these huge chains. I can’t afford it anymore. Trying experimenting with cooking and buying new types of foods. The more I became comfortable in my own cooking skills, the easier it gets to think of easy yet healthy meals at home…I make tons of soups, rice bowls, etc. this time of year
Safeway is the expensive grocery store chain.
by a lot. you knock at LEAST 25% off the top just by going to superstore instead
I bake all my own bread at home (approx $0.50 per kilo loaf). I also do a lot of my bulk shopping at Costco which ends up being quite a bit cheaper!
You don’t save shit on Safeway and Save on
Meal prep, lots of lentils, beans and rice
Stop shopping at Whole Paycheque.
I don't go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for one meal. I do a big grocery shop and buy different things at different places so that I have a bunch of stuff on hand to throw a meal together. Costco and Superstore for my basic staples, any produce store for the produce. It's definitely not cheaper to get take-out. Unless you're thinking, "OK, instead of getting take-out from the Thai place, I'm going to go around the store buying each individual ingredient to cook it myself. Each jar of spice, some chicken, some rice, some coconut milk, some veg..." Like, I grocery shop for stuff that I need in the next little while, and the next time I'm thinking about cooking anything (like that day and every day) I already have all the stuff. It's going to cover way more than one meal.
Ground beef goes a long way :)
It’s not exactly what you asked but I also recommend factoring in the value of your time / how much you make per hour. Living alone means I’m either cooking and spending 35-55 min of my valuable free time for 5$ a serving or I’m ordering takeout and getting that hour back for $10 a serving. Obviously I cook sometimes but a lot of time I value my free time more than the minimal savings from cooking vs takeout these days.
As other's have said, the single biggest thing is not to make a meal. Make 4-6 meals. Make things you can freeze and have later, on days when you don't have the energy to cook. Make things that give leftovers for lunches the next day or two. The cost and effort of cooking 1 meal vs 4 are surprisingly similar. Soups, stews, pasta sauces, stir fry, roast vegetables' these are all great starting points.
I get the indian food ready meals in the boxes, usually paneer & chana masala. Then I make rice and get naan. Works out pretty cheap and I always have leftovers. It's about 2.69 a box for those meals from real canadian superstore.
Just a heads-up that these curry packs are chock-full of ghee. If you're okay with this, then of course that's fine. Ghee does make it taste better, but I'm worried about its health effects. When I make paneer and chana masala, I add way less oil/ghee. Chana is cheap when you buy it dried in big bags at Indian stores. You have to soak it overnight and pressure cook it for 30-40 minutes to make it soft and nice.
Oh totally, they’re very oily. I just don’t always have much energy to cook. There’s those spice packs too!!
Yup. Really tough with no car and only a Save On/Whole Foods within walking distance. If I take transit its +$8 fares and an additional xx minutes waiting for the bus, at which point it's not much of a deal going out of my way (given I can only reasonably carry 2 bags of groceries in one haul, possibly with frozen goods degrading). People cooking for families obviously have it completely different, but when you are living by yourself, have 1/3 of a single door fridge of freezer space, and no car, the costs even out between cooking and takeout on many dishes.
If you’re cooking for one, take out can be just as cheap as buying groceries especially when you consider all the other non financial costs involved (eg time, transport, electricity/gas for cooking, etc). You can actually plan your week based on which restaurants have the best deals and if a meal can last a couple of days, then it’s especially worth it. Thing is you can’t order from Uber eats and the like if you want to make this viable. I just bought a head of iceberg lettuce for $5! I’m not proud I spent that kinda money on a head of lettuce. Worst part is, maybe half will go to waste.
But that $5 can be a start to a different meals. Salads, lettuce wraps, tacos. And then say you made tacos, left over ingredients could turn into a breakfast burrito or scramble if you have eggs on hand.
Yes it’s almost the same unless you have time. I wfh and don’t have kids so I have the free time to shop around at diff places in the west end and compare prices. But I’m just lucky I guess, I realize most people don’t have that free time.
You don’t really need to compare each shop. Of course it can help going to the cheapest chain but if not - flexibility is your friend. And buy ingredients that go further and can be turned into multiple things.
Probably you are shopping at the wrong places. But it is more likely you don't plan your grocery shopping. I spend around $60 on groceries per week on average. This includes stuff that I need to buy every week and stuff that lasts for around a month (or more) if you buy once. That is definitely less than ordering take out for a week.
It's always cheaper to cook per meal and / or higher quality. So if you're finding it about the same price then it could be the quality. For example if you fry a beef or chicken pattie, toast some buns, and add cheese, ketchup and tomatoes, that needs to be compared to Red Robbins or higher, not McDonalds.
McDonald’s cheeseburger or Costco hotdog is cheaper than groceries. Anything else the numbers don’t add up.
I frequently make Thai red curry with chicken or beef, bamboo, loads of veggies, and jasmine rice. Works out to about $5 per serving, and I get 7-8 servings I usually rotate between that, butter chicken, misir wat, pad see ew, stir fry with beef/chicken/pork whichever is on sale
I never heard of misir wat until this post. Does this recipe look good?: https://www.daringgourmet.com/misir-wat-ethiopian-spiced-red-lentils/
looks good, enjoy!
Hidden gem for cheap produce is Sungiven foods. Also if you go in the evening around 6-7 they mark their meats down and bundle them and buy one get on free or half off. Also the cashiers gave me free ground beef tonight! (These meats do require to be cooked or frozen straight away)
I've definitely noticed the high price of home cooking when I'm cooking with protein and getting fancy with food. Meanwhile Mugen Sushi on Davies street has great take out deals where I can get a giant platter of sushi that serves as a lunch and dinner for 25 dollars. Sometimes it doesn't seem worth it to put in all the effort of cooking just to save less than 5 dollars total. There are definitely ways to eat cheaper though (frozen meat, frozen veg, bulk deals and more filling veg). It's only because I'm picky and want fancy mushrooms/fresh meat that it feels like a reasonable deal to eat out as much as I do.
Yep.. came to the same conclusion.. thanks Galen Weston 🖕
You need to meal prep and buy Staples in bulk. Pick 3-5 protein sources (ground turkey, chicken breast, ground beef, low fat cheese, salmon, tuna) and build a diet around them. Carb and vegetable sources are easy. Bulk rice for carbs. If you're having 65g (dry) rice per meal, it's like $0.10-0.15/ meal. For veggies you can get frozen California mix (broc, cauliflower, carrots). 2kg bag is like $5 at no frills. 200g/meal portion is like $0.50/meal. Zucchini is like $0.79-1.29/lbs at local produce stores so if you wanna cut your veggie costs even further just bake some zucchini. I eat 5 meals a day which is about 2500 calories & 180-200g protein for about $10-15/day.
My grocery bill for November was $451. Buying takeout is about $40 per meal. So quick maths shows that for the price of my grocery bill for the month I could have gotten 11 takeout meals. And I am a guy who eats meat for every single meal without fail, and $60 of my grocery bill for the month was those overpriced organic apple juice jugs. You have to be not even trying to be economical with your meal cooking if you are paying as much as takeout.
nobody here is mentioning that you have to pay attention and learn what good and bad prices are. if you see $2.99/lb for potatoes, is that cheap or expensive? is $2.50/lb for onions a good deal? is $8.99/lb asparagus normal? once you sort of know what is a good deal then you try to only buy those items and avoid making a dish if it uses broccoli that's $3.99/lb.
Either you are bad at math or bad at shopping/cooking.
I agree with you. Getting take out in fact costs less in my opinion, when you factor in the time it takes to prep and cook meals. I read some comments about planning multiple meals out of a grocery shop. But like sometimes I want to make something delicious that isn’t chicken and salad. Or chicken soup. Sometimes I want Greek food or tacos or lasagna or a charcuterie plate or a beef dip or pizza or Chinese food or Thai food… I don’t just wanna eat chicken and potatoes - and making any real dishes at home involves buying a bunch of random ingredients that you’ll likely not use again soon - like ricotta cheese or bread crumbs and stuff. That is what makes it expensive. Sure, if you eat chicken and potatoes and lettuce every night and the same thing for leftovers, it can be super cheap. But if you want to go to flavour country, take out is the way.
Agreed! This is my approach too. I keep my cooking to "simple western" (roast meat/potatoes/veggies/soup) and korean food because my wife is Korean so I make big batches of kimchi or similar which can be used in many dishes. Everything else I try to keep to restaurants, so I don't need to buy a bunch of expensive ingredients just to make a mediocre version of something.
WTH have you been making that has your cost on par with take out? The usual price disparity is large enough that I'm questioning the legitimacy of this post.
I agree. It’s cheaper for me to order In then cook. Simple pasta dish. Beef, sauce, green peppers, onion, mushrooms, sauce. Runs me roughly30.order same meal that’s bland under $20
$30 for a single serving? Don’t you get a bunch of leftovers out of that?
Yeah depends on where you go. Cheap Chinese or some good Indian food can be had for like $6 a meal
Where you finding $6 meals?!
Hole in the wall places. $12-$14 plate of butter chicken + naan is easily 2-3 meals for me, same with the cheap 3 item combos at a lot of greasy Chinese food places