Inspired by my West Coast girl Krystal, who caught some flack for mentioning wanting to try out an emergency food budget of $100 a month, I thought I’d post BF’s war menu.
See, this idea came about when he saw our food budget rise *
*Mostly due to his desire to make me gain a little weight because he thought I was too skinny. 😛
He was surprised at our food budget going out of control, and then he started thinking about how much we actually needed to spend in food per month.
Side note: In Portugal, the recession is really tough to the point where people are STEALING food from the fields.
They go to a grocery store and stock up on potatoes and olive oil. It’s how they make it through this tough time, and they aren’t eating much meat.
So he came up with a “war menu” of sorts just in case.
What he considered:
- There wouldn’t be a variety of nutrition involved, as it’s a subsistence war menu
- Barely any veggies 🙁
- NO JUNK FOOD! (No $1 ramens or processed stuff)
- It would be meals to keep us feeling full, give us energy and not be cranky from hunger
- Not many luxuries like meat but we have eggs instead
- Doable in times of a crisis of any sort
- No growing of any food included in this menu (no gardens to supplement)
What the meals consist of:
Breakfast: Cornmeal made with brown sugar and milk
Lunches:
- 2 days: Potatoes with olive oil, cumin and salt
- 2 days: Fried rice, soya sauce, olive oil, onions and an egg each
- 2 days: Beans with garlic and olive oil with salt
- Sunday “Feast”: Spaghetti with garlic and olive oil with salt
Dinners: Oatmeal with brown sugar and milk with 2 bananas
Granted, these are not meals that are meant for growing children, nor for adults, as it has barely any calcium, no nutritious values whatsoever and are just meant to make you FEEL full.
… but still, it’s possible to eat 3 square meals a day for $100 a month if you desperately, absolutely have to.
The Cost
This is what we’d buy in a month if we wanted “good quality” items that we currently purchase, such as good jasmine rice, or great canned tomatoes.
We could always downgrade on the quality of the food to save more money if need be.
Here are the rates he used for the meals above:
- $2 for 2kg of cornmeal
- $4 for 2kg of brown sugar
- $6 for 4L of 3% milk
- $0.75 per kg potatoes
- $10 for 1L of olive oil
- $2 for 100 grams of cumin (lasts for 2 months)
- $1 for 500 grams of salt
- $2 for 1kg for good rice
- $4 for a small bottle of soya sauce
- $4 for 5kg of onions
- $6 for 12 organic eggs
- $2 for 2kg of beans
- $4 for 1kg garlic
- $5 for 500 grams of good dried spaghetti
- $3 for 1kg of oatmeal
- $1.30 per kg of bananas
$57.05 in total for one of each above. Assuming we drink a bit more mik, eat more potatoes and “adjust” the amounts accordingly for our appetites, it works out to:
TOTAL = $80 per month for 1 person
If we added meat, it’d be $100 a month because we could buy a little dried meat.
It’s plenty of food in my opinion, but granted, we haven’t actually tested it the way Krystal wants to.
Why? Because this conversation transpired after the war menu was perfected:
BF: I finished the war menu.
Me: Great. What is it?
BF: Potatoes. Oatmeal. Rice. Spaghetti for special occasions.
Me: ……….. and the cost?
BF: Under $100 a month each.
Me: What about a little meat or eggs in there for protein?
BF: Nada. Maybe we can increase the menu to $100 a month even, and we could have a bite of dried sausage on special occasions.
Me: I see.
BF: Wanna try it out this month to see if it’s doable?
Me: *long look* Not particularly. We’d undo all the work we’ve been putting into getting me fatter.
BF: True. You’re costing us a bundle to try and fatten up. I’d have to pay again to keep you in good shape.
And there you have it folks.
I don’t really want to test the menu. It sounds like a lot of food, and from my experience eating oatmeal at home, and potatoes in Portugal with olive oil, it definitely packs a punch in terms of feeling full.
I would like a can of tomato in there for flavour on our “special feast” days, but during times of war, canned stuff is hard to find.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
That looks pretty crazy to me. I spend $600 per month for four of us and we eat interesting and varied food. I know if families who spend around $250 per month to feed a family of four and they eat three real meals a day, also afternoon tea and they eat meat. I personally haven’t managed to get below $400 per month for the four of us but I buy organic milk and free range eggs etc.
As a student my monthly budget (1 person) is 70-80$ a month, however I do not only eat potatoes!! I shop at a discount store (No Frills) so it is much cheaper than most other stores (Loblaws, Superstore). I eat meat, granted not that much (when I do I buy the tougher cuts, and only then when they are 50-60% off because they are borderline rancid and freeze it right away), canned meats/fish are also great. Eggs of course are an easy way to buy protein for cheap, I bought a 9lb bag of brown rice and I’ve had it for a while so it’s not coming out of my budget, I’m not a bread or pasta eater, but I do occasionally make soda bread (50-70cents a loaf). But I also eat vegetables and fruit! How? I either buy No Name frozen vegetables, buy the reduced bruised produce, or I buy cheaper non-fancy vegetables (or the ones on sale that week!). It’s not really that difficult, but it can get boring. The two things I find really difficult and pricey to buy is soy milk (lactose intolerant), and cereal (SINCE WHEN IS THE TINY BOX 5$?!?!?). However, I have also been told I don’t eat much so that might be a factor. 😛
menu and some recipes are included
Breakfast:
10 x oatmeal (cook 3-10 minute type)
4 x omelets
4 x pancakes
4 x french toast
4 x bacon & egg4 x waffles (if no waffle iron, make pancakes)
Lunch;
4x sandwich wraps
4x sandwiches
14 x leftovers
4x salads
4x pizza
Dinner;
2 x chicken and veg
2x chicken w/ simmer sauce and rice
2 x chicken soup
quesidillas
3 x meatloaf and veg
3 x macaroni and meatsauce
3 x pork patties and veg
3 x roast pork and veg
3 x chili
2 x nachos and salsa
3 x shipwreck
3 x tuna casserole
Desserts:
applesauce
cake
cookies
Ingredient list
1.09 bag oatmeal
8.46 2 doz eggs
2.50 mushrooms
3.99 cheese block
2.00 bread x 2
5.99 dry full cream milk
1.85 flour
1.95 oil
.95 raw sugar
.95 white sugar
2.49 bacon
1.99 tortillas
2.00 tomatoes
1.00 pepper
1.00 lettuce
1.09 mayonnaise
.75 pasta sauce
6.00 chicken
1.79 simmer sauce
2.85 rice
1.49 carrots
2.99 potatoes
3.29 sweet potatoes
3.00 reduce stew vegs
1.49 sour cream
1.19 chili sauce
10.00 4 x mince
1.00 crackers
3.00 mince pork
5.00 roast pork
.99 kidney beans
1.50 2 x can tomatoes
1.19 tomato soup
2.00 2 x tuna
.69 macaroni
1.99 bag apples
3.00 margarine /butter
1.99 oranges
1.99 kiwi
2.98 coffee
2.00 teabags
1.50 spices/flavorings
1.99 nachos
————-
104.45
We eat a lot of potatoes, add carrots, beans, peanut butter and stuff to it. All together we eat on about $100-$200 a month for the two of us but we never go hungry.
I discovered that the most expensive stuff was the packaged foods and junk stuff along with some of the fancier cuts of meat. So meat gets bought on clearance and stocked up on.
Once I get another blender I will get soybeans and start making soymilk again. It is cheaper to make soymilk at home than it is to buy regular milk (or soymilk for that matter).
I’m underemployed in america, I do eat like this. The problem with this is boredom. You can’t eat the same meals for a month, you’d be getting take out after a week. I mostly eat beans, rice, potatoes, peanut butter, eggs, and a variety of vegetables, but I don’t prepare them the same way all the time. There’s lot you can do with a tortilla, there’s varieties of peanut butter and jelly, there’s casserole vs stovetop vs stove. I suspect you read one article and assumed that the recipes above are ALL they ever ate. Look at the youtube channel “depression cooking by clara” to look at the varieties of cooking people have always come up with.
Why no gardening? People have always resorted to living off the land when there wasn’t enough food to buy.
I have lived like this many times. It’s my instinct to cut food before anything else (because to me it doesn’t seem real, you can’t keep it). After experiencing chronic low energy levels from my poor diet, though, I had to teach myself that food is more important that art work, books, etc.
Great post! We’re trying to decrease our grocery budget right now.
This post was written just for me.
I currently was accepted for Food Stamps because I make so little. But, for some reason, they’re giving me a WHOPPING grand total of $15 per month. Yes. per MONTH.
One $15 shopping trip literally looks like this:
-Soymilk: 3.00
-Eggs: 3.00
-Crushed box of cereal: 3.00
-Discounted, old bagels: 1.50
-Cream cheese: 2.00
-Loaf of cheapest bread imaginable (by one, get one free) 3.00
Okay, so that’s technically 15.50. I have to use my own money to buy cheese for sandwiches. I make a sandwich to take with me for lunch that consists of three slices of bread and one slice of cheese.
It would be a miracle if this much food lasted me an entire month. I don’t know what foodstamps are thinking, only giving me $15. I’m grateful, of course, but at the same time, It’s kind of a joke.
The problem with wartime diets? Constipation. I’m eating absolutely nothing that’s good for my colon. (Luckily, I seem to have developed a gluten allergy. That helps.)
I suggest that you replace the cereal and bread for $6 with a 10lb bag of rice for $6. Two people could eat rice twice a day for a whole month off of a 10lb bag of rice. The bread and cereal will probably only last you about a week.
What about buying a whole chicken? You could roast it, use leftovers for sandwiches and make broth from the carcass. A bag of beans is around $1.60….you could make bean soup or refried beans and that will last you. Or just get some beef bones, brown them and use as base for stock. You can use the bones more than once. If I were you I wuod skip the bread and cereal. Make the soups and carry a thermos. maybe buy oatmeal instead of cereal.
I’ve never considered a war menu, considered eating only from my pantry though.
We have a $100 a week consumables budget for 2.
Usually half the budget is taken up with restaurants/junk food/convenience meals/sodas/alcohol/cleaning products, etc.
The other half of the budget is for meat (we’ve reduced our portions and only eat meat for half our dinners), starches (bread, bulk rice, potatoes, beans) and fresh and frozen veggies (organic when there’s the comparable option). So, I think if need be we could cut those out and get in the $200/month for two easily.
I don’t think prices would be stable during war, so food prices would go up and it would be harder to meet the budget. We keep a pantry and stock up for several months when staples go on sale (rice, dried pasta, cheese, etc.) so that would help offset the rising cost of fresh food for the first few months at least.
you could try the recipes from this blog budgetbytes.blogspot.com
looks pretty good and healthy too.
I don’t think I could do it – I need my veggies, fruit, and dairy (not just because I’m preggers, I love all those things regardless!)
That said, I think there are ways to eat a balanced diet more cheaply than we currently do if we had to, like buying big bags of frozen veggies instead of fresh.
One thing we’ve done lately for protein is buying bags of frozen shrimp from Superstore. I think it’s around $10 for a bag of shrimp that does us 3-4 meals.
There are things you can buy in bulk cheaply too, like oatmeal. Pasta is always a good, cheap option and marinara sauce is pretty inexpensive.
Last summer we cut our grocery spending down to $350 for a family of 4. In August we spent nothing! Fruit was what we gave up. The worst was that we were counting on the fruit from my parents fruit trees. One night someone came in and stole every piece of fruit from their peach tree! Even the ones off the ground! I don’t want to do it again 😉
Indeed! I would not touch that diet except in wartime rations! I also haven’t thought about a war diet at all, as you can tell. After reading your post, I don’t think that I’m going to think of it until it becomes an imminent need.
On that note, food is one area where I’ve chosen not to be very minimalist.
Each to his own and we all have different priorities plus availability of certain items would vary according to situation and location. Personally, my way would be different and include mainly veg and grains, if I could get them.
Have you ever read MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf”, a classic concerning almost-zero budget and reasonably healthy cooking from 1941 – also a reminder that in wartime, you don’t always have heat to cook with! Well written and entertaining, sadly not well known outside the US.Oh, and what about letting grain sprout?
I actually just challenged myself to spend only $100 on groceries for the month of August (for just myself and my cat), and I came in about 25 cents under. It was actually not as difficult as you might have thought, and I ate way healthier than your BF’s. Mostly I just cut all processed food and meat out of my diet, and ate mostly vegetables and whole grains, and that was that. I found it to be a lot easier just by virtue of planning my meals around whatever was on sale and in season that particular week. (You can check out my weekly updates here, if you are interested: http://www.broketo.ca/search/label/grocery%20challenge)
Dear FB,
The post comes back to the usual and interesting topics that spurs debate, so that’s great. But, come on, are you using as a side note such a catastrophic excerpt from that post of yours about Portugal?? 😀
Did you considered the long line of comments from people actually living there?
I’m tall & very slim. 5’9″, 117 on a good day! Eating cheap meals is not going to happen here… lol! I also eat 100% organic, free range/free run, local, etc… with a lot of food allergies to work around. If I HAD to survive on a war menu, then I would. But I don’t think it’s worth your health for an “experiment” unless there was no other choice in the matter.
http://www.halfdozendaily.blog.com
This makes me think of the Grapes of Wrath. It ends with a man who is very malnourished being offered breast milk by a woman (if I remember right, her baby has died). I found it quite shocking. Other than breast milk, the main food seemed to be flour and lard with a bit of salt. If you need calories, fat is your best option. I don’t know if the idea here is to make your own pasta, but of course in war you couldn’t count on buying rice or pasta at the grocery… This sounds to me like a seriously unhealthy diet. You see people here in England who live on chips and beer and I tell you their skin is grey. If you want a fun challenge, why not try to cope with the rationing period in Britain. Coupons for sugar, butter, meat, petrol, clothes. People were at their healthiest diet wise during those years.