How would you feed yourself on $20/day without cooking or refrigeration? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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How would you feed yourself on $20/day without cooking or refrigeration?

1314 sats \ 54 comments \ @k00b 10h AskSN

In Austin at least, eating well on $10/day with a full kitchen is pretty easy, but $20/day without the ability to cook or store bulk items is hard.

How would you do it? Let's assume the $20/day must include transportation to/from wherever you're getting the food and any other expenses or taxes related to acquiring, preparing, or storing food.

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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @beejay 1h

I'd can all manner of things with my pressure canner which also works as a water bath canner.

Things like: Chili Soup Salsa Pickles/veggies

And I'd make jerky (I do make it and sell it for bitcoin)

For $14.99 I get 3 lb bags of 93% lean ground beef at a butcher literally down the street from me and make jerky out of it and that makes twelve 2.5 oz packs of jerky.

PS - $20 a day is a FUCK TON since I spend about $40/week on food. I can walk to my grocery stores (just under 3 mi) if I have to, so that zeroes out gas/transport... but if the buses are running, that's an added $2, a ticket which works on round trips and transfers, and lasts 2.5 hrs.

169 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 6h

Canned food (ready prepared meals) and canned fruits is the best way and the cheapest. Also you could find dried vegetables soups + some pasta. Excellent source of vitamins and easy to cook. Also you can find dried rissotto (rice) with mushrooms or cheese. Just add water and in 10min cooking you have wonderful meals.

easy to store, no refrigeration needed
really tasty (yes you have to find the right ones)
really cheap (with 20 bucks you have plenty of food for a day)
last almost forever
2 cans + 2 beers per day it will be enough

I use it like that on my contruction site where I cannot store too much fresh food (only for 1-2 days). With a small gas camping stove you can warm the cans of "ready to eat" good and you do not have to bother with anything else.

Another way is to add some self-made granola bars:

take all kind of nuts, large variety you like
grind them to the size of rice
add honey, come cocoa and mix them well
put the raw mass on a large plate and cut it in small pieces and leave it to dry (covered) at least 2 days. Then take each bar/piece and cover it with aluminium foil or cooking paper.

These granola bars could last years and years and are a wonderful source of energy. These will also ocuppy less space too.

Small portions of vegetables soups + small pasta, ready to be cooked.

Self made granola bars

Added some dried fruits

150 sats \ 0 replies \ @jimmysong 4h

If you can stomach it, pemmican. It's got an insane shelf life (reports of it being good after 50 years buried in the ground).

You can get 2 lbs of it for $47.12: https://grasslandbeef.com/products/salt-free-pemmican-pail

At least according to explorer logs, 3/4 lb is enough for a man for 1 day, so that's about 2.75 day's worth.

178 sats \ 3 replies \ @Lux 9h

Lots of eggs, and there's money left to stack

144 sats \ 2 replies \ @justin_shocknet 9h

Someone in my Wolf pack did this in the dorms, bought a little egg cooker... the dorms had a chaotic shared kitchen with college students so many such cases of living off of the mini fridge and microwave in-room.

As for me, an aristocrat:

A few lbs of sliced roast beef from a nearby deli lasted a few days, combined with cheese, primal kitchen mayo, and loaf of butterbread. Canned fruit cocktail.

If I had it to do over again I'd have gotten a foreman style grill as soon as I landed for beef hotdogs and burgers.

28 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8h

I hadn't considered an egg cooker. Cleaning an electric grill or griddle is probably too cumbersome for the scenario I'm thinking about.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 8h

The foreman style ones have a drip catch, probably bad form to put it down the sink drain but toilet is probably fine. Wipe down with a damp paper towel I think would cover the rest.

52 sats \ 2 replies \ @sox 9h

€20/day would get me and my gf two Margherita pizzas for lunch and two Angus burgers for dinner from the food truck.

This reminded me of the times in which we used to live off €15/week, but that required cooking and the ability to not get disgusted by tomato sauce pasta (€1,20) and cutlets (€1) everyday. I actually banned that pasta now.

82 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8h

Pizzas are cheap in Italy!

78 sats \ 0 replies \ @sox 8h

I think the avg price is 7 euros but they used to be €3.50 in 2018 lol

82 sats \ 7 replies \ @grayruby 10h

I would eat pop tarts for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I love pop tarts.

51 sats \ 4 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 9h

Pop tarts are awesome yet terrible. What’s your preferred flavors?

98 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby 9h

Smores and Cookies and cream are my favourites but I like all the "fruit" ones too. Strawberry, Blueberry, Raspberry. They are so bad for you. I was reading the label and I said to my wife "it's probably better to just eat ice cream".

101 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 7h

ice cream is always better.

101 sats \ 0 replies \ @sox 9h

When I visited Austin the Smores poptarts were the first thing I tried, they are amazing omg.

51 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 9h

Nice. My favorites are brown sugar cinnamon and cherry. But yea, I don’t eat them with regularity - they’re terrible for you

51 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 10h

I'm surprised by your answer but pop tarts do taste good.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 9h

I was joking but I do really like pop tarts. Smores ones are amazing but pretty much all flavours are good. I don't think it is very easy to eat healthy 3 meals a day for $20 without refrigeration. Depends how much you need to eat I guess.

Presuming I have a grocery store in walking distance I could use them as my refrigerator. They usually have some precut fruit bowls that aren't too expensive, maybe 5 bucks. That could be breakfast. While I am there I can pick up some kind of trail mix- nice assortment of nuts with dried fruit and raisins. That could be lunch if needed or replace lunch by snacking on it every couple hours. That's not very expensive. And for dinner I could wait until the stores hot prepared meals are put on discount for the day. The stores near us sell them 50% off when they are closing up the ready to serve section for the evening (around 8pm) so you could get some chicken and rice or potatoes or some nice mac and cheese etc for pretty cheap.

102 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 8h

Probably trail mix. Good nutrient variety and caloric density.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8h

Backpacking foods in general are a good move. Pemmican would also be a smart move, but purchasing it is expensive.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 8h

Not enough bang for the buck.

I've been making discount Hodl butter with ingredients from Costco: almond butter, maple syrup, honey, sea salt, and cinnamon. It's really good and pretty cheap.

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 10h

I live walking distance from a Trader Joes which sells sandwiches and salads that don't need to be cooked, for about $5 a pop, so it wouldn't be hard at all.

41 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 9h

How long could you sustain eating four $5 sandwiches/day?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 9h

The nice thing is there's a number of restaurants in walking distance too, so if I get bored of salads and sandwiches I can always go to one of those. You can get a good meal for $10 or less.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Car 8h

Feel like 23-24 was just a bunch 7/11 hotdogs, right @supertestnet! That and pleb tacos outside.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b OP 8h

How much is a 7/11 hotdog?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Car 8h

Ah me and super use to get them really cheap for like 3-5 bucks with chips and a drink.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8h

Okay, so 4 hotdogs, 4 chips, 4 sodas for $20. I probably couldn't live off of that for very long, but it'd work.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder 8h

I think I would just drive to the little supermarket 15 mins away and buy a cooked chicken every day (they're like 6 bucks), I'd also buy some bread and a dozen eggs. I'd then save the spare 5 dollars a day and after 5 days buy a 1kg bag of protein powder.

At which point I'd be on a protein shake for breakfast, a whole chicken and an egg sandwich or something. In Europe and the UK, you don't have to refrigerate your eggs (apparently, in the US, eggs are washed and sanitized, which removes the coating, so they must be refrigerated to prevent bacterial growth, like salmonella. In the EU they are not washed and still have a protective coating.

After a while, I'd probably have more of a surplus because i wouldn't need to buy 12 eggs every day, and I might not always eat the whole chicken. I could mix it up with some other stuff

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8h

hmmm a cooked chicken here is <$20, but not $6 except at Costco. That's not a bad option though if there's enough left over for a couple hundred more calories.

21 sats \ 8 replies \ @k00b OP 10h

If we are entirely dependent on takeout, the best single OMAD meal I've found downtown on $20/day is from P Terry's:

two triple hamburgers (no cheese)
one double hamburger (no cheese)

That comes out to $19.86.

According to their nutrition tables that roughly achieves the BMR needs of the average male. IME it's also very satiating because it's high protein.

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @teremok 8h

I do OMAD. Here's what I do when traveling, for example in Spain.

Bought bread, jamón serrano, cheese, a few cherry tomatoes, plain yoghurt, nectarines and dry nuts at the supermarket.

Ate a gourmet meal that would cost $100+ in a restaurant for about $30 in the park and I had so much jamón I wanted to throw up.

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 8h

Recently back from Spain and can confirm, endless Iberian jamón at almost every meal

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8h

I too have indulged in too much jamon in Spain

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @justin_shocknet 9h

Being in Texas is a cheat code though, a half pound of brisket and some fruit should do it.

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8h

Even half pound of moist (fatty) brisket is probably too light on calories (even if it were pure fat it'd only have 2k calories) and smoked brisket most places is >$30/lb now.

If you could get very fatty brisket + a couple bananas, that could work.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 8h

Half pound of brisket is ~1lb of meat pre-cook afaik so that's about equal to the 5 burger patties (assuming they're QPs... but I also just realized you said 8 patties not 5 so yea the ground beef wins).

I usually get the wet end myself and couldn't even think about food ~24 hours last few times I was in Dallas after housing about 3/4lb... on budget would have to round down to .6lb I reckon to leave budget for fruit.

You'd be in great shape after a few months of this at the very least...

I mentioned the foreman elsewhere because I actually had a buddy do that with Bubba burgers back in the day in a tiny apartment.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @plebpoet 8h

this level of hacking for so simple a decision, that will wane from day to day - never behaving the same way because it is your appetite, it's unnerving. I'm about to come undone.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8h

stay together if you can.

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Signal312 9h

If you have electricity and water, then you have the ability to cook. I wrote this post on cooking in a hotel with a tiny cooker:

DIY hotel cooking kit - how to eat healthier when traveling

Having a hotel fridge is nice, but lots of things stay good without a fridge. Or if there's no fridge, get a cooler and just refill the ice.

Scrambled eggs (with cheese, with sour cream, etc) are great. Eggs (contrary to common knowledge) do NOT need to be refrigerated if you're not keeping them for a long time. In European groceries, they're just on the shelf.

I've also made ground beef, with various spices, in this little cooker. It turns out delicious.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 8h

Even with electricity and water you might not want to cook for other reasons, but mine is mostly a manufactured scenario that I haven't found great non-cooking answers to.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 8h

I guess it depends on what you like to eat. It's tougher when you eat carnivore, that's why I put together my little cooking kit.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 9h

I could probably feed myself at kwick trip for that amount. It's definitely possible to live on $20.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 7h

There was a time when I survived on canned refried beans and tortilla chips. Salt and some spicy peppers help it go a long way.

Just having a tiny little hot plate or a burner of some sort dramatically expands your range.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @aljaz 8h

Become a bitcoin influencer and post lunch invoices on nostr for simps to pay your lunch

28 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 9h

Easy. Beef jerky

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rezn8 1h

Rotisserie chickens ($6-$8) from the local grocery store + fruit. Also Drink raw eggs for extra protein Then major water intake

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @realBitcoinDog 2h

Potatoes

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 2h

Raw potatoes?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @voxmagdalenea 7h

I'd use the internet like I just did and look up discount food in Austin and then found this.

Randal’s has deals for buy one get two free on meat! As well as pre portioned ready meals you just heat up. Buy two get one free! I’ll get 5-10lbs of chicken for like 8$

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @byzantine 7h

hunt a deer and smoke it

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 9h

I'll live a place where eating enough without worrying about money is still possible.

Suggestion: If you have a Gurudwara in Austin, just go there and eat, no charges at all.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @zodthebarbarian 8h

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b OP 8h

How long could you go eating that way? A month? More?