Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries?
November 15, 2007 By Matthew Paulson
Recently the South Dakota social services office published a report that said the average individual that received food stamps was living on just under $25.00 a week for a grocery budget. They took this information and decided to create an awareness campaign by challenging many prominent officials and businessman to try to live on $25.00 a week in groceries. They couldn’t take free food, go out to eat, or use any of the groceries they already had at home. What if you only had $25.00 for a grocery budget? How would you spend it? Would you be able to keep your stomach full and maintain a healthy diet?
Most of us spend a significantly more than $25.00 each week on our grocery budgets, especially those who live in metropolitan areas and have higher food costs. I wondered if I had to eat on $25.00 each week for groceries and could literally eat nothing else, how would I make it happen?
I came up with a sample grocery budget:
- ½ Gallon of Milk $2.00
- Generic box of cereal $2.50
- 3 cans of Soup - $3.50
- 2 Lunchables - $3.00
- Loaf of Bread - $1.00
- Cheese Slices - $2.00
- Turkey Slices - $1.50
- 1 12pk Mountain Lightning (generic Mountain Dew) - $2.50
- 5 Banquet Frozen Dinners - $6.00
- 4 Banana’s - $1.00
It’s a pretty meager grocery budget, that’s for sure. For my 21 meals in a week, I’d have 5 frozen dinners, 2 Lunchables, 3 cans of soup, 6 bowls of cereal, and 5 turkey and cheese sandwiches. That’ll make for 21 meals in a week for just at $25.00. It would be just enough to get by, but it sure wouldn’t be fun to eat!
If you lose your job or have another financial crisis which makes it so that you have to live on a mere $25.00 a week, consider reading our posts: “How to Rise for the Rising Cost of Groceries” and “How to Eat on $20.00 a Month”.
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November 15th, 2007 at 8:27 am
[...] Great article shows it is possible, but certainly not very nutritious or appealing… Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries? American Consumer News __________________ MikesMoneyBlog - How to Achieve Financial [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
$3.42 a day? It wouldn’t be fabulous, but it is definitely doable. Generally in the morning I will have about 1/3 cup oatmeal, with maybe 1/3 cup milk. For excitement I will toss in some raisins. If this costs me a quarter, I would be surprised. Ground beef can still be had pretty cheaply, and they practically give tortillas away. My local grocery often has 1 pound bags of frozen vegetables on sale for $1. How about pancakes? With a bag of flour, some sugar, a few eggs, and a little milk, you can make enough pancakes for a small army. If you need to stretch the milk, powdered is fine for cooking.
November 15th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
I knwo that my list isn’t wonderful (hell, I’m in college)…so I don’t cook with a lot of natural ingredients, thus the cereal and frozen food.
I’m sure if I cooked rice, beans and some basic meats, I could probably end up with more food than I have now.
November 19th, 2007 at 8:06 am
[...] Consumer News presents Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries? — An interesting exercise. If I have to live on $25 a week, I am thinking a bag of rice, a [...]
November 19th, 2007 at 8:06 am
[...] Consumer News presents Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries? — An interesting exercise. If I have to live on $25 a week, I am thinking a bag of rice, a [...]
November 21st, 2007 at 9:52 am
[...] Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries? @ American Consumer News [...]
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:51 am
[...] Paulson presents Could You Survive With Only $25.00 a Week for Groceries? posted at American Consumer [...]
February 6th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I linked over to your website from a carnival, I believe, and ended up on this post.
College student or no, this has to be the worst spent $25 grocery budget ever. Soda instead of vegetables? LUNCHABLES?? Sadly you’re not joking. After reading this post, I am soured on your other financial advice. It seems you are incredibly out of touch with many of the basics of frugality. And lazy to boot!
Even if you’re not much of a cook, you do have the internet at your disposal to do research on the matter. Hillbilly Housewife, for example, has a $45 emergency grocery budget based around a week’s worth of menus for a family of 4-6. With modification, you should be able to feed 2-3 people on the amount of money you spent on TV dinners and cereal. If you only have to feed one mouth, you could substitute in meat or veggies where she’s left it out and end up with more variety than you suggest.
It’s not easy to feed yourself on so little money, but lots of people must and do, with fewer resources than you have at hand. I think this post illustrates more than anything the value of being raised with skills for independent living and learning frugality at the knee. It’s a lot easier to already have a “sense” for it, rather than trying to knock some sense into an adult spending 10% of their grocery budget on Mt. Dew . . .
May 5th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I agree with disappointed. I am a mother of 5. I feed a family of 7, yes 7, on 240 a month. If you can’t cook, pick up a few gadgets so you can be lazy. Gadget 1, rice cooker. Gadget 2, crock pot. Both need only an outlet and are for lazy people to cook with. Both cost 20 bucks and will save you their price many time over if this is the best you can do. With your 25 dollars a week:
5lbs of potatoes 2.59
2 lb carrots 1.29
can of oatmeal 1.69
3 bananas 1.00
bag of sugar 1.59
box of tea 1.00
chicken flavor 1.00
2lb cabbage .69
4lbs rice 2.54
4lbs beans 4.00 aprox.
dozen eggs 1.89
loaf of bread .89
Total 23.00 aprox after tax
There’s enough food to make all your breakfast, lunch, and dinner with very little cooking and much more nutrition. If you can dump ingredients in a pot with water and turn it on to return at the end of the day you will have plenty of stew. If you can fry eggs, you can have fried egg sandwiches for lunch. In fact I buy this much for my family of 7 to eat on. I’m sure you can survive on it considering 4 children, one teenager, and 2 adults can live on it.