In this video, I share how I can live on only $20 a week of groceries as a frugal minimalist. The best practices I use include looking for food items that are on sale, are easy to make, and save me time.
I was amazed to calculate that I could not only survive but also eat well on just $80 a month or $960 a year of food! By saving money on my every day food costs, this allows me to invest more! I also add some tips on how investors use similar skills of looking for value and quality through my food analogies. Enjoy!
The best way to make this work is to figure out what kind of food you enjoy eating, and which foods you could eat for many days at a time if you need to in order to save money.
There’s no one size fits all, sometimes we can’t always stick to a strict budget of only $20 a week, but if you come to know which foods are generally your go tos, you can quickly find that coming up with a month’s worth of sustenance isn’t too hard.
What’s your favorite food and where do you enjoy food shopping? I’d love to hear from you in the comments! My favorite food is bread, ALL THE BREAD, especially zopf and pan de sal, and my fave store that sells food is Costco.
Tip: Look for foods that you think are healthy for you, that you enjoy, and that are affordable because this is the way to stretch your dollar the furthest. You won’t enjoy the cheapest possible food, so it’s good to look for high quality and sustainable foods like wild caught fish.
When I go food shopping, I try to plan ahead of time what I’m going to buy and when it makes sense I buy food in bulk that lasts a while in order to maximize the value I get out of food.
Breakfast: coffee, milk, and cereal are my essentials that can last me for a whole month. Lunch: peanut butter and jelly (jam) sandwiches, and chicken wraps. I love hot sauce, like Cholula Chipotle!
Dinner: spaghetti and tomato sauce, sardines & beans on a wrap, and spicy Korean ramen noodles. Sardines are a great source of omega 3 fatty acids that we need in our diets. I know there’s a lot of sodium in ramen, so I’d say be mindful about too much salt intake if that’s a concern for you.
Often I buy my vegetables on the cheap from farmer’s markets, but it might not be the most “natural” as in not super organic but I’m hopeful they’re not completely loaded with pesticides.
This wouldn’t be a millennial video without the mention of avocado toast, which could also fit within the $80/month food budget since avocados are inexpensive these days. And if I added grass fed beef from New Zealand, that would put me at $85/month.
Thirsty after all this food talk? I just drink tap water because I try to avoid added sugars in my drinks, and I think this helps to stay in good shape.
There are also some alternate food options I discuss that are also relatively inexpensive. When I mention 8 days’ worth of pizza, I also freeze some of the pizza because that can get stale fast in the fridge, whereas I can quickly heat up frozen pizza.
People could definitely get their food bills down more than I have in this example if you really need to scrape by. I hope you enjoyed my best practices for cost effective food shopping and eating well IMHO.
All of us are on the journey towards FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) and it is one filled with much gratitude and enlightenment, and I look forward to making more investor friends. Add me on Instagram: michellemarki 🙂