Eat on $3 a day

I've been feeling fantastic lately, and also not eating that much. I figure energy in = energy out, and this feels great, so I'm going to stick with it.

I've also long wanted to see what it's like to live on notmuch, like half the world does. I already don't spend a whole lot, but I'm sure it's more than $3/day. Of course, a lot of things aren't accurate. I go to a university where there's frequently free food, and the greater area here is also practically overflowing with free food.

Check out Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book", which has all kinds of tips on getting food for cheap or free. Stolen here, and available for download: How to "Steal This Book"

I will write of what I buy and what I eat, every day for an entire month, plus estimates of the price of anything I've bought previously. Free food, and food that gets thrown away, is still counted as free.

So today, on 1/9/07, I begin.

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Tell me what to eat! If you think of some ultra-cheap kind of food I haven't thought of yet, post it in the comments!

Do you know anything about growing mushrooms? I'm curious!

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Edit, 1/15/08:
I'm going to keep a running conclusion of what works best, when eating for ultra-cheap.

-DUMPSTER DIVING - getting one's food almost any other way makes no sense. Commercial dumpsters are basically treasure chests of fairly good and useful food or materials. Follow common dumpster ettiquette, like leaving the dumpster cleaner than you found it, not reselling found items and competing with the business, and visiting at night so as to not tarnish the establishment's image. Then, enjoy the bounty of urban recycling. Beware of situations where you might be considered to be trespassing.

For local dumpster/skip information, see the TrashWiki

Most dumpsters can sustain a population of at least 20 people. After a while, you will find yourself becoming choosy, and only selecting high-quality garbage. Typically, there's even more food thrown out than anyone can manage to consume. If you think recycling is good for the earth, you must dumpster dive. Anything else is causing waste. see these instructables to find out [http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Vintage-Jeans...-Coffee-Style/ why]
-Eggs are great. Fabulous, delicious, filling, easy to carry in one's pockets, and cheap! What more?
-Brewer's Yeast - this stuff is delicious. Get a jar, put it on everything. It has so many vitamins, and so many amino acids - it's amazing!
-Sprouts. You can be full for pennies. And you have delicious crunchy food right there, all the time.
-store-bought Veggies (bags of carrots) for 99 cents a pound, or cheaper.
-Hanging around talks and conferences - free food and leftovers go a long way!
-Pizza boxes piled on top of trash bins. 2/3 of them during the course of this experiment still contained pizza.
-Fresh fruit off of trees!
-Buttermilk is full of tasty bacteria
-Wholesale food, a la the ten-pound meat blob in step 7

Step 1 1/12/08 - Day 4

Due to travel restrictions, I have to leave Massachusetts on a train at midnight to catch a 6AM flight out of Providence, RI. I grab a slice of pizza from my lab group, and eat three eggs on the way.

• $0.45

Unfortunately, I leave my laptop in a taxi cab, and find myself in Los Angeles with no way to contact my friends who don't know I'm coming. There, in the airport, in my moment of greatest distress, is an ice cream store. Forlorn, I can't pass up a chocolate ice cream cone.

Ice cream cone time! $2.00!

• $2.45

I see now how things get expensive. The rest of the day I eat delicious dumpster-dived tiramisu, chocolate soy milk, and salmon. And one of the carrots I packed in my bag.

• $2.65

I spent all of today rapelling down cliffs and running down riverbeds in the San Gabriel mountains, but all the sugar has gone straight to my tongue and given me some inflamed tastebuds.

Comments

[pebbles1]

i live in canada and used to work at tim hortons a coffee store and every shift they had to throw out all the items not sold from the previous shift ....whih was only 4hrs before we threw away perfectly fresh bagels donuts muffins etc...it made me sick and i stopped working ther becuse of the amount of waste ther was.if every store and thers like 20 in my town every day donated to soup kitchens and the food bank ther days items for freezeing none would go hungry its crying shame that we are all busting our butts to pay bills buy food at ridiculous prices and people are still going hungry and thers all this waste.

[Crispie J]

I live in Canada too and my son quit working at Wendy's after only one shift because he was appalled at the waste. If he didn't make a hamburger "right" out it went! It truly is a crying shame how much food is wasted, and how many people are going hungry in this rich country.

[chinasmom2000]

Adding flax seed to your yogurt gives no nutritional value. From what I have read, they are not digested; they just pass on through. I think you need to grind them for nutrition.

[zekemedic]

Nice ideas for eating on $3/day, now try the same $3/day limit but this time with severe food allergies to eggs, cow's milk, soy, zucchini, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews & sulfites (food preservative)! welcome to my life - eating cheaply can get interesting to say the least :)

[wakojako]

Nice 'ible.
How can you get eggs that cheap? in the uk eggs cost a fortune especially the free range/organic eggs (which i prefer).

[Ormspryde]

I don't actually intend to use it, but I really like this instructable, it made me smile. :)

[Iminthewest]

Foodstamps only gives me $2.74 a day. and I live in a small city where there arent dumpsters- people do a really good job around here of locking up dumpsters and putting cameras up. On top of that about 90% of what the foodbanks around here give are more then a week expired all the way up to years expired(Im not kidding). and whats not expired more then a week ago about 50% expires within the next couple of days. so what you have is a whole couple of meals that you have to eat right away, OR get sick(has happened to me on numerous occasions). Your only allowed to go once a week. Then the other issue is they put moldy produce in with the good produce, making the good stuff go bad a lot quicker. Where do you think all those tomatoes went when that samonilla outbreak was? You've guessed it- the food bank. the food bank had a ton of nice lookin' tamotoes all the sudden- I didnt take any I took the broccoli that was all mixed in the same bin- and I washed it, but got very ill- not sure if it was samanilla- cause I couldnt afford the doctor. Anyway I need to get to my point. Your better off finding your toiletries and soaps, and furniture and clothing as free as possible and using your money on food. There are alot of garage sales, free piles. Lots of items can be cleaned with a good cleaner and be as good as new, but with food thats not the case. Be smart dont dumpster for food. dumpster for household items, magizines, even kitchen appliances are better then dumpstering for the food itself, thats how I got all my dishware and pots&pans.

[altgrave]

http://wiki.stealthiswiki.org/wiki/Free_Food

[island_hackster]

I'm sorry you live in a place like that, I do too now. But I used to live in Seattle and around and the finds were often mountains of items which were clearly perfectly safe and fresh despite being post-sell-by-date. So don't equate dumpster fare universally with the trash you've experienced at your food bank.

[Handsy]

How to Bypass Locked Dumpsters
1. Put superglue in the key hole.
2. The company will have it removed and likely replaced.
3. Put superglue in the key hole of this new lock.
4. Keep putting superglue in their locks until they give up and leave it unlocked.
Enjoy

[rosewood513]

I hope they figured you out and put up a camera to catch you.
You should be ashamed of yourself destroying orther people's property.
I owned a business and what people do to your things is a sin. That is why prices go up, did you realize that? then you would be the one to complain about it.

[Handsy]

Never done it myself, just sharing the instructions.....but thanks for the friendly words. : |

[StarborneWorks]

Or they get fed-up and install a compactor. Or put in surveillance cameras so the next unknowing dumpster diver who comes buy gets arrested for your vandalism. If you're that determined to get in, don't mess it up for everyone else, learn to pick padlocks then you can close it up again when you're done. No damage done and you learn a valuable skill.

[mad magoo]

Stasterisk's priorities: 1. Robot Parts 2. Food What better example of the DIY and Instructables spirit is there? :) Anyway, great instructable. I would also like to advise people to try to find local farmers and butchers for meat. I get mine from a local farm, and I know the people that run it. It's organic, free-range, and inexspensive in bulk.

[Its Giggles]

I cant do this. =/
Im tooo OCD when it comes to food sanitation.

DUMPSTER DIVING - getting one's food almost any other way makes no sense. Commercial dumpsters are basically treasure chests of fairly good and useful food. . .
Ugh, i couldnt read on, this started to make me feel queasy.
Sorry.

[mad magoo]

I don't plan on trying this out myself (mainly because where I live I would get shot at for dumpster diving :) but I don't think it's really that bad. From what I've seen of the world, most food-service establishments' counters are very likely less clean than their dumpsters. As long as you avoid the poison that is put on dumpsters to stop rodents and such, you're likely going to be okay. I'm still having my steak fresh tonight, though :)

[Lt. Duct Tape]

As long as the stuff is sealed in cans or plastic bags, the contents should be just fine. Of course, if you still feel queasy, just take canned stuff and boil the cans in water first. Now the contents (if they haven't exploded while being boiled) Are cleaner than most foods served in hospitals.

[Yerboogieman]

If we actually ate the food we already have instead of buying more and more, we would save much more money, but my dad is picky.

[fancypenguin845]

BAM
ill be trying this

[Jodex]

I think that I could try this for at least couple of days..

[dla888]

If you're a good shot with a bb gun you can get a ptarmagin in Nome. mmm.... ptarmagin. I wish they were in season.

[pingkam]

a Buddhist monk  is not allowed to have money, and other kind of it. They always eat once a day, before sun above the head. And they are very discipline person. here's the link their  set of rules.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/khantipalo/wheel130.html 

[boyinthelibrary]

I read an article about a guy who doesn't use money at all. everything he eats is either given to him or found. Here's the URL:

http://men.style.com/details/features/landing?id=content_9817

[MKohen]

Expanding on what someone else said already, Top Ramen. Here in Indiana its 10 cents a package, cases of 15 for about a dollar. while not the most amazingly healthy food, its really not bad. that being said, this is an excellent i'ble and i'll definitely take some tips from it...

[RedFlash]

Way how to make yourself sick... And lose weight (possibly)

[daffyd_morris]

couscous, just add hot water and anything or anything. or just eat it plain. its quite cheap to buy and you can get many portions from it. its good with half a carrot, chopped up; cheese, either cubed or grated; croutons or pretty much anything!!

[sires6]

Actually, there's a cool instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Growing-Mushrooms%3a-PF-Tek/

Yoghurt can be grown very cheaply (I have some going right now) with non-fat dried milk, water and some cheap unflavored yoghurt from the store. maybe I'll do an instructable on that!

[shesparticular]

There's one on growing shiitake and oyster mushrooms now too - they provide a little more nutrition than cubes do.

[Dr. Rex]

I hope you do know that it is probably a bad idea to make a meal with these mushrooms? Psylicybe Cubensis is not meant for nutrition! But if you want to "experiment" please make sure that you know what you are dealing with, enough bright minds have been screwed by Ms. Psilocybe through time because of lacking information. Anyways this process should work fine with other fungi like oysters and such.

[Hoopajoo]

True. We are told in USAF Survival School to not bother with mushrooms when foraging. They contain virtually no nutritional content and as such are not worth the health risks involved.

[thatgengirl]

Kimchi is considered one of the healthiest foods to eat, and it's super cheap to make - in facxt, I'm sure you could get someone to give you the cabbage from their garden in exchange for an hour of weeding.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Kimchi

[pleabargain]

Post your Instructable on how to make Kimchi!

[mguer133]

I've just been back from 3 weeks back packing in South Korea where Kimchi is THE national side dish.. They also use a lot of pimiento in there Kimchi and they have the highest rate for stomach cancer in the world... Also Kimchi can be good and very bad ...

[pleabargain]

I've not read through all the comments but I'd like to say that planting a few potatoes, onions, carrot and swiss chard has been a very nice ex: of free food... well, the seeds for some cost about 1.19 USD.

[matrix43547]

If you live near a lake or in the country you can catch free fish, nothing beats a nice fried fish.

[darlat]

Another cheap food: fried rice. You can make it with brown or white rice, whatever vegetables you have, an egg or two, soy sauce and sesame oil. I make a large batch of brown rice to keep in the fridge until it is all used up (usually a couple of days). Nuke or saute your vegetables until cooked. Put to the side and scramble your eggs. Add cooked rice and soy sauce and a little sesame oil to taste, cook until warmed through and you're done! Cheap, gluten free, filling and good! I haven't put in amounts because you don't need exact measurements for this; it's like making soup. Best way to cook rice: measure rice and cold water, put both in the pot. Boil uncovered until the rice has swelled up to the top of the water and there are little steaming "craters" in the top. Take pot off the heat and cover for 5-10 minutes, and it's done.

[surroundsound5000]

Eggs are fairly cheap here in Australia too. Our dollar is a little weaker, but I think eggs work out at around 40-50c. Also, I only buy free range eggs. There was local eggs available at the fruit shop near where I used to live, trays of something like 30 eggs were about $5. That made me want to eat alot of eggs : ) -M'

[Kryptonite]

Omagosh, 3 hands!!!

[jinonaspa]

Instant ramen: 6 meals $1.15 at Publix

[altomic]

when I first lived in Japan I was away from my girlfriend and extremely depressed. I was living on 37 yen a day. a fried egg sandwich with cheese and tomato sauce for dinner. I was overweight when I arrived in Japan (due to1 month with too much money, no work and being in love). Japan in mid summer 100% humidity 35 celcius per day. and I started jogging. Lost 25 kgs in 2 months