Let's say you only had $25 to spend on ALL food to get your family to the next paycheck. Would you be able to do it? Let's assume you don't have a huge stockpile to draw upon (you just have the basics like flour, sugar, spices). What would you buy? What would be on your shopping list? Is it possible to do it and eat somewhat healthy at the same time?

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Someone can feed their family for a month on $25? In the US? With no stockpile? And the family isn't going hungry?

There are 3 of us. I guess we would need about 4000 calories a day to keep our family from starting to starve, and that's without exercising; 5000 probably with our regular workouts. If you can manage to get some really good deals with coupons, you can get quite a bit for free. And some of the things I've gotten free recently are pretty high in calories (ice cream and chocolate, for example).

But still. I manage to do a whole lot of our meals completely free or for under a dollar, because of coupons, and I still don't see how you could do it. Even beans cost about $1 a bag and that's only about 1000 calories. Coupons, scavenging, bartering for food would be the only things that would help.

$25 for a family for a month?? Or even for two weeks, if that's the paycheck to paycheck time-frame you are thinking? Where did this figure come from? I've never heard anything like that. There is an All You frugal contest that has $25/family member/week, which seems quite doable.

No, not a month. I don't think that would be doable. I think the majority of people get paid every other week, so for most "getting to the next paycheck" would mean that the prior paycheck is gone, and the next one is less than two weeks away. For most, on average, this would mean about a week. I'm just posing the question - would your family be able to survive to your next paycheck with just $25? What would you buy?

If I were doing this, I could buy:
Eggs, 2 doz. $3.00
Chicken, whole $4.50
Milk $2.30
Margarine $.75
Rice $2.00
Pasta $1.00
Beans, dried $1.20
Bread $1.00
Broccoli, Frozen $1.50
Peanut Butter $2.50
Cheddar, block $2.50
Potatoes $3.50
Salsa $1.50

These are based on Aldi prices. The total comes to about $26. I could make several meals with these ingredients, starting with the chicken. I'd boil the bones to make broth and could turn that into a sauce for rice/broccoli casserole. The eggs could be the basis for breakfast for dinner along with the salsa, beans and Cheddar. We could fill in with peanut butter sandwiches. I think we could do it.

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I think it's doable for 2 weeks. If we had the basics of flour, sugar and spices I would make use of that for the bread and could easily make things like knephla soup with the chicken broth made from the chicken with potatoes. There are a lot of things to be made with flour and water as a starting point (thinking back to my german heritage ;-)). Not the healthiest but it is filling--high in calories but doable.

I've never heard of knephla soup... what is it? I'm curious!

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I couldn't do it, I wouldn't want to do it, and I am thankful I don't have to do it.

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knephla is just a dough made from flour, water and salt. using a kitchen shears, snip small "buttons" into boiling broth. they will float when done. My broth usually is a chicken broth. I put potatoes, pieces of chicken or ham or sausage (whatever I have on hand), onion, celery, carrots, etc into broth. If I have a can of cream of chicken soup I will add that as well to make it extra creamy.

My grandmother also taught us how to make the knephla in just boiling salted water, drain well and fry in a little bit of butter with potatoes and bread crumbs. Yummy! There are some old Germans who will put a white flour gravy over the fried knephla/potato mix.

YUMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!! That sounds really good!

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Jessica Nichole! Mommy of 1 little boy!

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Ok, I think I could do it. Here's my list:

eggs 1
jam 2.5
peanut butter 3
margarine 0.5
rice 1.5
carrots 2
ww pasta 2.5
tomato sauce 2
4 canned tomatoes 2
2 canned corn 1
milk 2
potatoes 3
cheese 2

I'd make:
waffles
pancakes
puffy pancakes
PBJ with homemade bread
spanish rice and homemade tortillas
veggie pasta with grated carrots
baked potatoes with cheese (could make salsa with the tomatoes as well to go on it)
fried potatoes with cheese
egg fried rice

Not very healthy, but we'd survive.

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This sounds so good! Thanks for sharing!

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