I kinda feel like this is a dumb question but I guess I want to make sure because I might be spending a lot of money in one go and feel queasy about it. So help me out.
I am on a diet. Strict one. Have been for past year. I also track every calorie I eat. Many times I end up buying food that is quite expensive like cauliflower rice but I do it because to me it’s a premium to making it myself and also because it’s better than last year when i was binging McDonald’s.
Anyways. I mention all that because I am considering purchasing a HUEL subscription. It’s a food delivery service thing that has microwaveable meals. I saw they have a promo for 20% off if you subscribe, plus another 10% off if you spend more than $110 and Im a student so I got another 20% off. I did the math and if I stick to just eating this, I will hit my calorie goals and macros and it will last me a month for 9 boxes. So everything is $320.76.
I feel like pros are time saved cooking and cleaning (could be studying), driving to grocery store, not having to worry about counting kcal all time, plus mental toll of thinking about what to cook.
I just cant tell if $320 is too much to be spending per month, and im pretty strapped rn but i figure i have to eat anyway so maybe front load the cost? Idk
Tdlr: is $320 a month on food frugal?
Is $10.69 a day on food good for broke college student?
byu/blackjesus-1 inFrugal
Posted by blackjesus-1
8 Comments
Nah not worth it. Much cheaper to just make the meals on your own imho
I personally think it is reasonable if you have a restrictive diet. For one person, $100 per week for groceries was considered acceptable before prices went up. My concern would be making sure what you get is of decent quality and tastes good since you would be stuck with it for months. As far as cooking and meal planning, you could check the sales for the week at wherever you shop and plan a week’s worth of meals in one go.
DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO FOOD DELIVERY SERVICES.
Definitely more money than you need to spend. Utilize your freezer ! For lunches say if you like sandwiches, buy a pound of ham or whatever and cheese. Make the sandwiches without condiments and wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them. Before bed put one in the fridge and it’ll be thawed for lunch tomorrow..
Macros can be hit just by going on Amazon and buying some good containers and go to a store and buy bulk chicken or whatever your preferred protein( $12 for a huge container of chicken breast from aldi ) and that’ll last 4 or 5 days of dinners and swap out the veggies or carbs to hit your macros. I made this yesterday
10 pack of Hamburgers from aldi for $12 but 50% off it expired today so $6.
I froze 5 for another meal and made 5 as ground beef with tomato sauce and penne pasta.
$6 ground beef
$1.25 penne
$1.69 sauce
$1.00 parmesan cheese
$9.94 plus cooking costs etc. But as you can see this could feed a family of 5 dinner easily or you for a few days ( get tired of eating it freeze it)
Now add $3 for a pack of hamburger buns,some cheese and your frozen other half of the package of meat is another dinner for a couple days..
I think you can eat better and way cheaper cooking yourself
Here’s a tip. I shop at aldi and am the first one in line. I go right to the meat section and grab whatever is 50% off and whatever we don’t eat before it expires goes directly in the freezer. Fill in the veggies and whatever else you want after. The meat is the expensive part of your grocery bill
Good luck
Factor in the time cost. If you enjoy preparing food and you have lots of time to do it then no.
If you just want to eat and not spend a bunch of time meal prepping then yeah
Think i spend about 4.80 on food and drinks a day.
Sometimes I make something big in a pan that il eat multiple days. But il then add more things in.
So definitely can be a lot smaller while being healthy.
Like I also have a weekly fruit day. And fish day. So pretty sure it can be cheaper and healthy
I was just checking local grocery store prices. So by me ground chicken/turkey is $4 (did not know that lol shopping at wrong place). Vegetables like $2-3 per bag. And I usually add some sort of salad. And thats my day, so im coming out to about $8-10 a day with the way I eat (grocery store prices i just googled). Others recommended pasta but I need volume and a lot of it. Pasta so cheap and I love it so much but it doesn’t fill me like eating an entire bag of broccoli.
Someone else recommended freezing meat after sales. Which I think could save me a ton. But I don’t think I can get down below $2 a day without using pasta/rice. I think I could prob get down to $6 maybe if what i see online is correct. So $6 vs huel $10 would be $120 in savings a month. Yeah thats very good lol. But if I can get that low is the question plus factoring in time.
Do you not have a meal plan? And start shopping at Walmart and by the GREAT VALUE products