How to Eat on $20.00 a Month.

Statistically you will have a major financial crisis in the next seven to ten years. You don’t know how it’s going to happen or when it’s going to happen, but chances are it’s going to happen. It could be a job layoff, a medical problem, a lost loved one, an automobile accident, or something else. Good insurance and heavily funded emergency funds are a great way to hedge against these things, but most people never get around to doing that. If you find yourself in a major financial crisis, there’s not going to be a lot of money to go around. You’re going to have to cut back on your expenses drastically. This means that you have to take care of the essentials and nothing else. Here’s how you can eat on just $20.00 a month if such an event were to occur.

The first thing you need to do to eat on $20.00 a month is say goodbye to eating out, period (unless someone else pays for it, that is.) If you go out to eat, you could easily spend your entire month’s budget on just two or three meals. Don’t let this happen to you. You have to take it out of the realm of possibility if you want to live on $20.00 a month. It’s the most expensive way to eat.

Take advantage of any free food that’s available to you. This means eating breakfast at the supermarket on Saturday, getting the free Sunday meal from the local church, and maybe even a Wednesday evening meal from the church if you’re lucky too. If you’re in college or school, attend all of the meetings that offer free pizza in a vane attempt to get your to join their club. There’s free food out there, you just have to know where it is.

If you’re absolutely crazy, you can ask a fast food restaurant for meat that they can’t use. Tell them it’s for a pet, and it might not be the best, it will certainly need to be cooked again to avoid any unwanted bacteria. It might not be pretty, but it’ll be food that wasn’t there before.

Use lots and lots of coupons. Get all of the circulars from the local grocery stores and scour through them with a microscope. Most of the time they will just mail them to you to begin with. Search for the loss-leader items that you can get a great deal on. Last week I picked up some free Mac’N’Cheese because I brought a coupon in to the local grocery store. 90% of the items that you buy should be with coupons or on sale. Ask if they’ll match the competitors price, spend as little money as possible.

Buy the right things. When you are at the grocery store, don’t buy prepackaged and pre-prepared meals. This is the most expensive way to shop when you’re at a grocery store. Instead focus on the essentials. Get things which will give you lots of good fat, protein, and nutrients for a little amount of money. This means things like bread, ramen noodles, fruits, vegetables, soup, and the like. If you’re going to make something fancy, don’t buy it in a box, get a recipe and make it yourself. Never buy a product just because of its brand, buy generic products.

Only buy the essentials. Most of us keep all sorts of un-needed food at our house. Only buy what you need to eat for your three square meals a day. Don’t buy a lot of snacks, you just can’t afford them. Get the important things and nothing else. Make a list of what you need to get and what it’s going to cost you before you go to the grocery store so that you can plan where your $20 is going to go before you spend it.

Grow and get your own food. Instead of paying someone else to grow vegetables, why not grow your own if you have a yard available to you? You can buy a huge packet of seeds for just under a dollar. A few months later you’ll have a nice crop of whatever vegetable you want at a fraction of the price available at the grocery store. If you’re not a gardener, you might want to consider hunting or fishing for some extra food if you already have the tools and licenses needed.

Fast. If you’re a Christian or Jewish, you should seriously consider reading up on fasting. There are numerous spiritual benefits from depriving yourself from some basic necessities. Take a look in Chapter 58 in the book of Isaiah for additional information. Consider skipping a couple of meals and instead using that time to become closer to God.

Kitchen Sink Soup. If you’re absolutely out of practically everything, boil a big pot of water, slice up any bits of vegetables and food that you have and throw it together to make a stew. Throw in a bit of pepper and salt for spices, and chances are you’ll be able to come up with something that’s very edible.

It’s certainly not going to be pretty, but it can be done. Some people will find themselves in a situation where they need to cut back dramatically on the money they spend on food. You can live on less than $20.00 per month for food and not starve.