Wednesday, January 14, 2009

On a shoestring

Instapundit is amused and so am I. CBS claims feeding a family a home-cooked meal for $35.00 is on a shoestring, and asks "How low can you go"?
As The Early Show Saturday Edition's "Chef on a Shoestring," Freitag sought to take a traditional, three-course spaghetti dinner and give it a little twist any family would love - on our new, lower, recession-busting budget of $35.
I've fed ten people for a whole lot less than $35.00. If the chicken was on sale, I could make a gumbo that would feed ten people for under $5.00. That chickens cousin, with some dumplings would feed a crowd for under $5.00. It's hard to beat a pot of red beans and rice, and that's almost free. Way under $5.00, unless you want sausage in it. For that matter, Freitag's Spaghetti dinner could be cooked for not much more than $5.00.

Or, for the truly frugal, a pot of mustard greens and a pone of cornbread is about the cheapest meal I know of. Lots of folks would be proud to have greens and cornbread for supper.

I've known women, who with $35.00 could feed a family for a week.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

By coincidence, my sister and I just finished a Crockpot of large lima beans. We estimated the overall cost to be $2.50 including the beans, the ham, the cornmeal and the electricity and gas to cook it all. It provided 7 all-you-can-eat portions at 37¢ per portion.

Anonymous said...

Same thought here. A dollar's worth of sausage, a pound of beans and a half-pound of rice and WOW!

I could probably do a WEEK on thirty-five bucks, but it wouldn't be instant anything...

MC

Anonymous said...

For a good laugh at the expence of CBS, go to the article Pawpaw linked and read the readers' comments at the bottom.

Rivrdog said...

I have the Reed College Student's Guide to Cookery and Housekeepery, a lighthearted little 1960's cookbook that was based on feeding a gaggle of four college students on a dollar per day (in 1960's prices). The ingredients they used (tuna, hominy, etc) are about 7 times as expensive today, but four college students eating for $7/day?

See BS is generally out of touch, but this is REALLY out in left field.

Old NFO said...

I've made more than one meal outta collards and corn bread. Those folks need to come down to the country and learn how to save $$ on groceries...

If ya grow it, cost is cheap, if ya shoot it, cost of a bullet; something tells me THAT was never a consideration :-)

Anonymous said...

35 bucks?!? Heck, a pound of spaghetti noodles is $1, a jar of el-cheapo sauce is $1, a loaf of french bread is $1, and $3-5 bucks for meat. Let's see, that makes $8 total, leaving 27 dollars for beer.

What are these people smoking?!?