What do we think about this?

ShesSoCold · April 2015

arrippa said:
Growing up, after my parents divorce, we ate a lot of popcorn and cereal for dinner. I have to give my mom credit and she made it special. It's only after many years that I realized we ate it because money was tight not because it was something fun for dinner.

Us too. I had NO idea that eating cereal and canned tuna for dinner was odd until I was an adult. We had no idea that we were poor. Reason number 48,746 why my mom is a badass.

littlepep · April 2015

amelisha said:
You're all killing me with these. So heartbreaking. A few months ago I got sucked down a Reddit rabbit hole where all these people were just telling stories like these ones about the moment they really knew they were poor and about the things their families used to do to feed the kids...and I sobbed at my desk for the remainder of the afternoon before driving to the grocery store and using like $150 of saved-up store loyalty points to buy stuff to put in the food bank donation bin.

I'm a spoiled jerk who's never had to do any of this in her life and have never had to think about my grocery budget. So since then I've consistently bought extra stuff to donate every week though, so thanks to them and you guys for reminding me that food insecurity is really present and terrible.

My parents were never rich, but we never had to think about groceries either. It's really sad to think about how many people aren't able to get basic groceries.

Someone else might know better than I do, but heard once that donating money to the food bank is even better than donating food because they are able to purchase fresh items as needed so I try to do that instead.

novella1186 · April 2015

peachy13 said:

arrippa said:
Growing up, after my parents divorce, we ate a lot of popcorn and cereal for dinner. I have to give my mom credit and she made it special. It's only after many years that I realized we ate it because money was tight not because it was something fun for dinner.
My FI often talks fondly about dinners his mother would make him and his siblings after his parents split up. Dinner was usually ramen and my FI and his siblings loved it, and their mother made it exciting and fun. It's a sweet memory to have.

We ate ramen soup a lot at my grandma's house when we were growing up. It was called "Grandma's Famous Soup" and we would get super excited to eat it. It was a huge treat to us. I didn't know ramen was a thing you could buy at the store till I was in college. I spent 20 years thinking it really was my grandma's special secret recipe and I would brag about it to all my friends.

To this day ramen soup is special to me.

VulgarGirl · April 2015

We ate a ton of rice and pasta and potatoes growing up. It wasn't until I grew up that I realized this was because those things are cheap and easy to make. And then I ate a lot of rice and pasta and potatoes because they are cheap and easy to make.

My grandma made her goulosh with tomato soup, or tomato paste watered down whatever was cheaper, ground meat, and elbow macaroni. This is still one of my favorite cheap foods. We'd also have rice and peas, which is tomato paste, rice and peas. I make it all the time.

Oh and grandma used to make homemade mac and cheese by using elbow macaroni and melting a cheese slice (like the kraft kind) in it. I seriously thought that was homemade mac and cheese forever.

amelisha · April 2015

littlepep said:

amelisha said:
You're all killing me with these. So heartbreaking. A few months ago I got sucked down a Reddit rabbit hole where all these people were just telling stories like these ones about the moment they really knew they were poor and about the things their families used to do to feed the kids...and I sobbed at my desk for the remainder of the afternoon before driving to the grocery store and using like $150 of saved-up store loyalty points to buy stuff to put in the food bank donation bin.

I'm a spoiled jerk who's never had to do any of this in her life and have never had to think about my grocery budget. So since then I've consistently bought extra stuff to donate every week though, so thanks to them and you guys for reminding me that food insecurity is really present and terrible.
My parents were never rich, but we never had to think about groceries either. It's really sad to think about how many people aren't able to get basic groceries.

Someone else might know better than I do, but heard once that donating money to the food bank is even better than donating food because they are able to purchase fresh items as needed so I try to do that instead.

It depends on your area. I've volunteered at ours a few times with work etc., and they actually have a pretty robust program in place for fruit/veg and dairy and struggle more with certain nonperishable items, infant formula, that kind of thing. However, donating money is never a bad thing because they can buy whatever's most needed at the time, obviously. I usually donate food because I use my loyalty points on it. If my grocery store could arrange points donation to the local food bank, though, I'd be all over it.

theartistformerlyknownas · April 2015

This shouldn't be heartbreaking. That shit was delicious.

hellosweetie1015 · April 2015

lolo883 said:
This shouldn't be heartbreaking. That shit was delicious.

This. I know for a fact that chicken noodle and chick'n'rice'n'cheese casseroles will be staples in my house. Possibly with more chicken / slightly more fancy if FI is on dinner duty, but if I've had a shitty day, my go-to comfort foods are the dirt cheap things my mom threw together out of her change purse.

theartistformerlyknownas · April 2015

hellosweetie1015 said:

lolo883 said:
This shouldn't be heartbreaking. That shit was delicious.
This. I know for a fact that chicken noodle and chick'n'rice'n'cheese casseroles will be staples in my house. Possibly with more chicken / slightly more fancy if FI is on dinner duty, but if I've had a shitty day, my go-to comfort foods are the dirt cheap things my mom threw together out of her change purse.

Hell yeah. Throw some breadcrumbs and parmesan on that bitch and you've got a party.

Gwyneth will bring the margaritas.

chibiyui · April 2015

novella1186 said:

peachy13 said:

arrippa said:
Growing up, after my parents divorce, we ate a lot of popcorn and cereal for dinner. I have to give my mom credit and she made it special. It's only after many years that I realized we ate it because money was tight not because it was something fun for dinner.
My FI often talks fondly about dinners his mother would make him and his siblings after his parents split up. Dinner was usually ramen and my FI and his siblings loved it, and their mother made it exciting and fun. It's a sweet memory to have.
We ate ramen soup a lot at my grandma's house when we were growing up. It was called "Grandma's Famous Soup" and we would get super excited to eat it. It was a huge treat to us. I didn't know ramen was a thing you could buy at the store till I was in college. I spent 20 years thinking it really was my grandma's special secret recipe and I would brag about it to all my friends.

To this day ramen soup is special to me.

My grandma also made Ramen! We called it "curly noodles" and with it we'd have peanut butter molasses bread on the side (exactly what it sounds like, white bread, peanut butter and molasses on top).

hot chocolate and toast was also a big meal for us.

Cookie Pusher · April 2015

We ate a lot of ramen and macaroni soup too. Grandma would throw whatever dribs and drabs of leftover meat/veg in to make it more filling. When I'm having a bad day, I still want a bowl of macaroni soup with peas, carrots, and canned corn.

kmmssg · April 2015

I had forgotten about eating cereal for dinner. My girls thought it was cool but we were broke as hell. They are 32 and 34 now.....maybe I should tell them why we ate that...

wandajune6 · April 2015

We ate a lot of oatmeal. My dad always thought that cereal was expensive. There was also a lot of red beans with rice, vegetarian chili, pancakes with peanut butter, and cabbage soup.

My dad was a bit of a radical (per my dad, radicals were hippies who had to work to survive) when he was learning to cook- and was dirt poor. He taught himself to cook when he was living at the subsistence level. That translated to almost no packaged goods in the house.

KatieinBkln · April 2015

There is something so satisfying about putting together a wholesome meal out of very little. I know my grandmother did it growing up during The Depression, and then it became a matter of course once she had a family of her own. Frugality was important for its own sake to her (even though she and my grandfather did just fine). It was a point of pride, I think, in the way she "kept the house" and budgeted things.

Some of that definitely passed down to my mother, although as we got older it seems like "foodie" culture started influencing us all (along with the stark realization that uh, you gotta eat more than canned green beans as your "vegetable" if you want to avoid obesity in our family) and while I doubt very much that my mom is feeding my dad nothing but imported organic arugula and grass-fed Kobe beef every day, the "frugal kitchen" days really did fade away.

And now I'm the next generation, completely into kale and "freshness" and "eating local"--all of which I'm sure are good things, and healthy things...but I do think there's something you lose when you aren't forced to be more creative. I haven't made a casserole in my life, but I remember eating them as a kid, and loving them. Maybe it's time to get back to my frugal midwestern roots, if only to remind myself how privileged I am. (Don't worry though, I promise I won't put out a press release about it.)

wandajune6 · April 2015

KatieinBkln said:
There is something so satisfying about putting together a wholesome meal out of very little. I know my grandmother did it growing up during The Depression, and then it became a matter of course once she had a family of her own. Frugality was important for its own sake to her (even though she and my grandfather did just fine). It was a point of pride, I think, in the way she "kept the house" and budgeted things.

Some of that definitely passed down to my mother, although as we got older it seems like "foodie" culture started influencing us all (along with the stark realization that uh, you gotta eat more than canned green beans as your "vegetable" if you want to avoid obesity in our family) and while I doubt very much that my mom is feeding my dad nothing but imported organic arugula and grass-fed Kobe beef every day, the "frugal kitchen" days really did fade away.

And now I'm the next generation, completely into kale and "freshness" and "eating local"--all of which I'm sure are good things, and healthy things...but I do think there's something you lose when you aren't forced to be more creative. I haven't made a casserole in my life, but I remember eating them as a kid, and loving them. Maybe it's time to get back to my frugal midwestern roots, if only to remind myself how privileged I am. (Don't worry though, I promise I won't put out a press release about it.)

Try a CSA. If you eat a lot of organic produce, it's usually cheaper than the grocery store. (I no longer have one easily accessible but did for years.) You get seasonal produce of different types that forces a bit of creativity. It's definitely not cheap (eat least by me) but they are usually a good value.

You usually end up with a bin of seasonal produce, including things that you may not be familiar with or in quantities that stump you. I always felt like a failure when things went bad because they were missed opportunities.

It might be worth a shot.

KatieinBkln · April 2015

wandajune6 said:

KatieinBkln said:
There is something so satisfying about putting together a wholesome meal out of very little. I know my grandmother did it growing up during The Depression, and then it became a matter of course once she had a family of her own. Frugality was important for its own sake to her (even though she and my grandfather did just fine). It was a point of pride, I think, in the way she "kept the house" and budgeted things.

Some of that definitely passed down to my mother, although as we got older it seems like "foodie" culture started influencing us all (along with the stark realization that uh, you gotta eat more than canned green beans as your "vegetable" if you want to avoid obesity in our family) and while I doubt very much that my mom is feeding my dad nothing but imported organic arugula and grass-fed Kobe beef every day, the "frugal kitchen" days really did fade away.

And now I'm the next generation, completely into kale and "freshness" and "eating local"--all of which I'm sure are good things, and healthy things...but I do think there's something you lose when you aren't forced to be more creative. I haven't made a casserole in my life, but I remember eating them as a kid, and loving them. Maybe it's time to get back to my frugal midwestern roots, if only to remind myself how privileged I am. (Don't worry though, I promise I won't put out a press release about it.)
Try a CSA. If you eat a lot of organic produce, it's usually cheaper than the grocery store. (I no longer have one easily accessible but did for years.) You get seasonal produce of different types that forces a bit of creativity. It's definitely not cheap (eat least by me) but they are usually a good value.

You usually end up with a bin of seasonal produce, including things that you may not be familiar with or in quantities that stump you. I always felt like a failure when things went bad because they were missed opportunities.

It might be worth a shot.

I have one! (Well, it's technically more of a "curated grocery box from local/quality sources" since it includes meat and grains and pasta and cheese). I absolutely love it, but yeah--I definitely end up letting some of the things go bad because I suck and eat out/order in too much.

We did, however, eat the world's most delicious BLTs last night using the bacon, microgreens and avocado from the box. That was awesome.

lyndausvi · April 2015

KatieinBkln said:
There is something so satisfying about putting together a wholesome meal out of very little. I know my grandmother did it growing up during The Depression, and then it became a matter of course once she had a family of her own. Frugality was important for its own sake to her (even though she and my grandfather did just fine). It was a point of pride, I think, in the way she "kept the house" and budgeted things.

Some of that definitely passed down to my mother, although as we got older it seems like "foodie" culture started influencing us all (along with the stark realization that uh, you gotta eat more than canned green beans as your "vegetable" if you want to avoid obesity in our family) and while I doubt very much that my mom is feeding my dad nothing but imported organic arugula and grass-fed Kobe beef every day, the "frugal kitchen" days really did fade away.

And now I'm the next generation, completely into kale and "freshness" and "eating local"--all of which I'm sure are good things, and healthy things...but I do think there's something you lose when you aren't forced to be more creative. I haven't made a casserole in my life, but I remember eating them as a kid, and loving them. Maybe it's time to get back to my frugal midwestern roots, if only to remind myself how privileged I am. (Don't worry though, I promise I won't put out a press release about it.)

Yes. This.

charlottesmom0626 · April 2015

KatieinBkln

When I was in college I was broke (like most of us) and made a point of finding creative ways to eat cheap meals that were healthy. I'd say I spent probably $25/week to feed myself, and the food was good! And it was good for me too.

Now I'm disappointed in my creativity skills. Oh the label is organic? Oh bison is better for me than beef? cool, I'll just purchase those things instead and spend the money.

Just because we aren't struggling right now, shouldn't mean I just stop trying to come up with those creative, cheap meals that sustained me for years. Thank you for bringing this up, I think I'll be reevaluating my future meal plans

theartistformerlyknownas · April 2015

Share a casserole recipe Tuesday, anyone??

jacques27 · April 2015

I know I'm slightly late to the party on this one. I'm torn. I don't inherently hate the SNAP challenge. One of my favorite actors did it three years ago and blogged about it. He routinely promotes mazon.org, so this wasn't so much a one-off "Oh look, it's stare at the food stamp people week" like this seems to be. Do I realize that this sort of thing doesn't really solve the problem? Of course, but I think that sometimes awareness and the ability to empathize is lacking in our society and if this puts a little bit of that back in I don't see how it's so horrible. When he did it, it didn't seem like attention whoring (of course, he has far less visibility than Gwyneth Paltrow, too). He acknowledged the shift in thinking and difficulty of it, as well as the luxury of knowing that he only had to last a week. And while it might have been "cheating", he also acknowledged he F'd up royally with some of his purchases (like individual yogurts vs. a tub, baby carrots instead whole carrots, etc.) and redid his purchases, taking the comments he got to heart. Here are his posts from 2012, if anyone is interested:
http://joshuamalina.tumblr.com/post/26785873333/mazon-a-jewish-response-to-hunger-is-a-wonderful
http://joshuamalina.tumblr.com/post/26843612918/tweakage
http://joshuamalina.tumblr.com/post/27101168416/huh
http://joshuamalina.tumblr.com/post/27318707307/day-seven

That said, I have to admit I thought GP's purchases weren't as bad as I was picturing from the talk. I mean, whole produce is generally cheaper than washed and prepared and she appears to have purchased generic store brands with her frozen veggies, rice, and dried beans. Is cilantro and seven limes a bit out of touch? Of course, because she's out of touch so it really shouldn't be surprising at this point. I was on her website about a year and a half ago and she was featuring her essential wardrobe must haves. And one was "everyone must have that essential basic gray sweatshirt that is just so cozy to lounge around the house in" and I clicked on the link. This basic gray sweatshirt cost more than my mortgage and car payments combined. And it was just a basic gray sweatshirt that looked like your average Champion brand currently available at Sears for $14 gray sweatshirt. It did not look any different - no adornments or design.

I just...I can't even with her. I know it seems trendy to pile on GP lately and in theory I want to like her, but I just can't stand her lack of self-awareness about her privilege and her persistence that she's the "every woman." If she just dropped that and admitted that like only 12 people can actually relate to her and she stopped foisting all of her "essential lifestyle advice" and pseudo-science on everyone, she probably wouldn't be half bad.

ETA: For the sake of comparison, I can get limes for 19 cents a piece if I shop at the Mexican grocer down the road from me - so it's not unheard of. It's not how I would probably budget my money, but if you're smart about where you shop it's not that bad.

hellosweetie1015 · April 2015

lolo883 said:
Share a casserole recipe Tuesday, anyone??

Girl YAS. I'm a huge fan of this idea.

sophhabobopha · April 2015

hellosweetie1015 said:

lolo883 said:
Share a casserole recipe Tuesday, anyone??
Girl YAS. I'm a huge fan of this idea.

YAS seconded.

lyndausvi · April 2015

sophhabobopha said:

hellosweetie1015 said:

lolo883 said:
Share a casserole recipe Tuesday, anyone??
Girl YAS. I'm a huge fan of this idea.
YAS seconded.

I would love to, but I don't have any.

DH isn't a fan of casseroles. I like them, but it's just me most of the time at dinner time. It's just too much food for me. I'm not a huge fan of leftovers as it is. So an entire casserole for myself would just go to waste.

What do we think about this?

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