LIFE HACKS: Escape food poverty, and eat like the middle class on a poor person's budget!

Alright guys, I've been living on my own, thrifting, cooking, and finding all the best deals in order to eat like a middle class person. Today, I'm going to show you all how you, too, can achieve this! It's actually easier than you'd think. On average, I spend 5 dollars per day on food, but if you shop carefully, you can achieve these results on half of what I'm spending, easily, especially if you do not have to shop for a restricted diet or food allergies.

Rice and potatoes should be your primary starches. Both are very cheap, and very nutritious. Use them as a base for your meals. I keep mine in dog food containers, which keeps them fresh and out of the way.

Carrots, onions, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes can be bought in bulk bags for less than 30c a pound. Carrots keep for about a month in the fridge and are extremely versatile. I've kept onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes for up to three months. Around Fall, be sure to pick up gourds and squashes for bottom dollar prices. As long as they are kept dry and cold, they will keep for a few months. Even halloween pumpkins are delicious, edible and cheap. Use them in soups, stews, breads, muffins, or just fry up slices in stir fries!

Learn to love eggs. They can go in almost anything you'll be cooking, and serve as a great source of nutrients and protein. You can buy them in bulk at Walmart. I paid 11c an egg for these! Eggs will also last several months in the fridge.

Kind of blurry, but I paid 3 dollars each for these grass fed, organic beef club steaks. Each one weighs about 1.5 lbs. You can get at least two meals out of each steak if you're eating it with sides and veggies. Always shop the "manager's special" every time you go to the store. I've gotten veal, duck, prime rib, etc for next to nothing. Be sure to check the produce section as well! Often, bruised or nicked produce will be on discount for 70% off. Since they don't have much life left raw due to the damage, I strongly suggest chopping these up and freezing them. For example: you can get a lb of mushrooms for 30c on discount. So just clean them off, and toss in a freezer bag. Use as you need them in cooking. Even green vegetables like cabbage and spinach do well this way.

If there's nothing on sale, certain cuts of meat go for very cheap. It used to be that you could buy offal cuts for next to nothing, but they became popular hipster food. Go for anything that costs less than 1.99/lb, boneless preferred. Remember, you're paying for the weight of the bones as well as the meat, making those 99c/lb chicken thighs more like 2.00/lb once you've cleaned and deboned them. Of course, it's always nice to have these to make broth or stock out of the bones and any vegetable ends you don't want, so it's up to you!

It is much cheaper to buy fresh herbs and freeze them, and it makes your food taste a lot better! I just use these as needed. I have found them as cheap as 99c/lb, and a pound of rosemary or basil will last you months.

For spices, opt for bagged spices in the ethnic aisles (hispanic and indian especially) over the McCormick jars. Nearly a pound of turmeric costs 2 dollars in a bag, while the jarred spices can cost over 5 dollars for just a few ounces.

If you're running out of room in your freezer, canning can be a very viable option. You can also can things like potatoes, onions, and sweet potatoes if you accidently bought more than you can eat before they spoil. Things that cannot be frozen like cucumbers can also be preserved in this way. I also can up my broths and stocks after I make them. As a bonus, put a bow on them and give them to people for holiday gifts and they will act like you performed some sort of miracle even though it cost you almost nothing. Canning jars are very cheap at Walmart, and go on sale for 5.00 a case during black friday and in the early spring. They are reusable and very useful!

Think you can't afford seafood on a budget? WRONG. Try Asian grocery stores. I paid 3 to 4 dollars a package for this flounder and mackerel, and you can get about 4 hearty meals out of each one. It's even deboned! Mussels, outside of their shells, are also about 2.99 a lb in the frozen section of your favorite grocery store.

Still reading this far? Awesome, because now I'm going to share SECRETS. Amazon often mis-prices cases of items, charging only what it costs for a single box. You can find these things by browsing through their subscribe and save items, and looking for things that have a suspiciously low price per oz (anything under 15c is usually a deal!). https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_i_1?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=i%3Agrocery&bbn=5856181011&sort=price-asc-rank&ie=UTF8&qid=1516932502

SlickDeals (https://slickdeals.net) is also how I get things like 1 lb of heavy cream powder for less than 5 dollars. This will make literally gallons of heavy cream, and I don't have to worry about it going bad. Simply download the app, and set alerts for Grocery items.

You may have noticed that I focused only on unprocessed foods like meat, dairy and produce. This is because these foods are the only ones you should pay money for. For packaged, branded goods such as cereals, yogurts, etc, you can easily get them for free (or better!) by looking at weekly deals for your grocery store on this forum: https://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=38. By combining online coupons, special store discounts, and weekly promotions, you can get pretty much anything else you might want for nothing!

And that's my grocery shopping guide. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them!