I have $24 to last me til Friday, what should I buy with it?
a pallet of ramen noodles
I hate ramen noodles tho
hmmmmm
bees?
Are you suggesting that I eat bees for a week
This is roughly what I make sure I have in my kitchen all the time along with rough estimates of local prices (MN). I buy a lot of things when they’re on sale and stockpile them.
instant oatmeal packets with fruit in them – $3 probably and this can be breakfast all week and maybe even a lunch or dinner too since you usually get 10 packets
bag of rice – $2-3 depending on size. 1 cup dry rice makes enough for about two meals depending on what you add in. if you get cheap rice, rinse it before cooking
canned beans – usually under $1 per can – mix the can with your rice and you have a meal. chili-spiced beans will make bean tacos. Rinse non-spiced beans before adding to anything.
Tortilla – usually around $3 but you get like 8-10 of them. Tacos, wraps, and quesadillas are all fair game here
lettuce – $2 max around here, either a head of something or bagged precut depending on preference, use as a salad or on tacos
protein other than beans of some sort – probably $5-7 for meat, $2-3 for eggs. sometimes I can get bags of frozen chicken breasts in this price range and each is usually 2 meals if I add in a bunch of veggies. fry/scramble eggs and add to any of the options.
your favorite stir fry sauce – $3ish
vegetables – $5ish. literally anything that you can 1. fry in a pan and 2. you’ll eat. fresh carrots are usually pretty cheap. get frozen if it’s cheaper and you’re strapped for cash/prep time on this part.
alternative to stir fry: pasta (~$2), fresh tomatoes (~$2), cheese (~$3).
cheese and fruit if you have extra – look if your store has loyalty cards for free that you can load coupons on for cheese there’s always one it seems like.
ahh thank you!!!
Reblogging because there’s never knowing who’ll need it.
Adding also: the single most nutritious food on earth is potatoes in their peel. Potatoes + some milk and butter = everything you need. They don’t last all that long, but they’re fairly cheap and the quickest cheat to “How do I not fuck my body up.”
(Cooked potatoes’ll last a while in the fridge. Potatoes nearing the end of their useful lives? Cook them to half-done first, figure out what to do with them later.)
Easiest baked potatoes: slice thinly but not paper-like, spread like cards, brush with oil (a silicone baking brush is totes worth the little it costs), spread salt and pepper (a little less than you think you’d like), cover with foil, stick in oven or toaster-oven at 150C for 40min. (If you have the patience, at that point click up to 180C, remove the cover and add 10-20min.) Reheats well, lasts in the fridge longer than it’ll take you to nom.
Dead-Animal-Free Whole Protein: some legumes + some grain. AKA rice and lentils, or rice and beans. (Maybe some fried onion for flavor; onion’s cheap and stays good a descent while. Fried onion makes everything taste better and keeps forever in the freezer, so frying up a bunch and keeping portions is not a half-bad idea.) (If going for the beans option – lentils are cheaper around here but fuck if I know what it’s like in your area – dump some tomato sauce and oil in; canola or soy are best health-wise, and far cheaper than olive; avoid corn.) Oh, what does instant couscous go for in your area? It keeps for fucking ever, it’s usually cheap, and it takes well to any and all added taste.
If you get to choose, black lentils taste the best and need the least soak-time (0-20min), green lentils are best for cooked stuff and red lentils are best in soups. (Red lentils + potatoes + root vegetables of choice + spices; cut into small pieces, cook, run through the blender if you wanna [stick blender’s awesome], freeze in portions.)
When possible, get instant soup mix. Get the good instant soup mix. (The kind that’s not made primarily of sugar, yeast or both. The rest is optional.) Dump 1/2tsp (or more, but start on the low end) into couscous, or chicken, or sprinkle over potatoes being stuck in the oven. Whatever. It’ll make most cooked-food-type things taste better. And again, lasts forever on the shelf.
If you can have eggs (goodness knows they’re sometimes expensive), dump some tomato sauce in a pan (tomato sauce lasts forever on the shelf), add some oil, onion/beans to cook in it, hot peppers if you wanna, then when it’s nearly ready crack an egg or two in. Hard-boiled eggs last a remarkably while in the fridge, so when eggs reach near the end of their usable lives, just hard-boil and stick in the fridge.
(Have eggs as often as you can, particularly as you have brain-shit going on. You need all the eggs, salt, and 60%-or-more chocolate you can get. Brains are made of cholesterol and salt, so folks with neuro or other brain shit need more of both. Potassium is also aces. You know what has the most potassium? Tomato paste.)
Grated cheese keeps in the freezer for ever. Grated cheese will make a lot of things taste nicer. Preserved lemon juice keeps forever in the fridge. Grated cheese + oil + lemon = instant and awesome pasta sauce that’ll liven up the weeks-old dry pasta in the fridge.
Slices bread also keeps well in the freezer. Try to have half a loaf or a loaf. Dry bread gets cut in cubes, mixed with oil and the aforementioned instant soup, stuck in oven at lowest until properly dry, then kept in an airtight jar to add to soups.
(Over-ripe tomatoes come cheaper. They get turned into soup or sauce, then frozen in portions.)
this is a very good post but why are we glossing over the fact that the alternative to ramen is bees
i have it on pretty good authority that bees are not an affordable eating alternative to ramen.
Seriously, bees are expensive
Trufax.
And speaking as someone who is also living off oatmeal, beans, and brown rice, if you need recipes, I have them!
Today I made 16 bean soup with chicken sausage and it was crazy good and I got 8 servings out of the one batch (froze half). I usually get the cheapest beans I can find, and GOYA bags of beans are usually $1-2. I soaked them overnight,rinsed them, and threw them in a gallon lidded saucepan with 2 boxes of chicken stock (also on sale for $2), two bay leaves, sauteed green pepper, onion, and celery, some garlic from a jar, about two tablespoons of dried herbs de provence,and the “fancy” bit was adding $6 bourbon and apple chicken sausages. You can actually sub veg stock for chicken and skip the sausage and make it vegan and it would still taste great.
Oh and I’ve been doing steel-cut oats. I don’t buy the name brand ones, I just pick whatever store brand/generic I can get for less than $4. They take about ½ an hour to make, but they’re super tasty and I make 2 cups
of dried oats at a time
with dried cranberries and that’s breakfast for 4 days at least.
I’ve also been making black bean soup, red beans and rice, and curried potatoes and chick peas. I got 100 quart and pint take-away containers from Amazon for $20 and they all stack neatly and are perf for one serving of whatever.
Additionally, depending on where you live, whole rotisserie chickens are something like $4-$7 and are easily 4 – 6 servings of protein and on TOP of that, if you stick the carcass in a ziplock bag and then the freezer you have excellent soup makings. Using bones in soup literally squeezes all viable vitamins and minerals out of the suckers. Soup made from lots of bones is great to keep around if you get sick, it’ll feed and sooth you relatively easily and as you get better you can add noodles. ON TOP OF THAT, a quarter to a half cup of soup broth added to a lot of dishes also adds those nutrients PLUS flavor.
Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of fight you lost. Did you lose the battle with cancer? Maybe you died in a fist fight. Even facing addiction. After taking a deep drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down and asks for the glorious tale of your demise!
Oh my god, this is beautiful.
A small child enters Valhalla. The battle they lost was “hiding from an alcoholic father.” Odin sees the flinch when he slams the cup and refrains from doing it again. He hears the child’s pain; no glorious battle this, but one of fear and wretched survival.
He invites the child to sit with him, offers the choicest mead and instructs his men to bring a sword and shield, a bow and arrow, of the very best materials and appropriate size. “Here,” he says, “you will find no man who dares to harm you. But so you will know your own strength, and be happy all your days in Valhalla, I will teach you to use these weapons.”
The sad day comes when another child enters the hall. Odin does not slam his cup; he simply beams with pride as the first child approaches the newcomer, and holds out her bow and quiver, and says “nobody here will hurt you. Everyone will be so proud you did your best, and I’ll teach you to use these, so you always know how strong you are.”
————
A young man enters the hall. He hesitates when Odin asks his story, but at long last, it ekes out: skinheads after the Pride parade. His partner got into a building and called for help. The police took a little longer than perhaps they really needed to, and two of those selfsame skinheads are in the hospital now with broken bones that need setting, but six against one is no fair match. The fear in his face is obvious: here, among men large enough to break him in two, will he face an eternity of torment for the man he left behind?
Odin rumbles with anger. Curses the low worms who brought this man to his table, and regales him with tales of Loki so to show him his own welcome. “A day will come, my friend, when you seek to be reunited, and so you shall,” Odin tells him. “To request the aid of your comrades in battle is no shameful thing.”
———-
A woman in pink sits near the head of the table. She’s very nearly skin and bones, and has no hair. This will not last; health returns in Valhalla, and joy, and light, and merrymaking. But now her soul remembers the battle of her life, and it must heal.
Odin asks.
And asks again.
And the words pour out like poisoned water, things she couldn’t tell her husband or children. The pain of chemotherapy. The agony of a mastectomy, the pain still deeper of “we found a tumor in your lymph nodes. I’m so sorry.” And at last, the tortured question: what is left of her?
Odin raises his flagon high. “What is left of you, fair warrior queen, is a spirit bright as fire; a will as strong as any forged iron; a life as great as any sea. Your battle was hard-fought, and lost in the glory only such furor can bring, and now the pain and fight are behind you.“
In the months to come, she becomes a scop of the hall–no demotion, but simple choice. She tells the stories of the great healers, Agnes and Tanya, who fought alongside her and thousands of others, who turn from no battle in the belief that one day, one day, the war may be won; the warriors Jessie and Mabel and Jeri and Monique, still battling on; the queens and soldiers and great women of yore.
The day comes when she calls a familiar name, and another small, scarred woman, eyes sunken and dark, limbs frail, curly black hair shaved close to her head, looks up and sees her across the hall. Odin descends from his throne, a tall and foaming goblet in his hands, and stuns the hall entire into silence as he kneels before the newcomer and holds up the goblet between her small dark hands and bids her to drink.
“All-Father!” the feasting multitudes cry. “What brings great Odin, Spear-Shaker, Ancient One, Wand-Bearer, Teacher of Gods, to his knees for this lone waif?”
He waves them off with a hand.
“This woman, LaTeesha, Destroyer of Cancer, from whom the great tumors fly in fear, has fought that greatest battle,” he says, his voice rolling across the hall. “She has fought not another body, but her own; traded blows not with other limbs but with her own flesh; has allowed herself to be pierced with needles and scored with knives, taken poison into her very veins to defeat this enemy, and at long last it is time for her to put her weapons down. Do you think for a moment this fight is less glorious for being in silence, her deeds the less for having been aided by others who provided her weapons? She has a place in this great hall; indeed, the highest place.”
And the children perform feats of archery for the entertainment of all, and the women sing as the young man who still awaits his beloved plays a lute–which, after all, is not so different from the guitar he once used to break a man’s face in that great final fight.
Valhalla is a place of joy, of glory, of great feasting and merrymaking.
And it is a place for the soul and mind to heal.
literal tears in my eyes omg
This is a very beautiful thought, but Valhalla isn’t the only grand hall one can go to for their afterlife; I’d love to hear stories as beautiful as this for other halls.
There is a young girl, her body frail and small. The girl bares the marks of so many scars, so many beatings from her broken home. Every night was a constant fight to stay safe, every day at school, she had to say her bruises were from playing too hard. Her teachers would look at her, but not see what was happening, and the girl kept suffering. She hardly had a childhood before her mother took it from her one night, a drug induced rage that ended her life far too soon.
The girl enters the hall of Folkvangr, sobbing at every step. The goddess Freya, ethereal and lovely, sits upon a golden throne at the highest point of the hall. Freya is concerned, her brows furrowed.
“Why do you cry, child?” she asks, her voice rings like a thousand bells, echoing through the mighty hall.
The little girl hiccups, she fidgets and hides her scars, “you are so beautiful, and I’m afraid I’m too ugly to be here.”
Freya descends from her throne, gliding and golden like the passing of sunlight through trees. She kneels in front of the girl and embraces her.
“Dear child, I am the Vanadis Freya, goddess of beauty and battle. I have the first choice of the slain, and I chose you. You are beautiful and your fight is over. You have a home with me now. I will teach you to fight so that you never need to be afraid again, and I will love you no matter what.”
The girl looks up and sees the faces of gently smiling women and girls of all ages and colors behind the goddess. She knows that she has gained many mothers and grandmothers and sisters. The girl knows that for the first time since she can remember, she will finally be loved.
There is an old man with old wounds. He fought in war to protect everyone, only to come home to poverty and sadness. The old man lived the final days of his life on a bench in the park, and no one mourned him.
When he wakes up, he is in a dark house, made of stone. Snow falls sleepily outside. There are cheery little candles on top of many stout wooden tables in the great room. A tall pale woman sits with a black dog at one of these tables. There are people all around; eating, laughing, playing games like old friends. The house is loud and merry with fellowship.
A call rings out over all the noise.
“Good to see ya pal! Come sit with us!”
A younger man beckons towards the old man, and he reluctantly joins the youngster and his companions at the table.
Many of the men and women at the table pat him on the back. The lady’s dog curls up at his feet. One of them even pushes their bowl of hot stew to the old man. The old timer enjoys the warmth in his bones, the thought of not going to sleep hungry fills him up with happiness that makes his eyes sting with the icy bite of tears.
“I appreciate it all, but surely this is a mistake. I don’t know you all” the old man is afraid that now they will shoo him away, like so many others. Instead, the lady with the dog kindly grasps his hand, her face melts in understanding.
“This is Helheim, and in Helheim, we are all remembered. I am Hel. You are among friends now. You will never go hungry, you will never be alone again.”
Time passes, and the old man has made many friends in Helheim. Some nights, when the snow falls hardest, a new person will appear, shy and uncertain. The old man always rises from his seat, always certain to have a warm drink in both hands. The old man gives the newcomer his friendliest smile and says,
“Good to see ya pal, come sit with us.”
Two young men, both in love. They hoped to get married, but then the doctors said the two worst words you could ever hear. The sickness ravaged one of them, and broke the heart of the other. The sick man barely recognized himself in the mirror anymore, and the other felt like he was drowning in helplessness.
Months later, it’s the night of the funeral for the sick man. His lover clings to photos of them together. He can’t see through the hurt, he can’t find it in himself to do anything but cry. His entire body aches with how much he misses his lover. The young man turns to cheap gas station beers to drown out the pain. Driving home with too many open cans on the floor, he hits a deer and tumbles into a ditch.
He finds himself on the ground in a golden forest, with trees arching so high into the sky, he can barely see the tops. The falling leaves dance to the song of the gentle winds, and the sunlight plays over everything in sight. He realises its not the wind singing; there’s the melody of many singing voices carried on the breeze. The young man follows it to a bright clearing in the woods. Many people are there, making flower crowns and laughing. The heady smells of wine and cooking meat wafts around him. At the front of the crowd is a man in rich finery, laughing with all the rest. The air is alight with joy and the sounds of bells.
But most importantly of all is his boyfriend, glowing with health, covered in flowers and smiling.
I will always reblog this as I cry new tears with every edition
@thewitchofthenorse Have you seen this? This literally made my teary and made me so happy to read, just gods… 😭💜🐺
Inuksuit School is the home to 114 students from kindergarten through grade 12 in Qikiqtarjuaq – ᕿᑭᖅᑕᕐᔪᐊᖅ – Qikiqtariuaq is an Inuit hamlet in the High Arctic region of Nunavut. The school offers students a daily breakfast and healthy snack program. Approximately 60 to 70 students take advantage of the breakfast program daily. student demand has depleted the school meal program budget. The program needs to raise $12,000 to continue to the end of the current fiscal year (March 2018). For some students, school meal programs are their only reliable source of food. We need your help to bridge the funding gap for this important program.
Groceries in the North are typically 2 – 3 times higher than the rest of Canada. It is extremely expensive, to purchase fresh produce in the High Arctic, remote regions of Canada. Qikiqtarjuaq is a remote fly-in community with annual resupply by sealift. Dry goods such as cereal and muffin ingredients can be shipped to Qikiqtarjuaq by sealift. Perishables such as fruits and vegetables have to be flown in year-round to the community contributing to the higher costs.
Here’s some reading on why fundraisers like this are really important. Food insecurity is a huge problem in Northern Canada, and I feel like it doesn’t get much attention:
The Carving Witch 