€3.69 challenge

thee glitz

I have the above mentioned sum, 250g pasta and can access a local of any supermarket
chain in ROI. Can I feed myself for today and maybe even into tomorrow?

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

How important is it that the food tastes good? Also. I think LIDL is the answer

the incredible pudding

Onion, garlic, can of tomatoes and eggs. Great pasta sauce right there!

thee glitz

Ana Polite Freezer wrote: »

How important is it that the food tastes good?

Somewhat, but more a bonus. Though nutrition is obviously out the window on this one.

Ghost Buster

thee glitz wrote: »

I have the above mentioned sum, 250g pasta and can access a local of any supermarket
chain in ROI. Can I feed myself for today and maybe even into tomorrow?

Yup. I make a dish I call poverty pie. Its yummy, cheap and not going to kill or cure you.
Pasta
Make a cheesy/white sauce (Flour, Butter, milk and grated cheddar)
Tin o beans.
Mix it all together with cooked pasta.
Top with bread crumbs and grated cheese.
bake til brown.
Feeds 4 or one for 4 days and costs bugger all...

Seaneh

thee glitz wrote: »

I have the above mentioned sum, 250g pasta and can access a local of any supermarket
chain in ROI. Can I feed myself for today and maybe even into tomorrow?

Go to tesco/aldi/lidl, put a cheap loaf of bread, cheap ham/lunchenroll/whatever and some veggies etc, you will have tons of food.

Boring as **** though.

thee glitz

the incredible pudding wrote: »

Onion, garlic, can of tomatoes and eggs. Great pasta sauce right there!

And enough left over for more pasta?

poisonated

Butter, sausages and beans.

RedXIV

you've already got pasta? you're laughing, lidl/aldi is the way to go, eat like minor nobility tonight!

CardBordWindow

2 fillets of mackerel will cost ya feck all.
Tomatoes and a bit of chorizo, and you're on the pig's back!

Tombi!

Bread, butter, plastic knife.
There you go.

Lingua Franca

Irish streaky bacon rashers in Lidl, 1 euro. You'll be able to pick up a small onion, a can of tomatoes and maybe even a few mushrooms for around the same. Cut the bacon up and render some of the fat off in a pan, fry your onion and mushroom in it, add the tomatoes. There's a tasty dinner sorted for 2 euros, with enough left over for lunch.

Cheese and onion bread rolls in Lidl are 29 cents. One of those with a slice or two of the bacon will make a great breakfast.

You now have 1 euro 40 left for a drink and a snack.

geeky

the incredible pudding

thee glitz wrote: »

And enough left over for more pasta?

If you're shopping in aldi/lidl then its possible, or you could save some pennies for some cheese. Poaching eggs in a tomato sauce is a delicious source of protein that makes it a dinner. The combination got me through college!

munchkin_utd

the incredible pudding wrote: »

Onion, garlic, can of tomatoes and eggs. Great pasta sauce right there!

+1

for 3.69 you could feed yourself for a right number of days on pasta and home made sauce. You dont even need the eggs.

Aldi are also doing a 2 pack of courgettes and a 2 pack of peppers for 69c
So there with 1.38 more you have a more interesting home made pasta sauce (along with the basic ingredients).

sure heck, theres a pack of 6 tomatoes in Aldi for 69c so you dont even need a tin, you could have gourmet fresh pasta sauce!

Rigol

A 3.69 bottle of Aldi Ukrainian vodka will allow you to switch off you dignity, that way you can hang around and get many more euros out of the stray trolleys without the shame

Scuba_Scoper

Lobster with a caviar jus. I am sure you can get that for 3.69
or else, cake OP, eat cake - infact let them all eat cake.

D-FENS

Buy one onion, one pepper, one can of tomato puree, pint of milk and a packet of mixed herbs
Brown the veg, add about half the milk, a good dollup of puree and about a tablespoon of the herbs
Heat until thick and creamy.
Cook your pasta separate then add to the mixture, it’s mega

thee glitz

Thanks guys, I'm formulating a plan...
A small oversight, I also have a fair sized jar of 'Pasta Bake'.

Lingua Franca

Rigol wrote: »

A 3.69 bottle of Aldi Ukrainian vodka will allow you to switch off you dignity, that way you can hang around and get many more euros out of the stray trolleys without the shame

I'd like to change my answer to this. You can even use your jar of pasta bake as a mixer.

Call it a Bloody Awful Mary.

Scuba_Scoper

couple of tins of tuna,
some nice peppers, onion, bit of garlic,
that pasta bake jar you have
and the pasta,
in the oven 30 minutes, breadcrumbs and grated cheese mixture for the last 10 minutes. could keep you going for the week.

humberklog

D-FENS wrote: »

and a packet of mixed herbs

3.69 isn't the kind of budget to be fannying about with mixed herbs.

Noodls OP, oodles of noodles.

TheBoss!

Yes, easily.

Dress up nice and go buy yourself a copy of the Financial Times. Then go to a really nice restaurant and eat whatever you want, enjoying your paper as you wait.

When your finished, ask for the bill and pay with the card associated with your empty bank account. Naturally this will bounce, but just act surprised, give them some ID and say you will check with you bank and drop the money in the following day. Then just pay them when you get paid.

Go to a different restaurant tomorrow. Oh, and live a tip.

Option Two: Go to Tesco and get some of those massive packs of Chicken Thighs for €1.99 and one of their large Coleslaw Tubs for around €1 and Sliced Pan for €0.65. Easily two days eating in that.

Hersheys

Pfft. e3.69 ain't no challenge! Especially if you have pasta AND pasta sauce. Pack of hotdogs - hotdog pasta bake. Leftover hotdogs on a roll tomorrow - lunch! And leftover pastabake for dinner.

Scanlas The 2nd

This thread highlights the bullsh1t that is " eating healthy costs too much".

General General

Earthworms. Lovely.

Remmy

Get a loaf of brown bread and a tin of that sandwich spread. That should last you the week. I call it my depression special.

zonEEE

Easy!

If you already have pasta your laughing.

Adli - 49 cent for cans of tuna

Around a euro for mayo.

Where To

Buy a kid's harmonica in a second hand shop and go busking.

B.A._Baracus

Ana Polite Freezer wrote: »

How important is it that the food tastes good? Also. I think LIDL is the answer

Totally agree.
*touch wood* I never have to... but I think a person could live off €5 euro in Lidl if they had too.

Beans and toast. Few tins of tuna. Not exactly fine dining. But you wouldn't starve.

Although s(he) appears to have removed it from the blog in question since, there was a Lidl challange once to feed a couple on €50 for a week in Lidl alone.

The challange was "So, can you feed two people for a week for around €50? And I mean feed two people well - not on cheapo pizza and stodge."

and

"I’ve set some ground rules for myself. The meals must be varied and there must not be excessive effort or time involved - it must be practical for people who work and who don’t have all day to spend cooking. There has to be the odd treat. The food must taste nice and be vaguely nutritionally sound"

By the power of Internet Archiving all the meals can be seen in the old blog entires here.

It looked like (s)he did ok, with only a few compromises on personal morality like buying eggs that were not free range. The OP set a value of €3.69 for example. The dinner on Day 1 of the challange was €3.71 which was "beef stuffed cabbage rolls with tomato sauce, accompanied by stir fried sugar snap peas. This was both delicious and very filling, so filling that there are two little parcels left over and I’ll be very happy to have them for lunch tomorrow.". The picture on the site looked good too!

Day 2 of the challange came in at €3.82 "For dinner I sliced 2 turkey breasts into strips and stir-fried them with onion, a few broccoli spears (half a small head), sugar snap peas, mushrooms, red pepper (which I am now out of) and garlic. It was seasoned with red pesto."

All in all €3.69 looks quite doable for a meal price. It is hard for me to driectly price compare and give advice though as I grow most of my own vegetables and herbs and keep chickens for eggs so there are a few things I honestly do not know the price of any more. I also capture and kill my own rabbits when and where possible, usually keeping them and feeding them up for awhile until I can not wait any more and I turn Craving into Carving. And I fish. I am also growing and feeding my own geese for xmas for myself and a couple of choice loved ones.

SunnyDub1

Deleted User wrote: »

Although s(he) appears to have removed it from the blog in question since, there was a Lidl challange once to feed a couple on €50 for a week in Lidl alone.

The challange was "So, can you feed two people for a week for around €50? And I mean feed two people well - not on cheapo pizza and stodge."

and

"I’ve set some ground rules for myself. The meals must be varied and there must not be excessive effort or time involved - it must be practical for people who work and who don’t have all day to spend cooking. There has to be the odd treat. The food must taste nice and be vaguely nutritionally sound"

By the power of Internet Archiving all the meals can be seen in the old blog entires here.

It looked like (s)he did ok, with only a few compromises on personal morality like buying eggs that were not free range. The OP set a value of €3.69 for example. The dinner on Day 1 of the challange was €3.71 which was "beef stuffed cabbage rolls with tomato sauce, accompanied by stir fried sugar snap peas. This was both delicious and very filling, so filling that there are two little parcels left over and I’ll be very happy to have them for lunch tomorrow.". The picture on the site looked good too!

Day 2 of the challange came in at €3.82 "For dinner I sliced 2 turkey breasts into strips and stir-fried them with onion, a few broccoli spears (half a small head), sugar snap peas, mushrooms, red pepper (which I am now out of) and garlic. It was seasoned with red pesto."

All in all €3.69 looks quite doable for a meal price. It is hard for me to driectly price compare and give advice though as I grow most of my own vegetables and herbs and keep chickens for eggs so there are a few things I honestly do not know the price of any more. I also capture and kill my own rabbits when and where possible, usually keeping them and feeding them up for awhile until I can not wait any more and I turn Craving into Carving. And I fish. I am also growing and feeding my own geese for xmas for myself and a couple of choice loved ones.

To be fair €50 is an average amount per week for 2 people to feed off. I have a freind that feeds her, her partner and 2 yr old for €40 a week.

SunnyDub1

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

To be fair €50 is an average amount per week for 2 people to feed off. I have a freind that feeds her, her partner and 2 yr old for €40 a week.

As I said I do not know given my attempts to become as self sufficient as possible means I am unaware of prices of many things these days.

Clearly however the value you can get away with every week.... €50, €40, €10... are all going to be predicated on the compromises you are willing or not willing to make. It sounds from the blog link like the writer was aiming at some pretty high standards, including treats and wine and things like that.

So while €50 was not jaw droppingly amazing it was still a good series of blog entries on how one can stretch ones money while still eating really well.

However the main point was the OP set a limit of €3.69 and that is around where most of the meals in the link I gave came in... so I felt the link relevant and useful to add.

Thumby

€80-€90 a week feeds myself, my food hoover(13 yr old son), and my two younger kids from lidl, this includes school lunches for the eldest two. Back to the op grab a pack of bacon bits, double pack is around 1.50 in lidl,an onion and fry them off gently while the pasta is cooking. Make up a basic carbonanara sauce (minus the wine) with milk,butter and flour. Bit of grated cheese mixed into the sauce on day 2 for varation and there have carbonanara for less than 1.75 per day. :-)

D-FENS

humberklog wrote: »

3.69 isn't the kind of budget to be fannying about with mixed herbs.

Noodls OP, oodles of noodles.

http://aldi.ie/ie/html/product_range/product_range_23204.htm

http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=256149714

hardly truffle shavings.
Everything I listed would be bought for under 3.69
Plus, pasta and Noodles, really?

Boombastic

Have a look on the other thread on how to gourmet these meals up :pac:

humberklog

D-FENS wrote: »

http://aldi.ie/ie/html/product_range/product_range_23204.htm

http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=256149714

hardly truffle shavings.
Everything I listed would be bought for under 3.69
Plus, pasta and Noodles, really?

Pasta and noodles? Now yer talkin:)

Hadn't even thought of mixed dried herbs tbh, I was thinking of the fresh ones. I'm programmed "posh mode".

Noodles are cracking cheap food though, can do loads with them, even have them with pasta (well, maybe not).

GastroBoy

the incredible pudding wrote: »

Onion, garlic, can of tomatoes and eggs. Great pasta sauce right there!

Where are ye goin with the eggs...?

DEFTLEFTHAND

45 cent own brand pan of white bread. You can do a lot with bread.

40 cent tin of beans, to put on toast.

1.20 Denny special offer ham, 10+ hang sangwiches.

If you have ketchup and a functioning grill you can make homemade pizza with it. :pac:

Tonyandthewhale

OP, what do you normally feed yourself on that you're worried about feeding yourself on the guts of 4 euro when you've already got half the ingredients you'll need for dinner?

3.50-4 would be the most I'd usually spend on a dinner unless I was doing something fancy or cooking for a few people and I'm not currently on the breadline.

Also, blackberries are in season now, go pick a few and add them to your porridge (49c) in lidl tomorrow morning with maybe a dash of brown sugar and just a pinch of salt (to be added while you're cooking it). Heavenly.

Anyone

One good thing about this recession is that eating/cooking/living cheaply has actually become fashionable. Some pretty cool ideas in this thread and the other one recently.

Cantona's Collars

The 69c fruit & veg offers in Aldi will sort you out for most of your needs for a week,they have bacon mis-shapes for €1.99,there's enough meat there to feed a person for around 3 days & they are tasty.

Rigol

Or you could just get some free stuff uhhuhhuhuh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrwjiO1MCVs

mfceiling

Throw 19 cent into the bin and you're left with.....................three fiddy

You can always survive on three fiddy

im invisible

So... You got about three fiddy?

mfceiling wrote: »

Throw 19 cent into the bin and you're left with.....................three fiddy

You can always survive on three fiddy

damn you! I suppose thats what i get for reading the thread instead of just posting

MadYaker

Thumby wrote: »

€80-€90 a week feeds myself, my food hoover(13 yr old son), and my two younger kids from lidl, this includes school lunches for the eldest two. Back to the op grab a pack of bacon bits, double pack is around 1.50 in lidl,an onion and fry them off gently while the pasta is cooking. Make up a basic carbonanara sauce (minus the wine) with milk,butter and flour. Bit of grated cheese mixed into the sauce on day 2 for varation and there have carbonanara for less than 1.75 per day. :-)

I'm sorry but thats not carbonara sauce. There is no eggs, or parmesan or black pepper. Its just mush made from milk butter and flour, 3 ingredients which aren't even in carbonara.

On topic: 3.69 is plenty to feed yourself for 2 days, you can get noodles in lidl for 20 cent. You could eat for a week on 3.69.

RADIUS

thee glitz wrote: »

I have the above mentioned sum, 250g pasta and can access a local of any supermarket
chain in ROI. Can I feed myself for today and maybe even into tomorrow?

1 kg of Chicken thighs in Aldi for 2 euro.
spend the rest on some seasoning or sauces.

BOHtox

3.69? how about 3 fiddy

thee glitz

Thanks guys, though it panned out a bit different...

I withdrew a miracle tenner from the atm, ended up with 1 btl beer, 4 pints, 1 whiskey,
tobacco & skins, lunch, tae and hang & cheese sangiches and got enough left for pasta sauce

noxqs

Make up a basic carbonanara sauce (minus the wine) with milk,butter and flour.

What is this? Wine in carbonara sauce ?? Milk? Butter? Flour?

You're either a Michelin cook spinning this sauce in a new way, or not a cook at all. *Not sure if face*

Boombastic

noxqs wrote: »

What is this? Wine in carbonara sauce ?? Milk? Butter? Flour?

You're either a Michelin cook spinning this sauce in a new way, or not a cook at all. *Not sure if face*

Milk butter and flour = basic white sauce aka bechemal