*Afterthoughts & Addenda* *Confused Americans* - I now have Americans commenting that their food isn't taxed either. Check if what is true in your part of the USA is also true in all the other states (spoilers: it isn't) *Why not just buy [ingredient x]?* - eggs, oats, dry beans, ramen noodles, Wagyu beef - people often comment with lots of ideas about what I *should have* bought instead - and these might be based on different prices in your own locality. I feel like I already clogged up the start of this video with enough rationale for the shopping, but maybe at the end of day 5, I'll look back at what other things I could have bought, or could not, and why I didn't.
You spend a good amount of time explaining this is a challenge in nearly every vid and people still be asking the same basic questions. Like I don't think watching someone eat ramen, egg and some greens for 5 days would make for interesting content. Even with your great personality, no offense m8 lol
As a single mum with 3 kids I am really struggling to make ends meet atm. One of the biggest money fears is food and eating healthly regularly on a budget. These videos , whilst for personal challenges only, have actually helped me so much. We are having this sausage stew tonight. For 4 really large potatos it cost me 88p! 3 large carrots 30p and an onion 18p and a pack of Morrisons own brand of sausages were £1 and I got a sweetheart cabbage for 70p. I have never even considered buying loose veg before. I will use herbs and stock I already have. I also loved the sugar milky toast with banana. We always have banana on toast but I've never seen it done that way. It looks much more delicious so will be trying that out too. Thank you for these helpful video's.
@JkYeah it is but things don't always stay the same. I've had times where I am not struggling and have been nice places abroad not havingbto worry about money. The company I worked for went bust which is why I am struggling atm although things have already improved since I posted this and will continue to. So yes it's sad but there are so many people worse off.
I absolutely adore your no-nonsense, right-to-the-point introduction. You're kind of a unique UA-camr, both with your style and the range of topics you cover.
Super markets are doing that now here in Hong Kong. Mostly veggies which aren't as fresh as they could be and all sorts of items which may or may not be useful.
In the US at my Kroger grocery store they have a section of $1 veggies or fruit that are almost going bad. I buy from that section all the time and i've gotten some great vegetables and fruit.
Same. I've only ever seen them at farmers market and china town. Around closing time theyll bag a bunch of vegetables and sell them at a flat rate. I lived near chinatown in college and lived off of those sales. I wish I had them now, but I live far from it.
When I was in college, I was very broke, and I had to learn how to cook and shop on a tight budget. I was so excited the day I realized that the neighborhood I passed through on my way to class was full of fresh wild fruit and herbs. Mulberries, lemon, apples, basil, oregano... If the tree or bush was on someone's property, I would always ask first if I could pick a few things, and they were usually more than happy with it. It definitely helped add some variety to my meals, and was fun and a way to meet new people!
@@AmeenAlnaimi يا لطيف ع الناس الفاضية انا اعرف معناها بشكل عام بس ما اعرفها في حالة معينة و هي وقت الاقتصاد في المال و انصحك بعد كذا انشغل بحياتك و لا تتدخل بحياة الآخرين
"Possibly the strangest thing I've cooked on one of these budget challenges" Apples, salmon paste, and mayo on toast is definately wierder than peas, lettuce, and rice.
Here I am in my early 20s and a big disappointment according to my parents, so I stopped getting money from them a week ago even though I'm still in college and can't work regularly due to my chronic illness. While I was thinking about how to pay my rent and provide myself, I saw this video and got away from my troubles, even for half an hour.
You are not a disappointment. That is only their opinion of you and your own negativity due to the way you are feeling just now (quite rightly). Take time out to build yourself up day by day, set a goal and do what you can. Be kind to the world and enjoy the company of people who are kind, if they aren't cut them loose and fly solo because when you appreciate your own self-worth friends will appear. I've made friends in the strangest situations. I remember being 27 and feeling I was a complete disaster, I'm 46 now and every day we grow a bit more. ❤
Kid you not I was literally thinking about how I wanted another limited budget video bc I've just binged all of them in the last week lol. Thanks shrimp
My lidl just has left over bread AFTER the registers, which i still don't understand how on earth you're supposed to be able to buy them when you're on your way to exit the store
@@swedneck apparently they put them behind the registers so that they can prevent ppl adding fruits or vegetables to the box. But I also dont see a problem with having them close to the registers.
So idk no of its everywhere the same but the lidl where i work we have an app for those boxes something along the lines of lidl to good to go boxes maybe its the same for you thats why you dont see them cause you have to claim them on the app
This kind of video was what UA-cam was made for. A long, in-depth budget food video with lots of detail, exact steps if you wanted to do it yourself, tons of personality, and occasionally intercut with jokes, miscellaneous cooking tips, useful graphic animations, and dog/nature footage. I salute you for keeping the traditional youtube style alive and making great quality, entertaining, and educational stuff for all of us at home.
We've talked before on Instagram, but I don't think I've ever said how much I respect your stance on these problems, as someone who's financially challenged myself. You have given me a lot of inspiration to make more wholesome meals on my terrible budget, and I wanted to thank you for that.
I agree I'm on a ridiculously strict budget, I just couldnt see going to 3 different shops to save pence worth it, but like I've found out watching atomics challenges saving a few pounds off every shop really could add up over time. Its very interesting to see how creative he can be.
I really appreciate him stating that it isn't about prooving that people poverty could do this, but that he wants to challenge himself to be more creative. I've seen a few things marketed as a budget challenge that actually shames people who regularly have to watch how much they spend. I grew up in household that really had to budget within the pence, and my parents often had to choose which bills to pay. I'm lucky enough to not be in that situation as single person myself, but I'm not stupid enough to think it could never happen to me (especially with all the bill increases in the U.K. at the moment.) I don't know why I went on this rant...
You might look into water fasting and scheduling 1 day/week of water fasting. It saves money and improves the health of the body, and also the health of the mind becoming more mindful of food, inner and outer environments.
Hey, i've been struggling for money for a while and living off UC trying to find a job and I just want to say that your videos have really helped with budgeting and learning how to get creative with some of the things I make in the kitchen. I recently got a job so I feel like it's ok for me to say this now. I hope that your videos help others as much as you've helped me Xx
I love, love, love, these "waste not" policies and I hope they keep progressing to the point they regulate waste disposal for restaurants and hotels. I remember being a teenager and witnessing hotel kitchen staff throwing hundreds of pounds of perfectly good food in the dumpster, and realizing just how many problems we could solve if that food could be salvaged before that point and fed to people who need it. Good to see something finally moving forward in that regard.
"Why not just buy ramen and live off of that for 5 days?" Because he's trying to run a show here and watching a man buy and eat 14 packs of ramen isn't exactly thrilling(well, it might be, I guess I've never seen that. Maybe an idea for april fools?). Also, he's attempting to teach as well as entertain. If you're living off of a small budget, having a variety of meals may be a luxury, but that luxury is what might keep you from getting sick of a particular food.
That is a lot of sodium on top of all that. Sure, there are ways to dilute the soup further or he could just ignore the stock packet and just use the noodles. Either way, as amazing as the stuff tastes, the instant noodle approach prolly wouldn't be the best for ya.
I think it'd make a good April fool's episode. Seeing him try and find ways to make the ramen interesting could be fun (and it would sorta fit the challenge of working with limited materials)
@@Shenorai ramen has a pretty unexceptional amount of sodium unless you actually drink all the broth. Given that the broth is just water and the flavor packet and a bit of starch from the noodles there's not really a reason to do that.
It's probably guessable from context but also an example of how automatic captions (aka #CRAPtions) are not great for d/Deaf caption users who need them to have equal access and for others who may use them. Ideally a big channel can & should pay a captioning service. It's not as hard as it sounds. OTOH, not accessible to everyone, but I'm a small channel and it has been hours of work but I've hand-captioned nearly all my videos (might've missed or messed up a few). I'm autistic so, it's a solidarity & awareness thing for me as part of the disabled community. But it's not just disabled people who should care! Sorry to jump on your comment with a soapbox bit of disability activism, it was a golden opportunity to make the point!
I have made poetry out of automatic captions though, or commented ruefully on funny or nice accident, your comment wasn't wrong: just the situation where it's yes, sadly quite hard work to give equality of access if you're not paying for it but the steps that could be taken aren't taken often enough & professional captioning services are quite reasonably priced and very fast.
@@kathybramley5609 Oh don't get me wrong; I'm not Hard of Hearing or Deaf, but captions definitely help me understand what is being spoken as sometimes (either due to not wanting to wake others in the house, UA-cam going derp with the sound, or an undiagnosed auditory processing issue). I greatly appreciate the time and effort you put into your transcriptions. It's one helluva time sink and goodness knows on some channels, they forget how to align the timing (or outright rush the captioning in cases like Paramount Network).
Funny you should say that..when I lived in England, one of the first cookbooks I bought was for students. I used it a ton and made some amazing meals. I will say that some of the ingredients were “dear” as my roommates attested but it was possible to eat good just need some creativity. bearing in mind that economic stress sometimes shuts down that creative part of our brain when we are in survival mode!
This is mental, I lived off £30 a week at uni... ten years ago. Back then it wasn't much of a challenge, I could eat more or less what I wanted as long as I bought the cheapest option.
@@bassetts1899Finished Uni last year and I could easily spend £15-25 on weekly basics. Pasta, Rice, Flour, Eggs etc have shot up siiiiiiignificantly. I found it easier to cook as part of a flat/group though, but I understand not everyone can do that.
I'm currently in uni aswell and have been living off £19 a week and it's been tough especially counting bus money and the 4 pounds I spend on washing clothes every 2 weeks but I have been managing
Liked within about 20 seconds because you explicity said it's not about "playing poor". I love your commitment to thought provoking content without fetishizing poverty. The feeling of respect you have is hugely returned
as someone who grew up in a typical 5 kids single mum living in a flat environment, i wish i could show this to my mum who would feed us ping ping meals and frozen chips every night. i love what you do and even if its not "preaching the poor" youre a fantastic example as to what reality is for some people
FYI, coming from a southeast asian: washing rice isn't about just washing it for hygeine reasons, it's also to remove the surface starch, letting the rice absorb water more readily, leading to better, more consistent and fluffy texture. Even if the rice you have is clean and not in need of washing, you may find value in soaking your rice in water for half an hour or so, before giving it a quick rinse and adding in the right amount of water for cooking. Basically = washed rice leads to better rice.
I always rinse wash my rice before cooking, but I didn't realise to soak it a little first. I usually start it from cold water, so would that count? I've also heard that eating the rice the next day actually is a great way to keep off weight, as the starches have changed and the grain metabolises differently than when eaten straight away. Is that something you've heard of?
@@galier2 yes, Madeline Lemon has a video on soaking rice for resistant starch, it's good in a keto diet she thinks. ua-cam.com/video/zbozsw-EA_E/v-deo.html
Your last dish very much reminded me of a Japanese-American fusion dish called Taco Rice created by Okinawans through to the influence of US troops stationed on the islands and the cuisine they brought with them. It consists of cooked rice topped with shredded lettuce, then seasoned ground beef (or half-and-half) cooked/fried with onions, herbs, soy sauce and a little bit of added sugar is stacked on top of the rice and lettuce. Finally shredded cheese and and a tomato sauce consisting of diced tomatoes and ketchup are the garnish. The first time my girlfriend cooked that dish for me I was kind of apprehensive of putting the lettuce in between the hot rice and meat, but with the first bite I fell in love with it's unexpectedly complex taste and now it's one of my favorites to have, as it is very easy to prepare and is amazingly delicious!
Living alone, the lettuce I buy, sometimes gets a little - old. So, I just fry it on a pan to fill some other dish. - My friends find that odd, but - you know - no waste....
@@LilA-zl6tf the risk of food poisoning isn't just about the bacteria/fungi. It's also about the toxins that are produced by them, which often cannot be destroyed by cooking. Not sure if what you're doing is safe. If you live outside the city, composting would be good. Even in the city it can be done but I would strongly recommend against it.
I did something like this last year. Inspired by one of your challenges I tried to eat for a day on £1 - it went so well that on the evening I made a menu and shopping list for the next day - £4 for the next four days! It was lockdown and so I didn't shop round or venture far, which meant I couldn't shop at the cheapest store. Cheap rice was going to feature, but there was none in stock so I had to improvise. I didn't enjoy it, I felt unwell, and decided it was because I normally eat more uncooked food than this budget allowed. I planned to have a tin of cheap veg soup for the last meal, but couldn't face it and fortunately had enough veg left over to make soup. I had about 45p worth of food left over. I particularly liked your idea of buying "one" of a piece of fruit or veg, but there was little in stock the day I went shopping. I certainly became more aware of the issues around eating on a budget, but wasn't keen to do it again. Now I take a long walk to one of the cheap supermarkets once a week I might try it again, prioritising raw food.
As someone who is low income I have never been offended by your budget food videos. I really like them because they give me ideas. Here in Las Vegas we have multiple Indian markets. Your use of the Bombay mix was brilliant. It's such a cleaver idea to add flavor to things. It would be cheap and relatively easy to make a cream of chickpea soup with Bombay mix for flavoring.
Ich habe das Glück, im Moment nicht mit Geld zu kämpfen, aber das ist trotzdem sehr informativ, Sie haben eine sehr sachliche und auf den Punkt gebrachte Präsentation.Schön zu hören, danke 👍
Looking forward to seeing curried split peas in home made flat bread wraps, and mashed carrot and swede fried into "hash browns" 👍👍 the lard was a good move
Very interesting challenge as always. I live in Russia, and it's always interesting to see the differences in food availability and affordability across the globe. For once, Britain seems to have more meat and fat options - those sausages you described as low quality would probably be considered pretty good by Russian standards. I've also had trouble finding good cheap fruit and greens in supermarkets, but that may just be my luck and the fact that I live in a very urban area. Loving the dishes you've made so far. Split peas are an often underlooked budget food, because people don't always know how to prepare them well and because of the possible... musical side effects (that can also be minimized with a longer cooking time and some baking soda). However, split pea soup with some smoked pork ribs - or at least smoked paprika if you can't afford ribs - is delicious and filling.
I've heard it's easier to find fruits and vegetables in more of the countryside in Russia. Very beautiful place, though cold by my standards, haha (I'm Sicilian, and visited Chelyabinsk).
You make such a great point. In India, cheap cuts of frozen meat and canned food are actually considered decent quality and passed off at higher prices. But grains and fresh vegetables are significantly more affordable if you get them at the local market instead of a supermarket. It's so interesting to see these differences.
I doubt if you'd consider our low quality sausages here in the UK. They're 40% meat but the rest is not made up with much fat but grainy fillers like rusk or soya. Whereas I'm guessing in Russia a low meat percentage sausage would have a lot of fat, which is better.
@@simonh6371 The 40% meat thing was confusing for me at first, being from the US, sausages having filler is normally considered not a sausage tbh. I wish we had easier access to fresh veggies, it can be hard to get good stuff here for things like that, and a good stew once a week would be lovely. Also, Blackcurrant is still extremely hard to find, and that's terrible ngl, one of my favorite fruit preserves or jams.
@@Waskomsause I've lived in a few European countries (Netherlands, Germany Austria and Spain) and there too a product with 40% meat wouldn't be considered a sausage either. In those countries they have stuck to traditional foods and recipes whereas we in the UK kinda deviated from that starting in the Industrial Revolution, when food needed to be stored for a long time, but there was no refrigeration. Also in those countries they haven't gone with the ''fat is bad'' ideology which is actually wrong, here in the UK we have more obese people than anywhere in Europe, due to high sugar and carb consumption.
Love this video! Reminds me of whatever I did in my 20s to survive on a minimum wage call centre job and stuck paying someone else's 780 quid a month mortgage on their BTL flat. Life is hard when you're poor, but creativity and a willingness to think imaginatively is something that makes you stronger as a person.
Wow thanks youtube recommendations for not showing this to me earlier, but I left a comment on an earlier video asking if you could do something like this and its amazing to see that you delivered. This was very interesting to watch, thank you!
YES!! Thank you so much. I lost my job in October and I’m looking for creative ways to eat in very little. Your video came at just the right time. Thank you for showing that humble food is all you need to sustain yourself ❤️
Wow, those produce boxes are amazing. We don't have that where I live at all, there's almost no marked down veg or fruit ever, but I'd sure love it if we did. You are very fortunate to have such great choices. That's why I love watching these sorts of videos from other countries. It shows just how crazy our food prices are here as well as showing how people around the world get creative with what they do have.
Those boxes are not that readily available . You have to get to the shop very early to stand a chance of getting one. Fruit and vegetables are very cheap in the U.K. but meat is extortionate.
I live in Central Illinois USA my local Kroger will bag up fruit and potatoes in mesh bags and sell for $0.99. I'm always looking for apples depending on the size I get four or five in a bag I usually weigh them and they are about two and a quarter pounds for 99 cents that's pretty good. Anytime I buy bagged fruit that sells per bag not per pound I always weigh and get the largest bag. Example if I were to buy a 3lb bag of Mandarin oranges for $2.99 I will weighs several bags and get the heaviest bag. I often buy a package of boneless pork chops that sells 5 for $5 I weigh those and get the heaviest package they are often cheaper then the markdown packages. I have been buying mostly markdown meat for many years or sale prices I rarely will pay full price. I also check mark down and clearance food and non-food items. Over several years shopping this way has saved me quite a bit of money
Love these series. Given the flour and free water, I’d definitely do flatbread with pretty much every meal. It’s delicious and doesn’t require much fat to make tasty. Also, I feel boiling the potatoes misses an opportunity a little too. Par-boil, crush slightly with a fork and then roll around in salt and a little lard and they’d be great. Not £5 for 5 days great, genuinely really great.
You have no idea how happy I am that there is another limited budget challenge 🤩 it’s what bought me to your channel all that time ago! Going to watch this right now 😄😄
This is my favorite of your series. I love how true you are to the challenge. I have seen other creators cheat wildly, effectively doubling their money with just what's in the pantry. I have set myself a challenge of no outside food for the month of February. I have been hoarding food a bit, "just in case," and find myself with a veritable supermarket in the cupboards. I will eat no takeout, and will not visit the market for the month, unless it's something needed for my dogs. Thanks for the great video - can't wait for part 2.
I took stock and better do the same for a month. Pantry and freezer bulging so really don't need to shop. And 2 bags of cat food plus treats on hand for my cat. Plenty of litter even. Might skip shopping 2 months, put that money into savings.
This is my favorite channel to put on and just sit and knit. You are definitely my knitting buddy and so inspiring with what you do with such little money!
I haven't seen those mixed vegetables bagged like that. That's a great start. Skipping a generation I was mostly raised on a small farmstead by my Great Aunt and Uncle who both grew up through the (not so) Great Depression. While we always had an abundance of many varieties of vegetables (and enough to barter each year with a neighbor who kept pigs) my Aunt Dot always had a great big pot of vegetable soup simmering. No matter the season - this was the most essential part of the meal. On weekends some kind of meat would be roasted and portioned to add to the next soups. Sorry, I've lost myself in the nostalgia... but I wanted to say that I subscribed b/c you hooked me with the soup and the saving scraps for stock. It's a lovely practice that we keep up in our home today. Cheers
Reminds me of the pottage they apparently ate a lot in the Middle Ages. A pot of food that was kept on the simmer, in which all of the scraps were thrown and then eaten. I wonder what your Aunt and Uncle put in their soup? Just veggies and a bit of left over meat, or some flavourings/stock too? I think I want to do this on some level….
@@Becoming0ne Hi. The business end of the farm was tomatoes. They had a contract to grow for Campbell's Soups who supplied the seed and contracted the swarms of migrant harvesters. There were always a couple hundred pounds that would be left on the vine and ripen late. Aunt Dot would invite a few of the local churches to pick over the remainder for their needs. They always had a couple of acres set aside for growing all kinds of other vegetables for their year-round use and to sell at the stand on the road. If there was ever anything that went bad in the field it was always dropped off at the neighbor's home for their pigs. Her soup stock always had tomatoes, onion, celery and a big marrow bone and I'm sure it was somewhat salted. The pot had to be about 20 gallons. From this she would draw off several quarts of stock into another, smaller pot to which she would add whatever she was in the mood for, or whatever needed to be eaten (she only canned vegetables that were perfect). This was the pot that she would add fresh herbs to - typically thyme and sage. She mostly only added beef or pork, occasionally a chicken if it stopped laying. These were roasted Sunday mornings at sunrise and would be portioned through the week. For any given dinner she would serve some sort of meat with potatoes and a bowl of soup. These days I still make trips to the local farmer's market and pick up my order of fresh vegetables. I'll make 14 quarts at a time and pressure-can them to have through the year. If you ever stop by for dinner - expect soup! Thanks to Aunt Dot and Uncle Ed, there could never be a better childhood than mine
@@wayne00k wow, thanks for sharing so much detail. It sounds so happy and wholesome. I’m also glad you had such a beautiful childhood. Thank you for sharing some of the lessons learned. I am definitely going to get back to making my own stocks and commit to having soup on the go more often, keeping Aunt Dot’s methods in mind. ❤️
One way to use the water used from washing rice is to use it to water your plants. Rice water can work like fertilizer for promoting plant growth. I grew up in Southeast Asia and my relatives who love gardening use rice water for their plants.
@@aleksandrakowalczyk6043 you could use rice water, just don't use it too often especially if your hair has low porosity (meaning it takes a while for your hair to get wet and it takes a long time to dry completely once it's wet). Rice water can also cause protein overload and hair breakage if used too often.
Yesssss I love these Challenges. During a particularly broke period, I largely lived out of a giant Asian supermarket. It was great as you could buy everything loose
We used to have a store like that when I was a student. One stock cube, one gram of flour etc. was fabulous and I still miss it over two decades later. Apparently they fell out of favour with health and safety inspectors. I suspect that was a convenient excuse.
The little growl eva gives everything she bites the ball sounds exactly like my dogs Bonnie and Rosie did when they had done the same exact thing. Thank you to you and Eva for flooding that memory right into my brain when I needed it more than I ever thought I could.
Even though the meals you make are cheap, they honestly look nicer than a lot of the more expensive stuff. I like the creativity and home-cooking you do, makes me want to try it to save money and try some home cooked meals
This was great. You got a ton of food, and it's nice to see some healthy 'real' food in one of these £5 challenges. Can't wait to see tomorrow's installment.
I wish my Lidl had those crates, it'd have been handy because I'm slowly starting to practice these low budget food challenges for when the cost of living gets even higher. I really like these videos! Love that random spice idea too.
I love these limited money challenges. I think it's a really good of challenging yourself while providing methods, recipes and knowledge for individuals that unfortunately will only have roughly £5 to spend on 5 days worth of grocceries
Food costs here in Sweden is 2-3 times your prices so while I can't even get close to this price I am doing a week on £16 next week. Will be very interesting! I didn't just go for the cheapest food possible but rather food I want to eat and be satisfied. It also helps that I'm living the OMAD diet :D
I think you will do well to do a week on £16 ! Having lived in Sweden , I know how ordinary things like a swede or cabbage can cost . On the plus side, the potatoes in the big hoppers were always cheap ( south west Sweden) and white cabbage costs a very low price per kilo at certain times of year. On midsummers eve last year, the new potatoes were nearly free ! To buy locally produced new potatoes here in Wales,even in the summer would be quite expensive. I do miss the quality of the milk , cheese and bread though.
@@iPelaaja1 the same tin of beans from his shopping episode a week ago that cost him 22p costs me 67p, from the same store. So you can imagine everything else that's more expensive.
I genuinely smiled when I saw this in my recommended. There's really no one else who can really do budget challenges the way you do, foraging, budgeting and coming up with the most ingenious solutions to problems you face. Love your content and I hope you have a fantastic day! Edit: Just got to the rules and I see there's no foraging, even nicer that you're challenging yourself to keep it from being too easy
I absolutely love these kinds of challenges. Your previous iterations inspired me to give it a go as well. Unfortunately here in the States its much harder to shop on an extreme budget due to most items being packed for bulk sale. So I instead had to buy the smallest quantity possible and then calculate a per unit price. I managed a 4 day $4 budget and it was the most enjoyable problem solving experience I have had in the kitchen.
It really depends which stores you have in your areas too. Some places in the US have really good budget grocery stores and others only have the higher end ones. I was just thinking about trying something like this for 7 days, but there are 7 different grocery stores and 3 are budget ones where I live. So It's a lot easier for find good deals on smaller things. It'd be virtually impossible in many bigger cities though, as a single thing of lard or rice is lien $6 because of the ridiculous cost of living.
Watching this reminded me of my younger days, when I had to think in a similar way when shopping to get by. Now, 10 years later £5-8 a meal when cooking at home seems reasonable and up to now, I hadn't felt difference. Watching this was painfully reminiscent of my early 20s, yet bittersweet, as it's helped me appreciate how far I've come. Thanks for a great video!
i live in the us & never have i ever seen rosemary grown so large. people just casually have rosemary HEDGES outside their lawns.. i bet it smells lovely 🥰
I live in the US. In the state of Ohio where I live, food ingredients are not taxed, but clothing is. In the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, clothing is not taxed, but food ingredients are. Some US states have no income tax, but everything else you buy or consume IS taxed by the state. And that's not even addressing the roadkill laws you mentioned! Cheers for great content!
I love this kind of videos! There's always something to learn and I don't know how many tricks I've integrated into my daily life from watching your and June's videos (Delish) it definitely shows in my wallet, I'm still short on cash but I live a lot more comfortably and sometimes even have a nice extra cash at the end of the month.
I just want to say thank you for not only showing how to make meals on such a budget but how to cook those ingredients to make tasty meals. Due to the current times I need to cut back to this sort of budgeting and so finding this challenge in particular has given me hope! Subscribed :)
Whoop whoop love these! And love how you always find different ways to make budget meals. One set of ingredients to one person may mean one kind of meal that could be made however to another person they may see a different potential meal from the same ingredients.
I’m sitting here watching when you say “Violet Rootrot”, and I say to myself that would be a fantastic name to use when you’re emailing your scammers .
I really love this series! I appreciate your spirit in these challenges-- not playing at poverty as some UA-camrs do, but seeing how creative you can get within a set of self-imposed boundaries. It encourages me to think differently about the food I cook, because I look at the ingredients you buy and think up a few things I could make with them, and I never, ever come up with the same things you end up making! And I think cooking is such an important life skill. Not enough people feel comfortable in the kitchen. A lot of the recipes online can seem really unapproachable to beginners. The way you approach it always seems so accessible, and I think a beginner cook could learn a lot just from watching you handle yourself in the kitchen. It shows that recipes really aren't the be-all, end-all of cooking, and that knowing some basics of cooking and flavours means you can combine almost any food at hand into tasty combinations and power the ol' meat suit for a few more hours!
Oi mate, I know the video is old and all that, but a hint from down here in Brazil. Our main rice here is long grain white rice, no need to wash them at all. Quick recipe for our everyday white rice: Stir fry a couple cloves of minced garlic with vegetable oil until fragrant. Add your rice and stir fry it with the garlic until the grains just about turn transluscent on the tips. Add water (exactly double the water for the amount of rice, just like you did) Add salt, give it a couple stirs to mix it all. Bring to a boil, put the lid "half on" and lower it. Simmer until it's dry. Fluff it and put the lid on for another couple minutes. BAM perfect fluffy garlic rice =)
I absolutely adore little Eva and her undying love for her ball!! She’s awesome. I also am quite fond of these budget meal videos of yours! Putting these two things together make my day! Another great video!!❤❤❤
I'm in a Facebook group where that try to get a family to eat on a cheap budget.. And the amount of people who whinge about people buying caged eggs or really cheap bacon ect bugs me on a deep level. I don't know how anyone can judge anyone for just trying to survive with what they have. I always say "you want them eating xyz? YOU BUY THIER SHOPPING THEN" Really irks me. These videos help more people than you know.
people really dont understand that a lot of sustainable eating, organic, responsibly sourced, vegan etc foods are financially off the table for low income households. yes, a lot of it is crap food, yes people probably do feel bad for having no other choice than to buy lower quality stuff. they understand this, the upper class don't.
I love your videos because it really puts into perspective how much work goes into meal prep and keeping people energized and healthy. It's fascinating seeing how you're able to wring out a survivable meal plan on just under $7 usd. Thank you for all the work you put into these videos!
I mean, I look forward to every Friday and Saturday anyway because there are new videos from AS, but now my anticipation for the next four episodes has definitely increased to the "childish anticipation of Christmas" level! I can barely wait for it!
You have no idea, how much I love these videos. Really gives me the energy and motivation to make it "fun", trying to make my food budget stretch for a whole month. Especially now that all food prices(at least here in Denmark and properly everywhere else) are rising with up to 40%.
This is an immediate watch for me, definitely my favorite series next to the scambaiting and weird stuff in a can. Really fascinating stuff, haven't even watched this yet but wanted to say all that. For the next episode, my request would be a pound fifty for 2 days, maybe 3 but with all urban and wild foraging, plus seasoning available. I was really amazed how you stretch out those budgets
Incredible. I’m in NY USA. We couldn’t get that may vegetables even if they were rotting and diseased for that price. I have never even seen the option lol. I have never heard of eating a banana peel but, heard of smoking it lol. Doesn’t work 😂. Thanks for posting I enjoyed it.
You can definitely eat banana skins, just clean then and cut the ends off them! You can either dice and fry them, or you can soak them overnight and then blend them into a banana bread! I made one last week and blended it with chia and yoghurt to mix into banana bread (no actual bananas, just lots of skins) and it was definitely helped by me adding choc chips!!
These challenges have inspired me to challenge myself to make the cheapest, most nutrient dense meals this month for my family as I can possibly manage! In the U.S., we as a family of four, use to have a $400 food budget. Lately it has required at least $600 to get the same stuff we usually buy. I always stay away from processed, pre-made, and snacky foods, by the way. We eat alot of eggs, when the chickens are laying, and alot of simple chicken and steamed veggie meals. Back to the dinner menu planning!
You literally just released this series at the right time! I've gone into hospital for a couple of weeks so this'll give me something to look forward to :) always enjoy your content and I am sure this will be quality!
As an American these videos always blow my mind. At the time of recording this was about $6.50 USD. You wouldn't get anywhere close to this amount or variety of food with that price at even the cheapest of grocery stores. I live in a semi-rural area of Oregon (so low cost of living--as much as the West Coast can be...)
Hi Atomic Shrimp, I do not know if you are aware of this or not, but insted of a slow cooker, you can wash them (if necessary) and soak them overnight, in water. They will absorb the water, gets soft and cooks really fast. You can do this with peas and beans as well, also you can add some strong seasing to the water and will absorb some of the flavours overnight :)
I dunno if it's worth mentioning, but I saw the swedes, so I thought I'd share some results of my own culinary experimentation. I made mashed potatoes and swedes for Burns Night the other day. The problem was, I couldn't find a swede smaller than than 800g, which is way too much mashed swede for one person. I cooked half the thing up, and even that made too much mash. The solution I came up with the next day: add some plain flour to the mashed swede until it forms a paste thick enough to form a ball, make more balls, and then cook them in boiling water for a few minutes until they float. A bit of salt and pepper later, and I had a pretty decent swede based kinda-gnocchi type thing. Works with leftover potato mash, too.
If you have some butter/ marg you could add some to the flour and potato/swede mix to make pastry. This was a wartime staple and is a bit like suet pastry.
*Afterthoughts & Addenda*
*Confused Americans* - I now have Americans commenting that their food isn't taxed either. Check if what is true in your part of the USA is also true in all the other states (spoilers: it isn't)
*Why not just buy [ingredient x]?* - eggs, oats, dry beans, ramen noodles, Wagyu beef - people often comment with lots of ideas about what I *should have* bought instead - and these might be based on different prices in your own locality. I feel like I already clogged up the start of this video with enough rationale for the shopping, but maybe at the end of day 5, I'll look back at what other things I could have bought, or could not, and why I didn't.
lmao Wagyu beef
@@_efault the staple budget meat ingredient.
You spend a good amount of time explaining this is a challenge in nearly every vid and people still be asking the same basic questions. Like I don't think watching someone eat ramen, egg and some greens for 5 days would make for interesting content. Even with your great personality, no offense m8 lol
@@firstletterofthealphabet7308 For villain-airs, pardon me, billionaires and trillionaires.
On a semi-related note, I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the suggested 'Vimes Boots' price index.
As a single mum with 3 kids I am really struggling to make ends meet atm. One of the biggest money fears is food and eating healthly regularly on a budget. These videos , whilst for personal challenges only, have actually helped me so much. We are having this sausage stew tonight. For 4 really large potatos it cost me 88p! 3 large carrots 30p and an onion 18p and a pack of Morrisons own brand of sausages were £1 and I got a sweetheart cabbage for 70p. I have never even considered buying loose veg before. I will use herbs and stock I already have. I also loved the sugar milky toast with banana. We always have banana on toast but I've never seen it done that way. It looks much more delicious so will be trying that out too. Thank you for these helpful video's.
@JkYeah it is but things don't always stay the same. I've had times where I am not struggling and have been nice places abroad not havingbto worry about money. The company I worked for went bust which is why I am struggling atm although things have already improved since I posted this and will continue to. So yes it's sad but there are so many people worse off.
@@girlonfire937 Keep strong!
@@girlonfire937 you're doing great! keep smashing it :)
@Jk Why are you not nice?
Classic, choosing bad boy, now regrets it
I absolutely adore your no-nonsense, right-to-the-point introduction. You're kind of a unique UA-camr, both with your style and the range of topics you cover.
Yeah, we all love AS. Who couldn't?
Same glad he cleared that up
The only channel where Wadsworth’s Constant doesn’t apply.
Of all the UA-cam videos that I watch your channel has the most interesting content I am thankful for your work.
Fantastic comment 👏.
The statement in the introduction is the star of the video, ''This is something I do in order to provoke myself to be creative.''
Those waste-not boxes are genius! I wish our stores over here did that.
It's a new scheme and quite limited unfortunately, but it should be global.
Super markets are doing that now here in Hong Kong. Mostly veggies which aren't as fresh as they could be and all sorts of items which may or may not be useful.
In the US at my Kroger grocery store they have a section of $1 veggies or fruit that are almost going bad. I buy from that section all the time and i've gotten some great vegetables and fruit.
costco does but they’re huge
Same. I've only ever seen them at farmers market and china town. Around closing time theyll bag a bunch of vegetables and sell them at a flat rate. I lived near chinatown in college and lived off of those sales. I wish I had them now, but I live far from it.
To avoid lumps when adding flour to thicken hot liquids, mix the flour in a little cold water first, then add this to the hot liquid and stir it in.
Good tip. I find cornstarch to work a little better though.
its not flour, you use potato flour aka starch or corn. they work better
@@tomaszszupryczynski5453 no you can use flour to but starch is also a thickener
I do this for hot chocolate too, works everytime!
@@get6149 regular flour you will need 20x more to have same effect. and i doubt you would eat that
When I was in college, I was very broke, and I had to learn how to cook and shop on a tight budget. I was so excited the day I realized that the neighborhood I passed through on my way to class was full of fresh wild fruit and herbs. Mulberries, lemon, apples, basil, oregano... If the tree or bush was on someone's property, I would always ask first if I could pick a few things, and they were usually more than happy with it. It definitely helped add some variety to my meals, and was fun and a way to meet new people!
I truly wish community gardens were made accessible to people.
Hearing that foraging wasn't allowed was like someone telling me Santa isn't real. Truly an unprecedented development in the limited budget challenge.
What does foraging mean? In this context
@@So3oodiya Picking plants like wild garlic, apples, nettles, etc.
Seriously
Most my yard is edible
And even more going that way this year
@@So3oodiya
معلمه انكليزي وما تعرفين انكليزي؟
على الاقل استخدمي ترجمه كوكل
@@AmeenAlnaimi يا لطيف ع الناس الفاضية انا اعرف معناها بشكل عام بس ما اعرفها في حالة معينة و هي وقت الاقتصاد في المال و انصحك بعد كذا انشغل بحياتك و لا تتدخل بحياة الآخرين
"Possibly the strangest thing I've cooked on one of these budget challenges"
Apples, salmon paste, and mayo on toast is definately wierder than peas, lettuce, and rice.
Weirder yes but tastes wonderful.
Don't forget the ketchup and carrots and wasn't there honey mustard in that apple coleslaw he made?
@@kerim.peardon5551 ok I threw up
I was gonna say, this is one of the most normal looking meals he's made in these videos
Don't forget chickpea soup made of Bombay mix!
Here I am in my early 20s and a big disappointment according to my parents, so I stopped getting money from them a week ago even though I'm still in college and can't work regularly due to my chronic illness. While I was thinking about how to pay my rent and provide myself, I saw this video and got away from my troubles, even for half an hour.
Maybe also take inspiration, perhaps the video is not just entertainment but information . Good luck.
Good luck sweetheart, really wish you the best
Always stay positive
burada tanıdık birilerini görmek ne güzel. ne dersem diyeyim etkisi olmayacak, fakat kötü şeylerin geçeceğine inan. dertleşmek istersen buradayım.
You are not a disappointment. That is only their opinion of you and your own negativity due to the way you are feeling just now (quite rightly). Take time out to build yourself up day by day, set a goal and do what you can. Be kind to the world and enjoy the company of people who are kind, if they aren't cut them loose and fly solo because when you appreciate your own self-worth friends will appear. I've made friends in the strangest situations.
I remember being 27 and feeling I was a complete disaster, I'm 46 now and every day we grow a bit more. ❤
@@zetametallic I love your outlook on life
Kid you not I was literally thinking about how I wanted another limited budget video bc I've just binged all of them in the last week lol. Thanks shrimp
Dude I'm in the exact same position!
Oh my god same!!
The budget videos are how I found the channel, love it when we get a new one.
I thought exactly the same earlier
I've just rewatched them all with my gf. Her first time and my third time. This is the content UA-cam was made for.
I wish my local Lidl did those "bargain boxes". A fun "lucky dip", healthy, and budget-friendly.
Please keep up the good work.
You can also boil them in stock and blend it to make soup, add some chicken and really low cost meal.
My lidl just has left over bread AFTER the registers, which i still don't understand how on earth you're supposed to be able to buy them when you're on your way to exit the store
I've only seen them once in about 10 visits so it's not reliable in my Lidl. Maybe AS's is better.
@@swedneck apparently they put them behind the registers so that they can prevent ppl adding fruits or vegetables to the box. But I also dont see a problem with having them close to the registers.
So idk no of its everywhere the same but the lidl where i work we have an app for those boxes something along the lines of lidl to good to go boxes maybe its the same for you thats why you dont see them cause you have to claim them on the app
This kind of video was what UA-cam was made for. A long, in-depth budget food video with lots of detail, exact steps if you wanted to do it yourself, tons of personality, and occasionally intercut with jokes, miscellaneous cooking tips, useful graphic animations, and dog/nature footage. I salute you for keeping the traditional youtube style alive and making great quality, entertaining, and educational stuff for all of us at home.
Absolutely love what Lidl and co. are doing with these stop-waste boxes/deals.
Such a great way to decrease food waste.
I wish stores in the us would do this, because that’s honestly genius
I'd probably be a bit healthier if that was around where I live lol
they dont do this at my local lidl
@@mrchefchef Lidl does this in the US as well I believe, however there aren't as many Lidl locations in the US as there is in the UK
We've talked before on Instagram, but I don't think I've ever said how much I respect your stance on these problems, as someone who's financially challenged myself. You have given me a lot of inspiration to make more wholesome meals on my terrible budget, and I wanted to thank you for that.
I agree I'm on a ridiculously strict budget, I just couldnt see going to 3 different shops to save pence worth it, but like I've found out watching atomics challenges saving a few pounds off every shop really could add up over time. Its very interesting to see how creative he can be.
I really appreciate him stating that it isn't about prooving that people poverty could do this, but that he wants to challenge himself to be more creative.
I've seen a few things marketed as a budget challenge that actually shames people who regularly have to watch how much they spend.
I grew up in household that really had to budget within the pence, and my parents often had to choose which bills to pay.
I'm lucky enough to not be in that situation as single person myself, but I'm not stupid enough to think it could never happen to me (especially with all the bill increases in the U.K. at the moment.)
I don't know why I went on this rant...
You might look into water fasting and scheduling 1 day/week of water fasting. It saves money and improves the health of the body, and also the health of the mind becoming more mindful of food, inner and outer environments.
don't listen to the quack above me, water fasting is dangerous as hell and there are no proven benefits to it
@@sgt.eclair Trust me, I've had to do it involuntarily more times in my life than I'm comfortable with
Hey, i've been struggling for money for a while and living off UC trying to find a job and I just want to say that your videos have really helped with budgeting and learning how to get creative with some of the things I make in the kitchen. I recently got a job so I feel like it's ok for me to say this now. I hope that your videos help others as much as you've helped me Xx
I don’t wanna work instead live on 1dollar a day😂
@@turuus5215how tf are you supposed to get the dollar genius, not to mention things like shelter and luxuries
@@Aromantic_alien It was a joke, and also people don't lose all their money as soon as they quit a job
I love, love, love, these "waste not" policies and I hope they keep progressing to the point they regulate waste disposal for restaurants and hotels. I remember being a teenager and witnessing hotel kitchen staff throwing hundreds of pounds of perfectly good food in the dumpster, and realizing just how many problems we could solve if that food could be salvaged before that point and fed to people who need it. Good to see something finally moving forward in that regard.
Did you have to pour bleach on them too?
You should see the food waste on a cruise ship. Horrible!
@@gabriellegibbons9236 Yikes, I can only imagine. And that's twice as bad cause you can't exactly give that food away either, since you're at sea.
there are restraunts that sell for cheaper, excess food
i forgot the app name that you could get them from
@@lynoska1951 is it called "Too good to go"
Loving this series, eagerly waiting for day 2 ❤️😊
I just realised this is only day 1; atomic shrimp is spoiling us with new content
I always have to replay the rules to catch the more unusual restrictions...lol..piracy, telepathy, red string, telekinesis. Love your sense of humor.
Every time you say hogweed I ready myself for “regular hogweed not giant hogweed” and I enjoy it every time.
and every time I have the Genesis song in the head for hours after that.
@@galier2 There must be some misunderstanding, it must be some kind of mistake... on your part.
"Why not just buy ramen and live off of that for 5 days?" Because he's trying to run a show here and watching a man buy and eat 14 packs of ramen isn't exactly thrilling(well, it might be, I guess I've never seen that. Maybe an idea for april fools?). Also, he's attempting to teach as well as entertain. If you're living off of a small budget, having a variety of meals may be a luxury, but that luxury is what might keep you from getting sick of a particular food.
also purely ramen for 5 days,multiple times a day,is horribly unhealthy,this is just a 5 day challenge that provides a real variety
That is a lot of sodium on top of all that. Sure, there are ways to dilute the soup further or he could just ignore the stock packet and just use the noodles. Either way, as amazing as the stuff tastes, the instant noodle approach prolly wouldn't be the best for ya.
I think it'd make a good April fool's episode. Seeing him try and find ways to make the ramen interesting could be fun (and it would sorta fit the challenge of working with limited materials)
@@seamoose9039 I agree. There's tons of ways to modify and prepare ramen in different ways to shake it up.
@@Shenorai ramen has a pretty unexceptional amount of sodium unless you actually drink all the broth. Given that the broth is just water and the flavor packet and a bit of starch from the noodles there's not really a reason to do that.
i love the way you edit and present information - your rules slide, your compromise circles slide at the start, youd make amazing presentations
Love this series so much. It's almost like watching someone solve a difficult and satisfying puzzle game.
Yes, exactly. That's what makes it fascinating and entertaining to watch.
I love how the closed captions mark Eva's barking as [Laughter].
It's nice to see you two doing well.
That's sweet ❤
It's probably guessable from context but also an example of how automatic captions (aka #CRAPtions) are not great for d/Deaf caption users who need them to have equal access and for others who may use them. Ideally a big channel can & should pay a captioning service. It's not as hard as it sounds. OTOH, not accessible to everyone, but I'm a small channel and it has been hours of work but I've hand-captioned nearly all my videos (might've missed or messed up a few). I'm autistic so, it's a solidarity & awareness thing for me as part of the disabled community. But it's not just disabled people who should care! Sorry to jump on your comment with a soapbox bit of disability activism, it was a golden opportunity to make the point!
I have made poetry out of automatic captions though, or commented ruefully on funny or nice accident, your comment wasn't wrong: just the situation where it's yes, sadly quite hard work to give equality of access if you're not paying for it but the steps that could be taken aren't taken often enough & professional captioning services are quite reasonably priced and very fast.
@@kathybramley5609 Oh don't get me wrong; I'm not Hard of Hearing or Deaf, but captions definitely help me understand what is being spoken as sometimes (either due to not wanting to wake others in the house, UA-cam going derp with the sound, or an undiagnosed auditory processing issue).
I greatly appreciate the time and effort you put into your transcriptions. It's one helluva time sink and goodness knows on some channels, they forget how to align the timing (or outright rush the captioning in cases like Paramount Network).
I’m gonna be living on just under £30 a week at uni, so these videos are actually really helpful thank you!
Funny you should say that..when I lived in England, one of the first cookbooks I bought was for students. I used it a ton and made some amazing meals. I will say that some of the ingredients were “dear” as my roommates attested but it was possible to eat good just need some creativity. bearing in mind that economic stress sometimes shuts down that creative part of our brain when we are in survival mode!
@@dianathompson-sorric6461 perchance, what the book was called?
This is mental, I lived off £30 a week at uni... ten years ago. Back then it wasn't much of a challenge, I could eat more or less what I wanted as long as I bought the cheapest option.
@@bassetts1899Finished Uni last year and I could easily spend £15-25 on weekly basics.
Pasta, Rice, Flour, Eggs etc have shot up siiiiiiignificantly. I found it easier to cook as part of a flat/group though, but I understand not everyone can do that.
I'm currently in uni aswell and have been living off £19 a week and it's been tough especially counting bus money and the 4 pounds I spend on washing clothes every 2 weeks but I have been managing
He’s so knowledgeable I love him, he’s like the grandad I never had
lol! I think he's only in his early 40s
Granddad lol
Well he's a little more distant than a father, so if not grandad, maybe uncle?
@@jdh6752 technically that is old enough to be a grandpa, but the kid would be a baby and not posting on youtube
Liked within about 20 seconds because you explicity said it's not about "playing poor". I love your commitment to thought provoking content without fetishizing poverty. The feeling of respect you have is hugely returned
as someone who grew up in a typical 5 kids single mum living in a flat environment, i wish i could show this to my mum who would feed us ping ping meals and frozen chips every night. i love what you do and even if its not "preaching the poor" youre a fantastic example as to what reality is for some people
FYI, coming from a southeast asian: washing rice isn't about just washing it for hygeine reasons, it's also to remove the surface starch, letting the rice absorb water more readily, leading to better, more consistent and fluffy texture.
Even if the rice you have is clean and not in need of washing, you may find value in soaking your rice in water for half an hour or so, before giving it a quick rinse and adding in the right amount of water for cooking.
Basically = washed rice leads to better rice.
I always rinse wash my rice before cooking, but I didn't realise to soak it a little first. I usually start it from cold water, so would that count?
I've also heard that eating the rice the next day actually is a great way to keep off weight, as the starches have changed and the grain metabolises differently than when eaten straight away. Is that something you've heard of?
@@jaegrant6441 It's called resistant starch. Some swear of it, I never really noticed a difference.
Better is of course totally subjective and also depends on the preparation the rice is destined for - some of which require that starch coat be there.
@@galier2 yes, Madeline Lemon has a video on soaking rice for resistant starch, it's good in a keto diet she thinks.
ua-cam.com/video/zbozsw-EA_E/v-deo.html
You are so right. I found this out by accident and I got better rice so always do it now.
Your last dish very much reminded me of a Japanese-American fusion dish called Taco Rice created by Okinawans through to the influence of US troops stationed on the islands and the cuisine they brought with them.
It consists of cooked rice topped with shredded lettuce, then seasoned ground beef (or half-and-half) cooked/fried with onions, herbs, soy sauce and a little bit of added sugar is stacked on top of the rice and lettuce. Finally shredded cheese and and a tomato sauce consisting of diced tomatoes and ketchup are the garnish. The first time my girlfriend cooked that dish for me I was kind of apprehensive of putting the lettuce in between the hot rice and meat, but with the first bite I fell in love with it's unexpectedly complex taste and now it's one of my favorites to have, as it is very easy to prepare and is amazingly delicious!
As someone from southern california, it’s a flavor that is very familiar. Seems like some military guys missed the mexican food back home!
Yes! I haven’t thought about King Tacos in forever… thanks. Putting taco rice on the menu for this week.
Living alone, the lettuce I buy, sometimes gets a little - old. So, I just fry it on a pan to fill some other dish. - My friends find that odd, but - you know - no waste....
@@LilA-zl6tf the risk of food poisoning isn't just about the bacteria/fungi. It's also about the toxins that are produced by them, which often cannot be destroyed by cooking. Not sure if what you're doing is safe. If you live outside the city, composting would be good. Even in the city it can be done but I would strongly recommend against it.
I did something like this last year. Inspired by one of your challenges I tried to eat for a day on £1 - it went so well that on the evening I made a menu and shopping list for the next day - £4 for the next four days! It was lockdown and so I didn't shop round or venture far, which meant I couldn't shop at the cheapest store. Cheap rice was going to feature, but there was none in stock so I had to improvise. I didn't enjoy it, I felt unwell, and decided it was because I normally eat more uncooked food than this budget allowed. I planned to have a tin of cheap veg soup for the last meal, but couldn't face it and fortunately had enough veg left over to make soup. I had about 45p worth of food left over. I particularly liked your idea of buying "one" of a piece of fruit or veg, but there was little in stock the day I went shopping. I certainly became more aware of the issues around eating on a budget, but wasn't keen to do it again. Now I take a long walk to one of the cheap supermarkets once a week I might try it again, prioritising raw food.
As someone who is low income I have never been offended by your budget food videos. I really like them because they give me ideas. Here in Las Vegas we have multiple Indian markets. Your use of the Bombay mix was brilliant. It's such a cleaver idea to add flavor to things. It would be cheap and relatively easy to make a cream of chickpea soup with Bombay mix for flavoring.
Ich habe das Glück, im Moment nicht mit Geld zu kämpfen, aber das ist trotzdem sehr informativ, Sie haben eine sehr sachliche und auf den Punkt gebrachte Präsentation.Schön zu hören, danke 👍
Looking forward to seeing curried split peas in home made flat bread wraps, and mashed carrot and swede fried into "hash browns" 👍👍 the lard was a good move
Very interesting challenge as always. I live in Russia, and it's always interesting to see the differences in food availability and affordability across the globe. For once, Britain seems to have more meat and fat options - those sausages you described as low quality would probably be considered pretty good by Russian standards. I've also had trouble finding good cheap fruit and greens in supermarkets, but that may just be my luck and the fact that I live in a very urban area.
Loving the dishes you've made so far. Split peas are an often underlooked budget food, because people don't always know how to prepare them well and because of the possible... musical side effects (that can also be minimized with a longer cooking time and some baking soda). However, split pea soup with some smoked pork ribs - or at least smoked paprika if you can't afford ribs - is delicious and filling.
I've heard it's easier to find fruits and vegetables in more of the countryside in Russia. Very beautiful place, though cold by my standards, haha (I'm Sicilian, and visited Chelyabinsk).
You make such a great point. In India, cheap cuts of frozen meat and canned food are actually considered decent quality and passed off at higher prices. But grains and fresh vegetables are significantly more affordable if you get them at the local market instead of a supermarket.
It's so interesting to see these differences.
I doubt if you'd consider our low quality sausages here in the UK. They're 40% meat but the rest is not made up with much fat but grainy fillers like rusk or soya. Whereas I'm guessing in Russia a low meat percentage sausage would have a lot of fat, which is better.
@@simonh6371 The 40% meat thing was confusing for me at first, being from the US, sausages having filler is normally considered not a sausage tbh. I wish we had easier access to fresh veggies, it can be hard to get good stuff here for things like that, and a good stew once a week would be lovely. Also, Blackcurrant is still extremely hard to find, and that's terrible ngl, one of my favorite fruit preserves or jams.
@@Waskomsause I've lived in a few European countries (Netherlands, Germany Austria and Spain) and there too a product with 40% meat wouldn't be considered a sausage either. In those countries they have stuck to traditional foods and recipes whereas we in the UK kinda deviated from that starting in the Industrial Revolution, when food needed to be stored for a long time, but there was no refrigeration. Also in those countries they haven't gone with the ''fat is bad'' ideology which is actually wrong, here in the UK we have more obese people than anywhere in Europe, due to high sugar and carb consumption.
I love that the dog wants to make sure the ball is very caught before giving it back.
NO telepathy? Damn, things are really starting to kick up with these challenges. Atomic Shrimp just went Hard Mode shoppin.
Fortunately he's still allowing levitation, so it shouldn't be that bad.
Love this video! Reminds me of whatever I did in my 20s to survive on a minimum wage call centre job and stuck paying someone else's 780 quid a month mortgage on their BTL flat. Life is hard when you're poor, but creativity and a willingness to think imaginatively is something that makes you stronger as a person.
What is btl??
@@sameerishaque7635 Buy to let. A rental property.
why were you paying someone else's mortgage?
That's what happens when you rent a property - you're basically paying someone else's mortgage and it keeps you too poor to save up and buy your own.
Wow thanks youtube recommendations for not showing this to me earlier, but I left a comment on an earlier video asking if you could do something like this and its amazing to see that you delivered. This was very interesting to watch, thank you!
Now… we will wait until one day we’ll get a “100 pounds for 100 days”.
Oi horizon
What do you eat while killing p2w serv3rs?
YES!! Thank you so much. I lost my job in October and I’m looking for creative ways to eat in very little. Your video came at just the right time. Thank you for showing that humble food is all you need to sustain yourself ❤️
Wow, those produce boxes are amazing. We don't have that where I live at all, there's almost no marked down veg or fruit ever, but I'd sure love it if we did. You are very fortunate to have such great choices. That's why I love watching these sorts of videos from other countries. It shows just how crazy our food prices are here as well as showing how people around the world get creative with what they do have.
Just curious, what part of the world are you from?
@@wildaviation5528 the usa probably
Those boxes are not that readily available . You have to get to the shop very early to stand a chance of getting one. Fruit and vegetables are very cheap in the U.K. but meat is extortionate.
I live in Central Illinois USA my local Kroger will bag up fruit and potatoes in mesh bags and sell for $0.99. I'm always looking for apples depending on the size I get four or five in a bag I usually weigh them and they are about two and a quarter pounds for 99 cents that's pretty good. Anytime I buy bagged fruit that sells per bag not per pound I always weigh and get the largest bag. Example if I were to buy a 3lb bag of Mandarin oranges for $2.99 I will weighs several bags and get the heaviest bag. I often buy a package of boneless pork chops that sells 5 for $5 I weigh those and get the heaviest package they are often cheaper then the markdown packages. I have been buying mostly markdown meat for many years or sale prices I rarely will pay full price. I also check mark down and clearance food and non-food items.
Over several years shopping this way has saved me quite a bit of money
I occasionally use dry onion flakes but raw or cooked onions bother my stomach
Love these series. Given the flour and free water, I’d definitely do flatbread with pretty much every meal. It’s delicious and doesn’t require much fat to make tasty.
Also, I feel boiling the potatoes misses an opportunity a little too. Par-boil, crush slightly with a fork and then roll around in salt and a little lard and they’d be great. Not £5 for 5 days great, genuinely really great.
You have no idea how happy I am that there is another limited budget challenge 🤩 it’s what bought me to your channel all that time ago! Going to watch this right now 😄😄
Same
Same, lol, and stayed for that unforgettable table cloth 😂 okay that wasn't all 🤣. Good channel.
This is my favorite of your series. I love how true you are to the challenge. I have seen other creators cheat wildly, effectively doubling their money with just what's in the pantry. I have set myself a challenge of no outside food for the month of February. I have been hoarding food a bit, "just in case," and find myself with a veritable supermarket in the cupboards. I will eat no takeout, and will not visit the market for the month, unless it's something needed for my dogs. Thanks for the great video - can't wait for part 2.
Hey, that's awesome!! I hope it goes well!!
@@jaegrant6441 - Thanks so much! Fingers crossed!
I took stock and better do the same for a month. Pantry and freezer bulging so really don't need to shop. And 2 bags of cat food plus treats on hand for my cat. Plenty of litter even. Might skip shopping 2 months, put that money into savings.
We did this last year, decided to eat through a lot of of COVID stocks... we didn't need 6 of everything. 😆 the amount of rice and beans....
This is my favorite channel to put on and just sit and knit. You are definitely my knitting buddy and so inspiring with what you do with such little money!
I haven't seen those mixed vegetables bagged like that. That's a great start.
Skipping a generation I was mostly raised on a small farmstead by my Great Aunt and Uncle who both grew up through the (not so) Great Depression. While we always had an abundance of many varieties of vegetables (and enough to barter each year with a neighbor who kept pigs) my Aunt Dot always had a great big pot of vegetable soup simmering. No matter the season - this was the most essential part of the meal.
On weekends some kind of meat would be roasted and portioned to add to the next soups.
Sorry, I've lost myself in the nostalgia... but I wanted to say that I subscribed b/c you hooked me with the soup and the saving scraps for stock. It's a lovely practice that we keep up in our home today.
Cheers
Reminds me of the pottage they apparently ate a lot in the Middle Ages. A pot of food that was kept on the simmer, in which all of the scraps were thrown and then eaten. I wonder what your Aunt and Uncle put in their soup? Just veggies and a bit of left over meat, or some flavourings/stock too? I think I want to do this on some level….
@@Becoming0ne Hi. The business end of the farm was tomatoes. They had a contract to grow for Campbell's Soups who supplied the seed and contracted the swarms of migrant harvesters. There were always a couple hundred pounds that would be left on the vine and ripen late. Aunt Dot would invite a few of the local churches to pick over the remainder for their needs. They always had a couple of acres set aside for growing all kinds of other vegetables for their year-round use and to sell at the stand on the road. If there was ever anything that went bad in the field it was always dropped off at the neighbor's home for their pigs.
Her soup stock always had tomatoes, onion, celery and a big marrow bone and I'm sure it was somewhat salted. The pot had to be about 20 gallons. From this she would draw off several quarts of stock into another, smaller pot to which she would add whatever she was in the mood for, or whatever needed to be eaten (she only canned vegetables that were perfect). This was the pot that she would add fresh herbs to - typically thyme and sage. She mostly only added beef or pork, occasionally a chicken if it stopped laying. These were roasted Sunday mornings at sunrise and would be portioned through the week.
For any given dinner she would serve some sort of meat with potatoes and a bowl of soup.
These days I still make trips to the local farmer's market and pick up my order of fresh vegetables. I'll make 14 quarts at a time and pressure-can them to have through the year.
If you ever stop by for dinner - expect soup!
Thanks to Aunt Dot and Uncle Ed, there could never be a better childhood than mine
@@wayne00k wow, thanks for sharing so much detail. It sounds so happy and wholesome. I’m also glad you had such a beautiful childhood. Thank you for sharing some of the lessons learned. I am definitely going to get back to making my own stocks and commit to having soup on the go more often, keeping Aunt Dot’s methods in mind. ❤️
One way to use the water used from washing rice is to use it to water your plants. Rice water can work like fertilizer for promoting plant growth. I grew up in Southeast Asia and my relatives who love gardening use rice water for their plants.
Can you use it for hair?
@@aleksandrakowalczyk6043 you could use rice water, just don't use it too often especially if your hair has low porosity (meaning it takes a while for your hair to get wet and it takes a long time to dry completely once it's wet). Rice water can also cause protein overload and hair breakage if used too often.
I mean you can make some alcoholic beverages out of it.
@@girishmahajan3646 yup saki actually lmao
I'm 20 minutes in and you've really made me reflect on my greed and laziness when it comes to food. Thank you.
I have some thinking to do.
Yesssss I love these Challenges.
During a particularly broke period, I largely lived out of a giant Asian supermarket. It was great as you could buy everything loose
We used to have a store like that when I was a student. One stock cube, one gram of flour etc. was fabulous and I still miss it over two decades later. Apparently they fell out of favour with health and safety inspectors. I suspect that was a convenient excuse.
The little growl eva gives everything she bites the ball sounds exactly like my dogs Bonnie and Rosie did when they had done the same exact thing. Thank you to you and Eva for flooding that memory right into my brain when I needed it more than I ever thought I could.
they sound like lovely, happy dogs! hope you're doing well
Even though the meals you make are cheap, they honestly look nicer than a lot of the more expensive stuff. I like the creativity and home-cooking you do, makes me want to try it to save money and try some home cooked meals
This was great. You got a ton of food, and it's nice to see some healthy 'real' food in one of these £5 challenges. Can't wait to see tomorrow's installment.
He got so lucky with the veg pack! Loved the first installment as well.
@@miekekuppen9275 he could probably have got by on just the £1.50 food box - a big stew and bread.
@@miekekuppen9275 I work at Lidl and they are really good
I love how you included the botanical names of the plants. Im a Landscaping gardener trainee and I really appreciate that
I wish my Lidl had those crates, it'd have been handy because I'm slowly starting to practice these low budget food challenges for when the cost of living gets even higher. I really like these videos! Love that random spice idea too.
I love these limited money challenges. I think it's a really good of challenging yourself while providing methods, recipes and knowledge for individuals that unfortunately will only have roughly £5 to spend on 5 days worth of grocceries
Food costs here in Sweden is 2-3 times your prices so while I can't even get close to this price I am doing a week on £16 next week. Will be very interesting!
I didn't just go for the cheapest food possible but rather food I want to eat and be satisfied. It also helps that I'm living the OMAD diet :D
I think you will do well to do a week on £16 !
Having lived in Sweden , I know how ordinary things like a swede or cabbage can cost . On the plus side, the potatoes in the big hoppers were always cheap ( south west Sweden) and white cabbage costs a very low price per kilo at certain times of year. On midsummers eve last year, the new potatoes were nearly free ! To buy locally produced new potatoes here in Wales,even in the summer would be quite expensive.
I do miss the quality of the milk , cheese and bread though.
Surely it can't be 2-3 times as expensive? More expensive yes, but all food 2-3 times?
@@iPelaaja1 Yeah, it's possible.
@@iPelaaja1 the same tin of beans from his shopping episode a week ago that cost him 22p costs me 67p, from the same store.
So you can imagine everything else that's more expensive.
Food prices here in Norway make me weep.
This man is very well spoken.
I’m 39 weeks pregnant and literally binged watched your videos!! I love them! Thankyou for these !! Hope you and Mrs Shrimp are okay 💖💙
Congrats and good luck!
@@nightfox1416 thanks so much!
I genuinely smiled when I saw this in my recommended. There's really no one else who can really do budget challenges the way you do, foraging, budgeting and coming up with the most ingenious solutions to problems you face. Love your content and I hope you have a fantastic day!
Edit: Just got to the rules and I see there's no foraging, even nicer that you're challenging yourself to keep it from being too easy
No forage is hard
Most my yard is edible
As a university student these kinds of videos are wonderful resources and are much appreciated
I absolutely love these kinds of challenges. Your previous iterations inspired me to give it a go as well. Unfortunately here in the States its much harder to shop on an extreme budget due to most items being packed for bulk sale. So I instead had to buy the smallest quantity possible and then calculate a per unit price. I managed a 4 day $4 budget and it was the most enjoyable problem solving experience I have had in the kitchen.
It really depends which stores you have in your areas too. Some places in the US have really good budget grocery stores and others only have the higher end ones. I was just thinking about trying something like this for 7 days, but there are 7 different grocery stores and 3 are budget ones where I live. So It's a lot easier for find good deals on smaller things. It'd be virtually impossible in many bigger cities though, as a single thing of lard or rice is lien $6 because of the ridiculous cost of living.
Watching this reminded me of my younger days, when I had to think in a similar way when shopping to get by. Now, 10 years later £5-8 a meal when cooking at home seems reasonable and up to now, I hadn't felt difference. Watching this was painfully reminiscent of my early 20s, yet bittersweet, as it's helped me appreciate how far I've come. Thanks for a great video!
Same here
i live in the us & never have i ever seen rosemary grown so large. people just casually have rosemary HEDGES outside their lawns.. i bet it smells lovely 🥰
Not where I live in northern Norway either. I’m just too far north for rosemary to thrive.
Yeah you see wild rosemary everywhere in the UK I think, at least where I live
I love it when he cooks. He always makes something interesting that looks great
I cook from scratch every day on quite a tight budget but I still find your videos fascinating! Amazing
I live in the US.
In the state of Ohio where I live, food ingredients are not taxed, but clothing is.
In the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, clothing is not taxed, but food ingredients are.
Some US states have no income tax, but everything else you buy or consume IS taxed by the state.
And that's not even addressing the roadkill laws you mentioned!
Cheers for great content!
That giant box of veg is great - wish Lidl had a deal like that where I live.
I love this kind of videos! There's always something to learn and I don't know how many tricks I've integrated into my daily life from watching your and June's videos (Delish) it definitely shows in my wallet, I'm still short on cash but I live a lot more comfortably and sometimes even have a nice extra cash at the end of the month.
I just want to say thank you for not only showing how to make meals on such a budget but how to cook those ingredients to make tasty meals. Due to the current times I need to cut back to this sort of budgeting and so finding this challenge in particular has given me hope! Subscribed :)
These low food budget videos you do are my FAVORITE! Excited to see another one.
Whoop whoop love these! And love how you always find different ways to make budget meals. One set of ingredients to one person may mean one kind of meal that could be made however to another person they may see a different potential meal from the same ingredients.
I’m sitting here watching when you say “Violet Rootrot”, and I say to myself that would be a fantastic name to use when you’re emailing your scammers .
..or a punk band's name!
I really love this series! I appreciate your spirit in these challenges-- not playing at poverty as some UA-camrs do, but seeing how creative you can get within a set of self-imposed boundaries. It encourages me to think differently about the food I cook, because I look at the ingredients you buy and think up a few things I could make with them, and I never, ever come up with the same things you end up making! And I think cooking is such an important life skill. Not enough people feel comfortable in the kitchen. A lot of the recipes online can seem really unapproachable to beginners. The way you approach it always seems so accessible, and I think a beginner cook could learn a lot just from watching you handle yourself in the kitchen. It shows that recipes really aren't the be-all, end-all of cooking, and that knowing some basics of cooking and flavours means you can combine almost any food at hand into tasty combinations and power the ol' meat suit for a few more hours!
Budget challenge, dog walk and a partial forage walk in the UK..... doesn't get any better than this!!!! Thanx from Australia 🇦🇺
Oi mate, I know the video is old and all that, but a hint from down here in Brazil. Our main rice here is long grain white rice, no need to wash them at all.
Quick recipe for our everyday white rice:
Stir fry a couple cloves of minced garlic with vegetable oil until fragrant.
Add your rice and stir fry it with the garlic until the grains just about turn transluscent on the tips.
Add water (exactly double the water for the amount of rice, just like you did)
Add salt, give it a couple stirs to mix it all.
Bring to a boil, put the lid "half on" and lower it. Simmer until it's dry. Fluff it and put the lid on for another couple minutes.
BAM perfect fluffy garlic rice =)
I was just binging your 2£ for 2 days videos again and the heavens opened their gates with this series. 10/10 quality content.
These challenges are highly educational and honestly promote creative thinking. Impressed, again!
I absolutely adore little Eva and her undying love for her ball!! She’s awesome. I also am quite fond of these budget meal videos of yours! Putting these two things together make my day! Another great video!!❤❤❤
Your videos are always kind of relaxing and comforting to me, regardless of the subject 😊
I'm in a Facebook group where that try to get a family to eat on a cheap budget.. And the amount of people who whinge about people buying caged eggs or really cheap bacon ect bugs me on a deep level.
I don't know how anyone can judge anyone for just trying to survive with what they have. I always say "you want them eating xyz? YOU BUY THIER SHOPPING THEN"
Really irks me. These videos help more people than you know.
people really dont understand that a lot of sustainable eating, organic, responsibly sourced, vegan etc foods are financially off the table for low income households. yes, a lot of it is crap food, yes people probably do feel bad for having no other choice than to buy lower quality stuff. they understand this, the upper class don't.
I love your videos because it really puts into perspective how much work goes into meal prep and keeping people energized and healthy. It's fascinating seeing how you're able to wring out a survivable meal plan on just under $7 usd. Thank you for all the work you put into these videos!
I mean, I look forward to every Friday and Saturday anyway because there are new videos from AS, but now my anticipation for the next four episodes has definitely increased to the "childish anticipation of Christmas" level! I can barely wait for it!
Yess another budget challenge can't wait! love your budget challenges
I love the Lidl veg boxes!
You can make your carrots last much longer if you wash them and keep them submerged in a tub/jar of water in the fridge
I love the idea of limitations breeding creativity and this series might be one of the best showcases for just that.
You have no idea, how much I love these videos.
Really gives me the energy and motivation to make it "fun", trying to make my food budget stretch for a whole month.
Especially now that all food prices(at least here in Denmark and properly everywhere else) are rising with up to 40%.
This is the most detailed, straight-to-the-point video in this category that I've seen so far on youtube! Great job
This is an immediate watch for me, definitely my favorite series next to the scambaiting and weird stuff in a can. Really fascinating stuff, haven't even watched this yet but wanted to say all that.
For the next episode, my request would be a pound fifty for 2 days, maybe 3 but with all urban and wild foraging, plus seasoning available. I was really amazed how you stretch out those budgets
Eva will drop the ball when Eva is done with the ball, thankyouverymuch.
Incredible. I’m in NY USA. We couldn’t get that may vegetables even if they were rotting and diseased for that price. I have never even seen the option lol. I have never heard of eating a banana peel but, heard of smoking it lol. Doesn’t work 😂. Thanks for posting I enjoyed it.
You can definitely eat banana skins, just clean then and cut the ends off them! You can either dice and fry them, or you can soak them overnight and then blend them into a banana bread!
I made one last week and blended it with chia and yoghurt to mix into banana bread (no actual bananas, just lots of skins) and it was definitely helped by me adding choc chips!!
Thanks for your honesty! I liked the "things you could have foraged" section. 😆
These challenges have inspired me to challenge myself to make the cheapest, most nutrient dense meals this month for my family as I can possibly manage! In the U.S., we as a family of four, use to have a $400 food budget. Lately it has required at least $600 to get the same stuff we usually buy. I always stay away from processed, pre-made, and snacky foods, by the way. We eat alot of eggs, when the chickens are laying, and alot of simple chicken and steamed veggie meals. Back to the dinner menu planning!
Appreciate all the work that went into this, the nutritional calculation and all that. Very interesting to watch! Cheers!
You literally just released this series at the right time! I've gone into hospital for a couple of weeks so this'll give me something to look forward to :) always enjoy your content and I am sure this will be quality!
I hope you're okay!
@@diarenee9012 thank you :)
How are you doing?
As an American these videos always blow my mind. At the time of recording this was about $6.50 USD. You wouldn't get anywhere close to this amount or variety of food with that price at even the cheapest of grocery stores. I live in a semi-rural area of Oregon (so low cost of living--as much as the West Coast can be...)
Hi Atomic Shrimp,
I do not know if you are aware of this or not, but insted of a slow cooker, you can wash them (if necessary) and soak them overnight, in water. They will absorb the water, gets soft and cooks really fast.
You can do this with peas and beans as well, also you can add some strong seasing to the water and will absorb some of the flavours overnight :)
22:10 no drop, only throw
Wow Azeria is here!
Hello from Romania, where is rainy and windy today. Thank you for posting and teaching us. Glad you are ok. Take care❤
I dunno if it's worth mentioning, but I saw the swedes, so I thought I'd share some results of my own culinary experimentation. I made mashed potatoes and swedes for Burns Night the other day. The problem was, I couldn't find a swede smaller than than 800g, which is way too much mashed swede for one person. I cooked half the thing up, and even that made too much mash.
The solution I came up with the next day: add some plain flour to the mashed swede until it forms a paste thick enough to form a ball, make more balls, and then cook them in boiling water for a few minutes until they float. A bit of salt and pepper later, and I had a pretty decent swede based kinda-gnocchi type thing.
Works with leftover potato mash, too.
That sounds really tasty and I think I will try it
If you have some butter/ marg you could add some to the flour and potato/swede mix to make pastry. This was a wartime staple and is a bit like suet pastry.