Feed a family on just $21 a week???

Sadly that's all I could afford for groceries during the slow season for my family a few years back. These days with things inflating in cost vastly from what they were a couple yrs ago you can't do it. Now if you can go to a store that doubles or tripples coupons then you can do it! The store that does it here only allows like 5 coupons and you have to spend a minimum of $25. SO unless you want to buy extras beyond the handful you have coupons for go for it. But I don't usually have the money to waste there. SO unless I know I"m going to spend atleast $25 then I will. Also I don't get the newspaper as the coupons are a waste to me 9 of 10 times. I do my best by going to Aldi's and just watching the sales.

I live in India and I can say that $20 is enough to feed a three member family for a week if the family belongs to middle class. I know that it is not possible in America. Where does the lady live? An asian country? Thanks for providing the link, I will go through it if I find time. Happy mylotting.

Reading through the article, I see that they're relying partly on what's already in the pantry, which makes a tremendous difference. They also caution that one shouldn't follow the plan too often because of nutrition problems. I see it as do-able, but only now and then - not such a great feat if one keeps a well stocked pantry. Then you'd only need dairy, fresh vegetables and maybe fruit, although canned fruit or juice from the pantry would be fine for a week.

I have no idea how you would do this. $21 buys us food for about two days around here. we've tried cutting this number down, but the best we can do is $40 per week - and that was 2 years ago for 2 of us. Now it's more like $65 per week for the 2 of us.

i don't think that we can survive that much only within a week. maybe from time to time but not every week. specially i do buy some expensive vegetables from time to time like broccoli. anyways, but it depends on my appetite. there are times i don't have much appetite sometimes i do want to eat a lot.

i don't think i could do it there is 6 of us , i wish i could do it . there is this lady here that will get over $200.00 in food but only pay $23.00 from all the coupons she uses i havve no clue how she does it i would love to know all of there secrets.

i often find that the item that the coupons are for is still even more expensive than the store brand. i would be hard pressed to feed my family of 4 on this budget. i find that my family is always hungry! we do eat frugally somewhat but i generally spend about $75 on groceries a week.

I would think that the only way it's possible is by using coupons and then getting the cheapest of the items sometimes they have roast here for .89 a pound and I get that divided into 4 different packages to make it smaller portions but we still end up spending about 60 a week on food and there is only 3 of us to cook for.

21/4= 5$ or so.. A little less than 5$, so they can buy a lot of noodles and drink water. Not a biggie, I can live on 5$/week very easy. It's the renting cost and electricity bills that eat all the money.

I know of people here in Australia, in Sydney actually who eat for free most of the time. They do what is known as dumpster diving at the large produce markets. These people are Raw Vegans, so they only eat fruit and vegetables. It is quite easy for them to find produce at the end of the day that the farmers have thrown out because it would not be good enough to sell the next day, or it may have had some cosmetic blemishes on it! We have gotten boxes of bananas for $5 and free too on plenty of occasions from markets because they were extremely ripe and could not be sold. We just cut up the whole box that day and freeze the banana pieces for later! Also when I was a teenager and hanging around on the streets regularly at night, we used to go into the bin behind the bakery and get out all the bread which had not sold and would eat it as it was still sealed in bags and fresh!

$21 a week would be a wonderful amount of money to be able to feed our family of four, but I know that we can't do it. At least not where we are. On my most recent trip to the grocery stores. One regular grocery store and the other was a warehouse club I spent $191 to feed our family for two weeks and I felt like that was doing really good. I'm buying things in more bulk though so some of the things that I bought on my last trip won't have to be bought again on my next trip. I also spend a little bit more on food because I like to have the good stuff. I still haven't had the chance to make it Aldi's but I'm planning on trying it out this week.

Wow this is an amazing story. Truthfully I probably spend $20 a day in all my expense :) Now,m they are truly a real saver, and so surprised it is not from a poorer third world country, as this is almost impossible in countries like Australie! Now, I hope she is only experimenting with this, and hope she does not have to live like this forever!