Is this for real? I living an affluent European country, buy vegetables in an organic farmers market, and the rest of my groceries delivered. We average around €3 per meal without really thinking about that much about budget. Also that includes fresh fruit for snacks.
Terms might be confusing, but as far as I can tell:
- Original source was doing food to feed for people one meal (four “individual meals” make up one “family meal”) for $10
- Reporter got three “family meals” for $28, meaning four people could eat three times each, 12 “individual meals” in total
Bearing in mind that this appeared to rely heavily on prepared foods, this is not so bad.
I can get a pound of dried beans from Walmart for $1. Five pounds of rice for $3.37. 12 ounces of bacon for $3.94 - perhaps not the very cheapest source of tasty meat/fat for seasoning, but a convenient one. Spend a little for an onion, garlic, assume we have spices and can replace them from time to time… I should end up with 6-8 bowls (using about half the bacon) so around $2 for half the bacon, less than $2 for the beans+rice, so add on a dollar for an onion and some garlic… That’s going to be less than a dollar per bowl. Rice and beans may not have “vegetables”, but it is a complete protein and nutritionally sound.
It’d be easy to add some cheap veggies - things like frozen broccoli, corn, peas run around a couple of bucks for four servings; fresh carrots a couple of bucks for a couple of pounds.
You can eat cheaply if you have a little time to cook. A slow cooker really helps make this more accessible.
So while I detest Dollar General, the video is… not completely terrible, just mostly terrible.
My point is that you have to be very frugal there to get around the same ballpark cost here buying pretty much whatever I feel like. That being said, I am vegan, mostly used only use fresh ingredients, dry legumes and some canned things. Don’t know if that makes it cheaper or more expensive than with more processed things.
Also, I did a very rough calculation by taking our total monthly expenses on groceries and dividing by our total number of meals. So toiletries, cleaningn supplies and other random things kinda get baked into the meal price.
Yes, this is for real. Whenever I’m fortunate enough to leave the US and visit basically any other country I’m jealous of two things: the price of food (groceries are cheap even if restaurants are not) and the quality of food (even non-organic produce is just more vibrant).
It’s been a thing for at least 10 years now that other countries have higher quality food for less money. It was probably true before that but in 2016 I was old enough to be living on my own and beginning to get invested in eating better food despite the damage it did to my budget. I might have to work my whole life and never retire but I am going to have my health as best as I can control it.
I went to Australia for a year the next year and was shocked by how affordable it was. Everyone told me it was ridiculously expensive, and yeah, eating out was easily $30 for a burger and fries or pizza but if I went to the grocery store or a market I could buy a week’s worth of food for the same price. I then needed to buy a new pair of ear buds down there and I found out that electronics are also very expensive, ~50% more after the exchange rate. But the food was cheap. I paid $150/week for rent. And there was public transportation.
Fucking “richest country in the world” my ass.
I haven’t bought ground beef in over 2 months. I’m in the Los Angeles area and it’s currently almost $8/lb.
I guess it helps being vegan haha. Tofu, beans, and tempeh are cheaper I guess.
I did just check the beef price here and its about €5 for 500g in the regular not cheap supermarket
Lower the cost of food, while increasing the cost of needing medical care. Makes sense.
I was going to say this should be on a boring dystopia before I realized it was.
Aldi is more cost effective, in terms of unit price and also actual quality. I’ve never not enjoyed stuff I got from Aldi. And if I ever DID end up not enjoying one of their store brands? Twice as nice guarantee: they’ll refund my money AND give me a replacement just in case the one I got in the first place was defective. It’s real. It’s the realest, even.
Standard is to go through ads and pick up loss leaders at other grocery stores. Get everything else at aldi.
I wish I had good experiences with Aldi. Mine just has an entire section of actually rotten produce and it’s hard to want to go back.
Dollar store food generally isn’t cheaper per serving.
I have to guess that, if you’re doing serious grocery shopping at the dollar store, it’s probably because it’s your best option.
The dollar stores in my neighborhood have far more limited grocery selections than what’s shown here. But my neighborhood has plenty of proper grocery stores.
Yeah, I once lived in a food desert. Nearest actual grocery store was 5 miles away and this was in a densely populated urban district. A primarily low income, black district. The only walkable stores nearby were liquor stores and a few different dollar stores. Luckily I could drive and it wasn’t an issue for me, but the overall feeling I got was that most people I lived around were not eating well.
From what I’ve understood from the other side of the big pond, a lot of people rely on dollarstores for their groceries. You don’t have to be actually cheap if there’s no other choices.
A lot of them sell items underweight or won’t stock specific items advertised as being on sale until the sale ends as well.
So much of what we are fed is practically poison.
https://knowridge.com/2026/08/dollar-store-groceries-may-come-with-a-hidden-health-cost-study-finds/
But regulations are so bad for business!
/s
A lot of stuff americans eat wouldn’t be allowed as food in other parts of the world. Pretty wild.
“Dinner for four for $28. […] These super inexpensive dinners…” Lmao. Dinner for four for $28 isn’t that hard; the blogger in the video did dinner for four for $10, which is cool.
The reporter was trying to replicate the bloggers and bought ingredients for three separate dinners for four. So $28 ÷ 3 coming out to under $10 per meal.
🤮
