By Lewis Loflin
I grew up eating simple, cheap meals—rice, beans, potatoes, and whatever we could stretch with a little ingenuity. Today, people complain they can’t get food, yet I see deals everywhere at discount stores like Dollar Tree, Grocery Outlet, and closeout grocers—or even regular spots like Food City, where I snagged a 50-pound bag of potatoes for $19. A 2-pound bag of rice and a 1-pound bag of beans—pintos, black beans, or lentils—for $2.50 total at Dollar Tree? That’s a lot of meals right there. I’m set for weeks with that potato haul. Here’s how I make it work—and how you can too.
Start with that $2.50 combo from Dollar Tree: a 2-pound bag of rice and a 1-pound bag of beans. You’ve got options—pinto beans, black beans, or lentils—all $1.25 each. The rice cooks up to 13-14 cups—13 to 28 servings at ½ to 1 cup each. The beans, whatever type, yield 5.5-6 cups, or 11-12 servings at ½ cup. That’s 18-20 cups of cooked food total, enough for 18-40 meals depending on how you portion it. At $2.50, you’re paying 6-14 cents per serving. Then there’s my 50-pound bag of potatoes for $19—about 150 medium spuds, or 12-13 cents each. One potato’s a meal if you bake it, or stretch it with rice and beans for days.
Example: $3.50 gets you rice (13 cups), beans—pintos, black, or lentils—(5.5 cups), and a $1 pack of 8 hot dogs from a discount grocer. That’s 20+ servings—under 17 cents each. Feed a family for a day or two on that alone.
Discount stores are full of deals if you look. A pack of 8 hot dogs for $1 is easy to find—12-13 cents a frank—like at Grocery Outlet, where they’re a staple. Slice them into beans—pintos for heft, black beans for flavor, or lentils for quick cooking—or pair with a potato, and you’ve got protein for pennies. Smoked ham shanks at Grocery Outlet go for $1.25 per pound—toss one in a pot of beans for smoky richness. Hog jowl, bacon, or fat back at $2 a pound there can spice up meals cheap; fry it up, render it into greens, or save the bacon grease—a spoonful’s a great flavoring for beans or potatoes if you don’t overdo it. Frozen veggies are $1 for a 10-12 ounce bag—3-4 servings at 25-33 cents each—or grab a 2-pound bag of carrots at Aldi for $1.40, about 6-8 servings at 18-23 cents each. Spices? $1.25 at Dollar Tree or cheaper at bulk bins. A pinch of salt, pepper, or garlic powder turns bland into tasty. This is how people survived lean times—staples plus a little flavor.
Compare that to a $9 pack of Marlboro cigarettes. That buys 7 items at Dollar Tree’s $1.25 price—say, rice, a bag of lentils, cornmeal, and more—for 50+ servings. Or three sets of my $2.50 rice-and-beans combo (55-60 cups cooked) with cash left over. Cigarettes are gone in a day; this food lasts weeks.
People whine about pasta—like Kraft Mac-and-Cheese—saying it’s cheap and easy. Sure, a box might be $1.25 at Dollar Tree, but you’re getting maybe 3 servings of cooked noodles and powdered cheese—40 cents each. It’s mostly empty carbs, with nowhere near the protein or fiber of rice and beans. A cup of cooked pasta has about 8 grams of protein and 2 grams of fiber; the same cup of beans has 15 grams of protein and 15 grams of fiber, and rice adds staying power. Then there’s Quaker oatmeal at nearly $5 for a 42-ounce canister—18 servings at 28 cents each, decent fiber but no protein punch. Sugary cereal? Even worse—$4 or $5 for a box of garbage that’s gone in a week. Pasta and that junk are quicker, but for a little more effort—soaking beans overnight or boiling rice—you get way more nutrition and volume. It’s not wise when better options sit right there on the shelf.
Back in the 1970s, with six kids and Dad gone, my family used food stamps—but they weren’t free. You paid $30 for $100 worth, and they restricted what you could buy, handing out surplus cheese and stuff instead. Then in the early 1980s in Lenoir, North Carolina, between jobs, I lived for over a month on fried apples and field peas (crowder peas). Even before the factories closed, people there were poor—low wages kept everyone scraping by, though it didn’t stop the smoking. A friend had apple trees, and most were going to waste—horses were eating them before anyone else could. I picked a bunch before they were gone, hit Dollar General, and grabbed a can of Hungarian bacon—cheap, maybe a buck or two back then—and some spices like cinnamon and sugar from their shelves. Fried those apples in that bacon grease with a sprinkle of spice, and it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I also picked field peas (crowder peas) for free from a nearby patch—boiled them up with a little bacon or salt. Growing up, free school lunches helped poor kids like us too—I support that—but back then, they cooked real food at school, not whatever junk they use now, and that kept it cheaper for the system. That’s near-zero cost, just effort, and it kept me going. You don’t need much when you use what’s around you.
Yesterday’s potato haul—50 pounds for $19 at Food City, not even a discount grocer—proves my point. They’ve got a discount rack for expiring produce too—more bargains if you’re quick. Add $2.50 for rice and beans (pick your type), $1 for hot dogs, $1 for frozen veggies, and $1 for spices: $24.50 total. That’s 150+ meals—potatoes alone could be 150 servings, then pile on 18 cups of rice and beans, plus extras. Call it 16 cents a meal. Fast food costs $5 for one burger; this feeds you for a month. People aren’t shopping smart or cooking like we used to—they don’t know how to do anything, and many are just lazy. Hit the closeouts—like Grocery Outlet with its $1.25 ham shanks and $2 hog jowl—or regular stores like Food City for bulk deals and discount racks, or forage what you can, and stretch it—that’s the trick.
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.
