So she does what just about everyone has had to do at one time. When my boys were really young we had very little money. We only had a wood stove for heat so but we had a mini forest behind our house. I used to put my boys in their wagon and we'd go out and pick up branches that were on the ground. Both of them talk about how fun this was to this day. At the time they had no idea we were poor they were just having fun in the woods. I'd pick berries that grew wild on the property (I still do this) so we could have some fruit in our diet. I put them in muffins, cobblers, and eat them plain. I'd buy those really cheap vegetable seeds (the kind Walmart used to have for 10 cents) and canned what we didn't eat fresh. Got my canning jars at the Goodwill, Salvation Army & garage sales. Most of our lives we had only one car. I remember one of the coldest winter our car died. My husband spent hours for several days out in the cold fixing it. You do what you have to do.
But if she's only eating one meal a day she's a freaking idiot. Beans are cheap. So are potatoes, carrots & onions and other vegetables & fruit in season. There's always some kind of meat on sale and if you buy in bulk and freeze it (last week my Safeway had chicken on sale for .79 a pound). If I didn't have my own you can bet I would've bought several and frozen them. Sometimes you can find meat that's marked down. It's sometimes brown from air getting to it & a couple of days away from the store's expiration date but if you freeze it and/or use it right away it's just fine. There's the meat for my stew. Beans and stew can last for several days with only one adult and 2 small children. You may get tired of eating it day after day but it's warm, filling and nutritious. My dollar store has white rice & noodles (good for making soups), spaghetti sauce, canned fruits & vegetables, cookies & chips for a special treat. We have a refrigerator/freezer in ours and it has bologna, cheese slices (not the best but if you're poor it will do), small packages of chicken drumsticks (but enough to feed and adult & 2 small people) and would be perfect for making broth and chicken soup), fish stick & french fries (though if I were poor I'd only get these once in a while). Buy a bag of flour, some sugar, baking powder, baking soda, eggs, store brand milk, and the cheapest margarine you can find (this not only works as a spread but can be melted and used in place of oil), large store brand oatmeal, maybe some yeast. Now you have the ingredients for muffins, rolls, biscuits, pancakes, quick bread, yeast bread, even oatmeal cookies. Not to mention yummy warm, filling, and nutritious oatmeal for breakfast.
If you're only eating one meal a day you aren't shopping correctly. Little boxes of mac & cheese may seem cheap but since you get such a small amount it's hardly frugal. Although if you buy a few of the store brand when they're on sale & combine it with canned tuna (also relatively inexpensive) and frozen or canned peas it can last for a couple of days. My kids used to love this. However, if you have time to protest on wall street and have small children, your time would be better spent making soups, stews, and breads with your spare time instead of camping out and complaining. Spend a day (obviously not working but if you were you could do this on one of your days off) chopping veggies, making stews, soups, and a weeks worth of bread, rolls, whatever & freezing them. If you put out the effort you can probably get a month's work of dinners done this way.
It's amazing that these people actually know how to wipe their butts.
Cindie
