How much should one meal cost?

[Miss Chicken]

What sort of meat and cheese are you buying if it costs that much for just one meal? I could make meat or cheese sandwiches for three or four people for that price.

Or I could buy two foot long subways and still have money to spare.

 

[RoJoHen]

No kidding!

$7.99 for lunch meat for one meal? Where the hell do you shop?

Lunch meat around here isn't even $7.99 a pound!

 

[Amaris]

Lunch meat is around here. The average price of lunch meat (depending on what you get) is about $6-$7 a pound. If you get the cheap stuff, like bologna, (the kind with all the fillers), you pay about $4 a pound. That's the local Kroger. If you travel to Walmart (two towns over), you pay a tiny bit less, but only a few pennies, really.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Ham cost about that here but I only need about 100 grams of it to make a couple of sandwiches. At the most $1.50 of meat for lunch. Even salami would only cost $2.50 max for two sandwiches.

 

[RandyS]

No kidding!

$7.99 for lunch meat for one meal? Where the hell do you shop?

Lunch meat around here isn't even $7.99 a pound!

Oops. You're right. I forgot to take into account the lunch meat was $7.99 a POUND, not one sandwich. And the $4.49 I quoted for the cheese was by the package, not the slice.

But yes, some of my local grocers sell it for $7.99-$8.00 a pound. And I shop at Save-Mart. Ironically named, yes?

Okay, that $17.22 is actually the cost of two weeks worth of lunches.

I hate math. No wonder I always got F's.

Sill, living in California in expensive.

 

[archeryguy1701]

For dinners, assuming I'm actually cooking (read: throwing crap into a crock pot), I can do it for around $10, and that usually will also leave me with enough food left over for 2 or 3 more meals. For example, tonight I'm making a chili and the main ingredients (beans, meat, tomatos, etc) cost me $13.18- though looking in the pot, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be eating chili for the next 3 weeks! What's killing me, as someone who's just starting out on my own, is buying the various "one-time cost" things, such as the spices and the sauces and the things that you don't need to buy for every single meal. That's driven my costs up a few times.

My normal dinners are pretty cheap ($0.88 TV dinners or $1 Pasta-roni boxes), and then I'll try to do the real cooking once a week.

 

[Kestra]

Yeah, spices can be a killer. If you're using a lot, try buying in bulk, especially at an ethnic grocery store.

 

[AFEK ESLCAFE W]

One meal should cost $5.00 or less.

That is what I am most comfortable with.

 

[Bob Karo]

Do you think "Colon Blow" is made by the same people who make "Oops! I crapped my pants?"

If not, they're missing a major opportunity. They could catch consumers coming and going.

 

[darkshadow0001]

I could eat dinner for myself for as little as $1. Answer? Store-brand frozen pizza