Cheap Eats
Food has become very expensive over just the past five years.
America's midwestern states used to be called "the breadbasket of the world." Enough crops and grains were grown, and livestock raised by American farmers, ranchers, cattlemen and growers to feed the entire planet.
That was back in the early-to-mid 20th century, prior to World War II, with the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression providing a brief interlude. It was also before mechanized farming, corporate-owned acreage, Big Ag, Monsanto, GMO, DDT, and heavy use of pesticides.
Food that comes out of the midwest these days is largely produced on mega-farms owned by corporations like Archer-Daniels Midland, Tyson Foods, McDonald's or Pepsico. Much of what's produced there goes to corporate interests in the fast food business, to grocery chains like Publix or Kroger's or is shipped overseas.
Farms used to be a few hundred to a few thousand acres and they were owned by families who had grown there, raised children, and tended to the land in harmony. Gradually, from the days of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s through the 2000s, small farmers were bought off, bought out, or bankrupted by heavy-handed corporate interests, the acreage combined into what are now massive money machines, not carefully-managed land as in the past.
So, here in 2025, food has become a major expense for more than just a few people. Prices, by most accounts, have nearly doubled or more since 2020. While the government wants to claim that inflation is 5% or 3%, remember that it accumulated over time, so that when you add the inflation from 2020 through 2025, even using the government’s figures (2020: 3.9%; 2021: 6.3%; 2022: 10.4%; 2023: 2.7%; 2024: 2.5%; 2025: 3.1%), a basket of groceries that were $100 in 2020 is now $132. Real world experiences vary by locale and what items are purchased.
Anybody who shops regularly understands that beef and coffee prices went straight through the roof the past few years, to the point of becoming nearly unaffordable. And, if you can’t afford food, guess what happens? It’s a national shame that there are more than 40 million Americans receiving SNAP, or food stamps, well, at least before the government shut down. If that condition persists, that the government can’t provide food assistance, there are a lot of Americans who are in danger of starvation, or, at the least, serious malnutrition.
It didn’t have to be this way, but, as has been pointed out in other articles this month, the government has botched just about everything in terms of providing for the welfare of the citizens of the United States.
This article will provide information that is essential to eating healthy, even on a tight budget. There are practical tips that anyone can employ to eat well and not go broke doing it.
There are five basic sections:
Gardening
Truth be told, growing your own food isn’t for everybody. It’s time-consuming and often frustrating. Proper gardening is a lot more than just throwing some seeds in the ground and hoping for the best. There are tons of resources on the internet and in local libraries (yes, they still exist) on proper gardening techniques, but, once you get beyond the basics, it’s a chore that one must keep after on a daily basis.
The basics of gardening aren’t all that basic. Starting with seed propagation, and proceeding to planning, soil amending, planting, watering, weeding, trimming, and eventually harvesting, there’s plenty of work involved. The positive aspect is that food grown In one’s own garden is very likely to be tastier and more nutritious than anything one could purchase at a grocery store, so don’t be dissuaded by some toil and labor. At the end of the day, your free time is called that because it’s FREE, and free labor is an excellent way to save money on food costs.
As tedious and arduous as it may sound, successful gardening can be accomplished just about anywhere. On a plot that’s 20 by 40 feet, the amount of vegetables, herbs, tubers, and melons that can be raised is substantial. A backyard can be turned into a paradise of free food, and there isn’t much that beats that. Back during the Great Depression almost everybody who had a yard had a garden. Lots of people raised chickens or other livestock. These days, with the layers of government regulations and overreach, livestock is not an option in many places, and some jurisdictions even give homeowners grief about gardens. Best advice is to ignore them. Everybody has to eat, after all.
Beyond the rigors of tending to the garden, weeds, insects, and critters are mortal enemies. From tomato worms who can devour entire plants to chipmunks that will take a bite out of every ripening tomato in your garden, they can ruin your experience. Weeds can be ameliorated by using good soil and lots of mulch, the best of it in the form of leaves that you raked up and chopped up in the previous fall.
The best one can expect from a new garden is saving money on the basic vegetables: cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and melons, plus various herbs. Basil, oregano, and parsley are incredibly easy to grow. Beyond those, gardening gets more difficult when you start into things like broccoli, eggplant, and asparagus.
Probably the easiest vegetables to grow are peppers, from bell peppers to habaneros, jalapeños, and even tabasco peppers. If you like to spice up your meals, there is a vast array of peppers from mild to fire-breathing that are likely to grow well anywhere.
Even if you have limited space and limited experience, gardening is a useful habit to develop that everyone should try.
Here’s something most people don’t know: SNAP benefits can be used to buy seeds and plants for gardening. Instead, people use them to buy chips and ice cream.
Cooking
For goodness sake, guy - and ladies - learn to cook. Every time you eat out, be it fast food or fancy dining, you’re spending three to five times what it would cost to cook the same food at home.
In other words, if you’re spending $100 a week eating out, you’re basically throwing away $60 to $80. Seriously, if you’re having trouble making ends meet, stop buying pizza, burgers, fries, and sandwiches from the rip-off fast food merchants. You can make the same at home at literally a fraction of what you’re spending. Even buying frozen prepared foods like chicken tenders or pizza cuts your food bill in half, and everybody knows how to use a microwave and maybe even an oven.
Cooking at home saves money, and the ingredients you’re going to use are far better-tasting and nutritious than anything a restaurant can offer.
Again, as with gardening, the internet is loaded with information on how to cook anything. Libraries practically give away cookbooks at their rummage sales. It’s not that hard, and, remember, your free time is FREE.
This story will continue.
This article is under development from November 7, 2025.
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