@sinvega @artemis Yeah, me and my spouse live on the "what's on special" pages for our two local stores (because we can't get to further away stores). And sometimes we realise that the pasta we got as a "4 for ..." deal isn't all that nice to eat, and then we need to still go through it, because it's just "not too good", not "can't eat it".

@gwynnion @Kalshann @artemis The best I've ever felt was when I was doing a low carb/high fat diet ... but at this point, my spouse and I can't do it, because we don't have the energy it takes. Every single meal and snack needed to be made almost from scratch. You could count on not being able to get anything at restaurant or whatnots that fit that, etc, and don't even think about frozen foods >.<

@artemis one of my absolute pet peeves in "budget friendly cooking" is that there are *very* few I've seen that aren't coming from a perspective of privilege.

They go "oh, this meal only costs $5 if we count that you use a tablespoon of milk" ... but you can't buy a tablespoon of milk. You need to buy a whole carton.

They often assume that you have a bunch of things at home already, some decently reasonable (hopefully all have basic salt and pepper), but some that ... aren't (several different types of oil, including olive oil; onions, potatoes, carrots ...)

They go "oh, but you save so much money if you buy dried beans and then cook them yourself!" ... but don't think about the fact that boiling them for a long time takes electricity, and you can't just leave them on the stove while you go out and work to actually make a living.

And that is the final point: saving money by shopping at half a dozen different places (which takes time) and making things from scratch (which also takes time), completely ignoring that a lot of people are poor *despite working far more than full time*. So they don't have the time to do this.