<prompt> Human: I quit my job 2.5 weeks ago, because we paid all our debts off and were spending 1200month on daycare which was much of my salary. Im having trouble finding a part time job during the hours that my husband will be able to care for our daughter and Im starting to wonder if I made a mistake quitting. His take home is 2,030month. 988 of that goes to our mortgage. We also have a boarder who is paying us 250month, but I make him meals 4 days a week. Looking at our bills, we wont be able to spend our normal foodgashousehold expenses budget of 800 obviously. 400 is more realistic. Has anyone fed 3 adults and 1 child and 1 dog for that a month in Nashville,TN? Assistant: The biggest issue, that I see, is that if you have to ask the question you might not have the skills to pull off a lot of the answers. Can you do this? 100. The hard part is can you make good food for insanely cheap? Only if you already have the skills or are willing to choke down some oopsies I believe strongly in taco seasoning.Example: If you buy bulk ingredients you can make a loaf of bread for under dollar, including fuel costs. Bake 2 days a week, 4 loaves every session and youre looking at 8 dollars of ingredients and fuel. Thats about 14k cals a week. In a similar manner you can make crazy tasty soups and stews that are 1 dollar and under, per person, per meal. EDIT: If youre going to do this you absolutely need to buy bulk flour, .25 dollars a lbs in 40 or 50 lbs bags and not 5lbs bags. A bulk bag of flour 40 lbs frequently costs the same as a 10 lbs bag of flour at a grocery store.The biggest thing is to realize that meat is going to be the flavoring, not the filler.Human: This is great thanks! I looked online for flour in bulk. To buy that much do I need some sort of wholesale membership though?Edit: nvm walmart has 25lb bags for cheap  <response>: For us cooking from scratch does tend to save us money. However, the older I get the less I worry about the prices of items and more about knowing its not processed food Im feeding my family. We have a family of 3 2 adults and a nearly 10 year old and I can easily buy groceries for a week for under 60. We dont drink a lot of milk lactose intolerance so that may help our budget, but I tend to make all of our meals at home. We very rarely eat out because the cost vs. quality never seems worth it to me.We are also close to vegetarian for our foods with only fishseafood being meat in our diet about once a week and were also carb conscious since were trying to lose weight adults not child.Make a meal plan. This one thing will save you more than you can imagine. Look at your pantry to see what ingredients you already have available and then find some recipes that you want to try. Also, look at your sales in your area to see what is on sale and use those ingredients to meal plan. Only buy the things you need! I have found that using Amazon Fresh grocery delivery actually saves me money because going shopping some of our grocery shopping ends up at Target usually ends up in buying things we dont need.So basically you can probably do this. Eat simply, make a meal plan, make a meal plan based around whats on sale that week, stick to your list at the grocery store, and try to make things from scratch! 