Mel Buttle’s frugal tips for eating on a budget

Goodbye salmon, farewell broccolini, it’s time to tighten my belt and what better place to start than the grocery bill, writes Mel Buttle as she shares her top tips for eating on a budget.

Making the third meal of the week from leftover roast beef is equal parts thrifty and morose. The tough cube of meat, now coated in cold, white fat was being turned into my budget busting burritos.

Goodbye salmon, farewell broccolini, it’s time to tighten my belt and what better place to start than the grocery bill. I’ve not had a lettuce in this house since back when Scott Morrison was still in charge. Lettuce-based salads were briefly for the wealthy.

I never thought I’d see the day when I was craving one of Aunty Kathy’s garden salads. Her recipe is easy to follow, it’s iceberg lettuce, chunky wedges of a tomato that will never get to know what ripe is, thick discs of cucumber with seeds each as big as a grain of rice, all tied together with absolutely no dressing whatsoever.

Mel Buttle reveals her tips for eating on a budget.

To be fair to Aunty Kathy, the ‘80s weren’t salad’s time to shine, a tong full of too soggy or too dry lettuce was compulsorily shoved on your plate by your mum.

I’d have to have an ultimatum thrown at me to eat it, “That salad needs to go, or the Viennetta won’t be coming out of the freezer”.

I don’t mind my return to this frugal way of living that much, it reminds me of my student days where I’d forget about keeping some money aside to pay the bus fare home and blow all my cash on a hot lunch at uni.

I’d often fall into this trap after a boring lecture, convincing myself I needed a pick me up before the next one that day.

I didn’t need a hot lunch, I needed to find a way to enjoy the unit on functional grammar and to conserve $2.85 in cash to get home from Mt Gravatt to the Ferny Grove train station.

I see how I would lose track of my meagre funds now – at the uni cafeteria they had a system for a while there, where the food in the bain marie was charged by the kilo.

As someone fresh out of high school, who’d never cradled in my arms a dish of beef curry or Singapore noodles to get a feel for the weight, it was very hard to work out how much a scoop of lasagne might weigh, and therefore cost.

Mid adult Caucasian pregnant woman is shopping for fresh vegetables in produce section of grocery store or supermarket. while shopping with elementary age daughter. Expecting mother is reaching for variety of lettuce. Little girl is standing behind shopping cart. Employee and customer are standing in background

Turns out lasagne is a heavy food and one scoop could set you back the sickening sum of $9. When you’ve got $12 for the day that needs to get you from Samford to Mt Gravatt and back again, plus your lunch, $9 was a big drain on the Rip Curl velcro wallet.

Yes, I can hear you saying, why didn’t you bring your own lunch, Mel? Surely there was a sandwich or something that was more affordable, Mel?

In short, of course, you’re right. If I may add some context, pulling out a lunch box at uni was social suicide.

The cool kids had their backpack on one arm only, they ate at the cafeteria talking loudly in big groups and doing impressions of South Park.

Also, a sandwich wasn’t enough to undo the waking coma that was applied linguistics.

I don’t remember much from the degree that I was completing, but I do remember that, towards the end of the day, Coles in the city, which was conveniently near my bus stop, would mark down their hot food to crazy low prices, you could get a quarter of a chicken and a small tub of discounted pasta salad for the cost of a one-way ticket to Ferny Grove.