Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What do you eat when the budget is tight?

No. The Starkist that’s on sale. 😜

I have graduated from so-called chunk light all the way to solid albacore.... Still fairly cheap, low carb, quick grub. Add some mayo and whole grain bread and it's lunch. Add rice, dinner.

When I was a kid, we ate a lot of watercress salads till the lettuce came in. Mom would have served Spam if Dad had let her, but he ate so much of it during the war, she was forbidden from bringing it into the house. When things get tight we eat a lot of eggs. Fried or scrambled for breakfast and egg salad for lunch or dinner. We'll scavenge the freezer and get creative if need be with whatever's left in there. We will eat canned tuna once in a while too. I always take whatever leftovers we have for lunch at work, and we get pretty ferocious with the coupon shopping too.

I'm convinced Bumble Bee is the best big brand. Hopefully not on the boycott list.

Hard to say about eating 'possum while sitting here all fat and happy with a full stomach. But knowing the kinds of things 'possums regularly eat, I believe I would just about have to be knocking on starvation's door, and even then 'possum would be near the very bottom of the list of meat that I would think long and hard before trying to eat.

I had some older relatives who raised gardens and also still ate 'possum for their meat source back in the day during hard times and said they were glad to have it at the time.

So, I suppose I could too if I got hungry enough and 'possum was all there was to eat and probably be just as glad as they were to have it, too.

knows a family that woz so poor they had to jrk the family dog off to feed the cat.

It wasn't 3 weeks, but I only had a 5 day meal ticket, while at college. So, I would tank up Friday night at the cafeteria, eat all I could, because it would be Monday morning before I had another meal. Then go down to Safeway's and on Friday they put the fruit on sale. For a couple of dollars, I would get a bag full of fruit, usually oranges. Whichever fruit was on sale, was what I ate for the weekend. I'll eat fruit, but not very often.

When my kids were little there really wasn't enough money to feed all of us with store bought food. We grew a big garden and ate game meat year round at nearly every meal. Store bought meat was a real splurge back then and happened only rarely. We grew several hundred pounds of potatoes, carrots and onions every year. we put the potatoes in burlap bags, tied the carrots and onions in bunches by their tops with twine and hung them from the floor joists in the cellar. They'd keep that way for months and combined with venison, rabbit, squirrel, woodchuck, wild turkey, grouse, pheasant, ducks and geese we always had the makings of a good meal. I learned back then no matter what to keep a good, accurate .22 rifle and some ammo on hand all the time because an 89 cent box of .22LR's could put hundreds of pounds of venison on the table if you were careful and you just can't get meat much cheaper than that. We did try eating a coon once but it was nasty and we threw it out after taking one bite. I really don't want to find out what possum tastes like and thankfully was never hungry enough to need to.

Agree that if you prepare your own food, cheap ingredients can make 5 star meals. My income has increased in the past 2.5 decades, and while I do feed more mouths, the cost per mouth probably hasn't changed much.

Yep, that's some cheap grub.

Got a powdered sugar donut once. Came out of the Sierras after hiking for a week or so, standing down on US 395 trying to hitch a ride down to Bridgeport. Station wagon with a good size family coming down the road, all of a sudden one of the kids in the back leans out the window, throws something at me and my bud. We looked pretty rough, "hippie like" if you will, and the kids and family looked a bit 50's like. Whatever he threw went over our heads, so I walked over and found the donut. We ate it, after a week of dehydrated foods a powdered donut tasted really good, and it was free!

Not when poor, but just because they were free for the taking I'd stop at a particular place near the WA/OR border on the south side of the Columbia river outside Wallula. Trucks hauling carrots, onions, and taters would dump their overweight portions before hitting the scales in a wide spot on the road. Free veggies are OK with me too, even when I'm flush and can afford to shop.

But burlap bags full of free stuff from a parade, that tops anything I've ever gotten.

Geno

When I was in college I worked in housekeeping at a ski resort. On “checkout day” I’d go through the units and inventory everything, then start cleaning. Folks would leave all kinds of stuff behind. Found a 1/2 eaten casserole one day in the fridge and figure that if they were rich enough to stay there they were probably decent people.....popped that thing in the oven and chowed down.

Grocery stores will throw away good food too.....so I have been told.

The thing with my old (now long deceased) relatives, though, was back during their hard times there were NO deer or wild turkeys anywhere at all around this part of the country, and other small game like rabbits, squirrels, racoon, quail (no pheasant or grouse here either), etc., etc., were hard to find because there were lots of other hungry people that hunted, trapped (and poached) them for food, too. Dogs pretty much had to hunt game or work livestock in order to earn their leftover scraps, otherwise they were soon gone.

Livestock like milk cows, hogs, chickens, goats and such were mostly for raising cash money to buy needed things they could grow or make by selling the milk, butter, cream, eggs, smoked cured hams, shoulders, bacon. and the like. Keeping beef cattle was almost unheard of for poorer folks back during their hard times.

I tend to look on the day old rack, the corner of the meat counter with mark down "old" packages, and the bags of good fruit that is starting to get a bit ripe and therefor marked down..................................before that stuff gets to the dumpster.

Have had numerous friends down on their luck that did their share of diving though.

Geno

I consider those corner bin steaks premium because they are "aged". Seriously, I snag that stuff all I can.

You just have to ask if they have anything that you could give to the hogs or chickens.

I assume.....

That would be college days for me, 1980-1985 central coast of California. So either cube steaks and Rancher beans or $.99/lb tri-tip and said beans.

When young and starting out, we would pick potatoes from the fields. What the machines left, usually a dollar for fifty pounds. I would pick any fruit and berries I could find. Lots of blackberrIes and raspberries where we live, growing wild. The wife would can or make jelly and syrup! Buy twenty pounds of beans. Deer ,elk or fish plus some hamburger. Make a large pot of chile, bake a couple potatoes! Pour child over potatoes, became one of my favorite dinners and still works well! Oatmea, and bulk rice made up breakfast most days. That was a long time ago. Eating good and cheap is possible if needed! We still can lots of garden food, and fruit! Somethings are just better made at home. Never liked Raman noodles so we passed on those cheap packages!

Venison
Wild Pig
Piquito Beans
Tortillas
Chicken

When I first got out of the Navy a homeless Eskimo showed me all the best places and times to dumpster dive. He used to sleep on a balcony of a hotel down in Va Beach during off season in the winter. Those were the days! When I was poor as dirt, I just had faith in God that things would work out.