30/month grocery budget - learn from my mistakes

I wanted to share this because at the time I didn’t know anything and hopefully this will help someone.

When I was in college several years ago I was making $8/hr, paying bills, and after everything my grocery budget on average was left with $25-30/month.

At the time, I didn’t know how to cook or how to grocery shop. So I’d buy a few items from the dollar store.. cook disgusting food (like flavorless rice and beans).. or something gross from a can.. not eat it and go to bed hungry.

My weight got down to about 110lbs over several months and I got really frail. I would go on dates sometimes just to eat. It was survival.

Two things I want to share with y’all:

• it never occurred to me to learn how to cook. Or to google how to survive and meal prep with such a tight budget. Now there’s a YouTube channels like Julia Pacheco who plans and posts meals for basically pennies.

-I also never went to any food pantry. Even though I desperately needed it, I thought that there’s other people who need it more. I was probably too prideful to accept help.

Looking back now and analyzing the situation I’m baffled at how I even survived. Living on stress and water. It traumatized me for years. Seek help & guidance because there is some solid advice.. even here on Reddit that can help.