Nearly everyone has had or knows the term “struggle meal.” If you’ve ever lived on your own, you probably had a time where you had to forge a meal from ingredients around the house/apartment until you got paid next.
Plenty of college kids go through this every year, which always brings up a conversation about this topic.
On AskReddit, a simple question was posed, “What was your poorest meal?”
Here were some of the responses:
“I used to buy those dried ramen containers where you just add hot water. There was a time during my 20s when I ate instant ramen about five times per week for close to a year.” – TheBeardedG
“A single cold hot dog (no bun, just dog) and salsa. My dad was dirt poor when I was younger and that’s all he had. Couldn’t even warm up the hot dog because the electricity was shut off” – Schmuckatelli98
“In my second year of university I was so broke around Christmas time that I bought bread and 2 packs of hotdogs to eat for 2 weeks so that I could afford enough food for my cat.” – sadpanda989
“A nap.” – JamesIgnatius27
“Wiener water soup. Saved the water from boiling wieners for hot dogs. Heated it up later and added some crackers.” – Redf6
“My husband’s grandma told us once about her favorite depression era food: “milk toast.” Make toast, pour milk on top of it to make it soggy, sprinkle sugar. Like disgusting soggy French toast.” – SarahSparrow16
“I was flat broke to the point where I literally didn’t have a penny to my name. I had to make it through five more days till my loan installment came in and all I had in the cupboard was pasta and ketchup. So I lived off the most budget pasta bolognese possible for the rest of the week.” – Firkragg
“3 year old Saltines and water.” – Phantomtastic
“A sadwich made with slightly expired bologna, stale white bread and Taco Bell hot sauce.” – RoboNinjaPirate
If there’s a lesson to learn from this, it’s definitely about spending your money wisely.
