[photophotoplasm]

I live on ~9AUD per day, AUD being roughly equivalent to the USD.

$3 of that goes towards a coffee, $3 goes towards meat, and the other $3 goes towards vegetables and other foodstuff (rough estimates).

The only issue I have is that most of the meat I buy is cheap - frozen chicken pieces, ground beef/pork, sausages, chuck steak, etc. - and cheap meat can be pretty horrible until you know how to cook it properly. You'll find yourself doing a lot of pot roasts, goulashes, ragùs, etc.

[Evgeny]

Some types of meat have great nutritional value but are for some reason overlooked or considered "second class". Things like chicken/beef/pork hearts, ox tongue (was a rare treat in USSR!), chicken/beef liver are very cheap (like $4 AUD per kilo or even less) and can be eaten without literally anything going to waste (no bones etc.)

[photophotoplasm]

I was considering organ meats at one point, but unfortunately there's a bit of an ick factor to get over when you haven't been raised on the stuff. (Saying that, I used too eat liver as a child.)

[adrianN]

You spend 33% of your food budget just for coffee? Have you thought about doing something about your caffeine addiction?

[photophotoplasm]

Haha. $3.00 is how much one flat white costs at the local cafés. Guess I should have mentioned that I'm not downing 10 or 20 cups of instant coffee per day.

[burgerbrain]

33% of a food budget sounds like a lot.

33% of $9 hardly does...

[adrianN]

And yet, if 9$ is your food budget, they are the same.

[burgerbrain]

The point is that when you realize that the food budget is equivalent to $9, the only way you can make the coffee expenditure seem unrealistic is to conveniently not mention that fact and say something like "You spend 33% of your food budget just for coffee?".

Accusing someone of having a caffeine addiction for spending a mere $3 a day on it is just silly.