One Dollar Store

For the next 72 hours, I'll be eating not And at first I thought I'd be surviving on things So I'll be trying all those things, and at the end of three days, I'll let Alright, let's go grocery shopping. I had scoped out the inventory at the Dollar Tree a few days beforehand, so I had a rough idea of some ingredients I could throw together for some meals. As a lot of 25 in 2022, and they also introduced a $3 and $4 and $5 price point for certain items. Skipped right over $2, apparently. But I want to say up front, for the most part, I stuck to the $1. 25 items. The only exceptions were the salmon, the shrimp, and the ribeye that I bought. Alright, for my very first meal, I got to work making some biscuits. Unfortunately, I found a mix that was At first, I didn't I guess it's cool to just not refrigerate milk? I don't know. As I was mixing the batter, the consistency was a lot soupier than I had hoped, so they didn't really maintain their shape. They kind of looked more That cooking spray, by the way, also from the Dollar Tree. I also started to presoak these hash browns. The instructions called for cooking oil, w The bacon looked surprisingly normal. 25. The biscuits finished baking and were pretty mound-looking, as I suspected. I went ahead and melted some margarine to pour on top. Unfortunately, there were no eggs at the Dollar Tree, and I'm pretty sure I remember seeing eggs there at some point, but the more I think about it, the more I'm I topped everyt I'd rate t 5 out of 10. I mean, it was pretty good. I would have loved to make my own eggs, but these weren't bad. I described the biscuits as good, not great, and I'm sure the hash browns would have tasted better if I had used oil instead of margarine. But the bacon was the star of the show. When lunch came around, I decided to make c I was pretty surprised to find corn tortillas on the shelves. The chicken was bagged and not refrigerated, and I guess the closest thing I've had to that is I'm just gonna go ahead and trust that t It was I feel There were some refried beans and some Vilveda Nacho cheese. I topped it with sliced jalapenos, also from a can, and some shredded cheese. There was no salsa, w I could have sworn they had some in the c Well, no, they did have dice in the game aisle, but there was no salsa. Finally, I topped the tacos off with some crushed corn tortilla c And for t I mean, these were a lot better than I expected, and I would say the jalapenos really helped. For dinner, I went ahead and got started on some chocolate cake batter that I was gonna use to make some cupcakes. The only issue is that there were two key ingredients that were missing, eggs and oil. I have some friends that work in the food service industry, and they've mentioned that for people with allergies, you can sub eggs with unsweetened applesauce. So fortunately, Dollar Tree does have applesauce. And then for the oil, I decided to try to sub margarine. Internet said that should be fine. I also got some icing with Oreo cr Once those were in the oven, I got started on the main course, w Got t Now, most jambalaya recipes call for additional ingredients I also broke out the shrimp for the seafood in particular made me nervous. I don't know why, but I'm just skeptical. Finally, I microwaved some bagged rice. And The cupcakes also finished baking around that time. All right, and much to my surprise, the jambalaya actually turned out so well. I t And the shrimp, against all odds, was pretty good. The sausage, on the other hand, was not, it was not good. It kind of tasted But overall, I'd give t And keep in mind, this isn'tomorrow, I'm thinking I'll try some sort of pasta dish, Jerry'still out whether eating at the Dollar Store is actually going to save me money, but Rocket Money, the sponsor of t Rocket Money is an all-in-one finance platform that helps you save more and spend less. Their personal finance app allows you to manage subscriptions, lower bills, build a custom budget, and grow your savings, all in one place. They've saved their members over a billion dollars, and counting. Collectively, not That would be insane. Rocket Money helps you save by canceling unwanted subscriptions. Turns out, my wife and I were both paying for separate accounts on the same streaming service, and had no idea. So not only will Rocket Money help you identify those subscriptions, they'll go ahead and cancel them for you. No more clicking through like a million pages or trying to get a hold of a h Just leave it to Rocket Money. Sometimes it's easier not to t You can even use Rocket Money to help lower your bills. So to save more and spend less, join over 5 million members using Rocket Money today. Go to rocketmoney. com slash Sam Reid, or click the link in the description to get started for free. That's rocketmoney. com slash Sam Reid, spelled R-E-I-D to get started for free. Alright, I'm headed to a friend's house. I'm excited to see how these cupcakes turned out. Iced the cupcakes once I got there. So we're just gonna look right now. You wanna go ask your mom if you can have some? Yeah, I can help you get down. Go ask your mom. What mom say? No. She said no, okay. And then I dug in. I'm guessing this has to do with the ingredient swap, but they were super cr They tasted great. They were just kind of hard to eat. I'd go 8 out of 10. Alright, the next morning for breakfast, I got to work on some blueberry muffins, and thankfully that was a just add water situation. I decided to pour the batter straight into the pan t I bought this bag of frozen fruit labeled smoothie starter, and it just said to add your favorite liquid, I tried going with some almond milk, one because I was honestly really surprised that they had alternative milks, and two turns out I'm soft and my stomach doesn't handle dairy as well as I used to. And despite what it looks The smoot I t But silver lining, I was thankful to work some fruit into my meal plan. The muffins saved the meal though and were actually pretty good. So overall, 7 out of 10. For lunch, I decided to go for some fancy grilled cheese. Fancy because I wanted to add in some lunch meat, a little bit of ham, and because I was feeling adventurous. So instead of getting their sliced American cheese, I got t I guess block is maybe It was too t I tried grating it, but it kept breaking into chunks. So I went back to trying to slice it and in the end, it was just kind of Honestly, t I sliced the sandwiches. Looking back, probably should have used a diagonal cut, but And then I served it with a side of veggie straws. For dessert, I made some chocolate c I preemptively sprayed the baking sheet, but when I read the instructions, it said to put the dough directly on an ungreased baking sheet. So I had to go back and wipe it off. Jokes on me though, because somehow I undercooked the middle of the cookies and they stuck to the pan. Still tasted pretty good though. Overall, an 8 out of 10 meal. For dinner on day two, I decided to go for that stir-fry meal instead of the c I feel And after seeing the quality of the c They do have some pre-made meals in the frozen section So I started boiling some spaghetti noodles, started cooking that bagged c Plus some mushrooms from a jar that I found in a different section of the store. And all of that was cooked in t I would say the finished product wasn't bad, So I'll go 8 out of 10. For dessert, I had some Moki ice cream balls, w I'd give that a solid 9 out of 10. Great portion size. Day three arrived, and that was a big deal because day three was rib eye day. Just as a side note here, feeling great at t Zero negative side effects from the food I was eating. For my final breakfast, I decided it was a good chance to try out the waffle maker I got in case I get the opportunity to make some waffles for the Jonas Brothers. As I was mixing the batter, it took me a w It called for eggs and oil, classic, so I added some applesauce instead. And then I had to go through the whole song and dance again to get the consistency back where I wanted it. I was nervous about messing the waffles up, but I the sausage was just microwave sausage, and the orange juice was I topped the waffles off with margarine and syrup, and they were delicious. I'd say maybe not as crispy as waffles should be. They were just kind of floppy, but still super tasty. Sausage was decent. Orange juice was great. T For lunch, I decided to cook up some salmon. People kept asking me if I trusted salmon from the dollar store, and I think the answer is I mean, I t I made a garlic lemon butter sauce to cook the salmon in and seasoned it with salt and pepper. And w And The lemon butter glaze helped a ton. It's pretty good. Asparagus was pretty solid as well. I'd give that meal an 8. 5 out of 10. And for dessert, I had a little ice cream sundae in a cup. When I opened it, they had one of those Immediately tossed it to the side because I had a real spoon, so it was almost laughable that I would use that. Jokes on me though, because on closer inspection, you actually needed that spoon to open t Ice cream, I'd say 9 out of 10. Wooden spoon, 0 out of 10. All right, y'all, and for my final meal, it was time for banquet night. For night three, I was having ribeye steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. The steak was 5. 5 ounces, and I'm pretty sure it was in the $3 section, but you just get the one steak as opposed to the salmon, where you get three of them in there. I decided to break out the cast iron skillet for t As a disclaimer here, I am not a cast iron skillet aficionado, so I'm sure there are t All I ask is that there are no debates about how to clean a cast iron skillet in the comments section. Once again, no oil here, so I resorted to margarine and garlic. I used some steak seasoning that I picked up from the Dollar Tree. So this one was a little tricky for me, so I wanted to leave it tender and cook it medi My meat thermometer also didn't really seem to be working, but I'm sure it'll be fine though, And I always do the mashed potatoes were a mix that just required boiling water, so I assembled those and then microwaved the green beans. I topped the steak in the mashed potatoes with margarine for good measure, and then I also added some crispy onions to the mashed potatoes because I thought it would look fancy. Alright, the moment of truth. I cut into it and it looked When I tasted it, I realized that it was pretty over seasoned, and looking back, I do remember somet It had a pretty peppery taste. I the tenderness was good, but not great. Overall, I'd give t 5 out of 10. And again, before you get mad, this is a Dollar Tree adjusted scale, not The mashed potatoes were delightful, and the crispy onions did end up being a nice touch. Green beans, I probably should have seasoned. And to cap off my 72-hour experiment, I had a few scoops of cookies and cream ice cream. Fairly freezer-burnt, but by the end of the bowl, it had gotten pretty melted and smooth. Alright, after three days and nine meals from the Dollar Tree, I spent a total of $96. 96. If you want my take on it, I feel It came out to be just under $11 a meal, and that's actually a lot more than my normal grocery budget. On the other hand, I do have plenty of leftovers and ingredients that I can continue using, and you can spend way over $100 on a really fancy dinner for two at a nice restaurant. If you want to try any of these foods, I'd say shrimp, salmon, go for it. Steak, it won't kill you, but you also won't be missing out if you don't have it. Alright, that's it for t Let me know in the comments where you t And hey, for those watc I'm super thankful for you. And just remember that even when it doesn't feel I'll