Where do you live that tuna is 60 cents a can? It is over a dollar a can here, and not the "albacore either, just the regular tuna.

As far as it being "healthy" I have to say that am worried about people eating tuna regularly and believing it is a "healthy" food . Our oceans are becoming so filthy and tuna is often contaminated and has been shown to have alarming levels heavy metals (not just mercury).

That's a concern for me as well, but seriously, WHAT can we still eat nowadays? Beef is fed with organic waste, poultry with not-so-nice things as well, sea fish is full of metals, fish grown in farms is fattened with grain as well, cereals have their DNA modified... Sometimes, save for growing and killing my own stuff--or having some mysterious Uncle from America die and make me his only heiress so that I have plenty of cash to buy organic--, I don't see any good alternative any more.

Yeah, I know, nothing to do with ramen, but the previous post reminded me of that.

Well, I understand and share your concerns. I eat vegan (which eliminates a lot of the issues you mentioned by eating lower on the food chain) non-GMO and organic as much as possible. It is so much "cleaner" this way!

I am not wealthy by any means (I am a single mom and full time student without family support of any sort). I have no frame of reference for how things are in France and know that living in California I am extremely lucky to have more fresh and organic options at more reasonable prices than others who live elsewhere. It is a priority for my family and so I cut expenses wherever I can to put our health and the environment ahead of other indulgences.

That being said, I have to be really choosy as to how I spend my food dollar. I buy organic grains, beans, legumes and cereals in bulk for better prices. I have to constantly budget and only buy what is on sale. I don't buy much of a variety of fresh fruit as it is really expensive. But I get lucky sometimes, like today when I got 2 pints of perfectly red and juicy, organic strawberries for 99 cents a pint! THAT is a real treat!

Perhaps I can wish for an anonymous French uncle myself?

Hm, organic/bio foods here tend to be about 30% more expensive than their 'regular' versions. That's the problem. Otherwise you bet I'd have switched a long time ago. *sigh*

Oh well, in a way, if I don't buy junk foods like extra cookies and stuff (pizzas ARE expensive too!), that leaves me with a little cash to try to buy organic, I guess. A little.

Uhm, and now back to ramen until we get this thread derailed.

So this post isn't about ramen noodles (horrible, nasty things they are!), but maybe it will help! I think its ok to derail a little bit, since the reason for buying the noodles in the first place was a very small grocery budget.

Well.. my budget is higher than muzikjunky's. I spend about 130 a week between myself, my husband, and our 3 cats. Cat food and litter is expensive every week! Probably about $30-40 of our budget if not more.

As for the food, I buy lots of fresh veggies. I usually spend around $40 on vegetables alone. Now, I obviously have more resources to be able to do that. But I still look for the deals! I go to 2-3 stores every week in order to save money: Shaw's or a local market, Walmart, and BJ's Wholesale Club.

I usually get all the cat stuff at Walmart and things like generic crystal light ($1.98 for 6 tubs! That makes 12 quarts. Cheap!).

At BJ's I get Fiber One bars (20 for $7.99), pita bread, nonfat plain yogurt (1.99 for the tub of yogurt, not the 1-serving size ones), hummus, any detergent, and my veggies/fruit that are cheaper there than at the local market. For instance, this week at BJ's I got my bananas, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes. Its also a great place to buy any of your frozen berries.

At the local market I buy other veggies and meat when it is on sale. I bought my grapes and peppers there this week. This week I also got boneless skinless chicken breast for $1.99/lb and peaches for $0.99/lb. So when things like meat are on sale, I stock up. I think I bought 6 pounds of chicken this week but that will last for a LONG time! I also freeze grapes towards the end of the week if I haven't ate them all and use them in smoothies.

When whole turkey breasts or whole roasting chickens are on sale, I will buy them and cook them on a weekend. Then I have leftovers for the week.

Sometimes, Shaw's or Stop & Shop will have deals on soup. These deals are AWESOME. It is usually 10 cans for $10 (Progresso or Campbell's Chunky). Now, I save ALL my coupons for soup until there are sales. Its usually $1 off of 2. So I get them for 50 cents each! I usually buy 20-30 cans of soup during those sales. They usually limit you to 10 cans at a time, but I just go back in the store and buy 10 more, then go back again haha

So there are a lot of things you can do! You can check out coupon websites too (I use coolsavings.com) to help you save some money. Good luck!

One thing that I do, especially in the winter, is to buy frozen veggies. I love fresh too, but it's nice to know that you always have them in the freezer. I'm not brand loyal at all, I'll buy whichever one is cheapest and is just veggies (not butter flavored, etc).

Now that it's summer, we have our own garden. Unfortunately, it'll probably be another 3-4 weeks before we get any veggies out of the garden. This fall, we will prepare it all (like making marinara sauce, dicing onions, etc) and then freeze or can it all. That will then help our winter budget as well.

Even if you don't have a ton of room (or heck, a yard!) you can do a container of tomatos.

Another thought is to hit up the farmer's road side stands if you have them in your area - that's where we'll pick up our fresh corn.

Everyone tells me they're really bad for you.

I used to love them but I try not to think about them now.

The fruits and veggies are worth the extra cash.