If someone asked me that question two weeks ago, I probably would have laughed in their face! However, after reading about Jeffery’s challenge on GroceryCouponGuide.com last week, I may have to rethink my response.

In order to prove the power of coupons to his sister, he challenged himself to live off of $1 per day for the month of May! Here is Jeffery’s account of their conversation:

“All you would eat is cereal and junk food,” she countered. That is not a healthy diet for a month.

“I think I could have a fairly healthy diet on $1 a day,” I replied. “At least a lot healthier than you think.”

“Including fruits and veggies?” she asked, the skepticism in her voice coming through again.

“Including fruits and veggies,” I said.

“You couldn’t last a month,” she said sure of herself.

I would recommend that everyone take some time to read his story – he gives an account of each day, along with pictures of each meal. He also takes pictures of his groceries and receipts. If you don’t have time to read each day’s account, make sure you read Day 1 to see what he purchased.

He was able to buy the following for $4.49:

2 boxes of Quaker Instant oatmeal
4 packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Minis
1 package of Knudsen Light sour cream
10 apples
2 lbs of carrots
4 boxes (small) of Wheat Thins
1 jar of Skippy All Natural peanut butter
2 cans of pork and beans
1 bag of long grain brown rice
2 packages of Mission 100% whole wheat tortillas (10 count each)

He even got a ton of items from Safeway, and they PAID HIM for shopping!!! This kind of shopping would be great for someone on a slow carb diet.

In total he purchased $597.96 worth of food and other stuff for $27.08 during the month of May!

After the 30 days were over, he created a list of 10 things that he learned while eating on $1 per day:

1. Grocery Shopping Is A Game: It takes about a month to learn the rules of the game and how to play it to your advantage which makes it possible to get huge discounts on the food you buy.
2. You Can Eat More Than Junk Food On $1 A Day: I actually was able to get fruit and vegetables into my diet on a daily basis. I only ate 100% whole wheat bread the entire month. While I could have made my diet healthier if I had more money, I believe that what I ate was better than what many people in the US eat without the strict financial limitations.
3. Drug Stores Can Be A Great Place To Get Free Food: Most people don’t think of their local drug store as a place to get free food, but if you have any of the three big national chains near you (CVS, Walgreens or Rite Aid), they are a great place to get free food. These drug stores often have deals where you can purchase things for free and when combined with frequent offers of a certain dollar amount off when you buy a qualifying amount, it can mean free food.
4. If You Don’t Know What A Catalina Coupon Is, You Don’t Know About The Most Powerful Discount Available To You: Catalina coupons are those coupons that you get with your receipt that give you money off your next shopping purchase. By utilizing these coupons in conjunction with sales and coupons, you go from getting good deals when shopping to being able to get food for free, or even make money.
5. Generic / Store Brands Aren’t As Cheap As You Think: Most people I talked with believed that I was going to have to only buy generic/store brand food. I don’t think I bought any store brand products (except for Safeway apples) because they were much more expensive than the name brand product discounts I could find.
6. You Don’t Know How To Shop: If you are like most people, you decide what you want to eat and then go to the grocery store and buy the ingredients you need to make that meal. If this is the way that you shop, you have already lost the game and will pay much more than you need to be paying. If you truly want to save money shopping, you need to learn how to create your meals from what you already have in your house and then buy the best deals each week to replenish what you have on hand. This allows you to purchase food at the best prices as opposed to what they happen to be when you go to get the ingredients for your menu. This simple change should instantly cut your grocery bill by 50% or more.
7. It’s Possible To Donate A Lot of Food While Only Eating On $1 A Day: One of the things that I am most proud of in this challenge was that beyond not going hungry, I was actually able to donate quite a bit of food to my local food bank during the month. This included: {8 Deli Selections lunch packs, 8 packages hardwood smoked turkey franks, 3 sample packs of Maxwell House Vanilla Carmel Latte, 1 can of Pork & Beans, 32 boxes of cereal, 50 packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Minis, 4 boxes of Wheat Thins}
8. It Doesn’t Take Near As Much Time As You Would Imagine: There is an initial learning curve when you really do need to devote a good amount of time learning how the system works, but once you become familiar with it, things shouldn’t take too much longer than they do for you now. While it is possible to spend a lot of time cutting, sorting and cataloging all the coupons you have, you don’t have to. I don’t.
9. Being Able To Get Coupons Is Key: Your ability to get coupons will be the key to saving money and the more you can find, the better the chance you will have to get great deals. Although I was limited to using the coupons from 2 Sunday inserts, I still did well. Had I been able to use more, I could have done much better. I also utilized a lot of coupons found in the stores — something that most people don’t do nearly enough.
10. Anyone Can Do It: I only started couponing in February of this year to help out local food banks and avoided shopping as much as I could before then. I didn’t have a clue about anything about couponing or grocery shopping when I began. If I was able to figure out how to do this, I assure you that anyone can. It will take about 10 hours of learning how the different store systems work and about a month of practice using what you learn to become comfortable with using coupons. From that point on, you can expect huge savings in your grocery shopping.

This is an amazing series and I would encourage everyone to read it. Each daily post is relatively short, and his writing style is very fluid and personable – he also includes plenty of pictures.

While I don’t encourage anyone to challenge themselves to eat on $1 a day, I do think we can learn a lot from Jeffery’s experience. Those of us who claim to be smart, savvy shoppers should look at this account as motivation to be better stewards of our money!

I think this story served as a wake-up call for me to reevaluate my spending to see what areas I can cut back on in order to reach my financial goals!

What about you? Have you ever challenged yourself to survive on less? Have you ever been forced to dramatically decrease your spending on a necessity? How did you handle it? Any advice for frugal living?

Please feel free to share your story, comments or questions below.