S’poreans share their ‘I’m broke meal’ when money is very low

SINGAPORE: In this day and age of high food prices and inflation, it does not hurt to have a money-saving hack or three to help us get by.

On Reddit, after some Singaporeans shared their ‘best money choices’ earlier this week, another local user asked others about their “I’m broke meal” in Singapore.

“If you’ve ever been broke. I mean like broke broke – $2 in your bank account kinda vibes for the entire week, what is your go-to meal?” wrote u/kittyprincessxX in a post on r/askSingapore on Thursday (June 26).

The post author then went on to share their own favourite “I’m broke” meal — Indomee, a cucumber portioned across three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), bread, and Milo.

The most upvoted comment simply read, “Early bedtime”, which is likely to mean skipping at least one meal each day. It also implies, of course, a person who does not go out at night to socialise and, therefore, spends nothing.

“Rice, egg, soy sauce” was another top comment, though someone else added that eating luncheon meat or chilli garlic oil with this meal would be most welcome.

“Queue up at a Sikh temple for free meal. They have it 3x a day btw,” another suggested, though others did not take too kindly to it, as these meals are earmarked for the needy in Singapore.

A commenter wrote that they cooked a protein with rice and a vegetable — and one week’s worth of these meals cost less than S$10.

“How do I know? This is what I did in poly and NS, for years, this was all I could afford for weeks. I couldn’t even eat cup noodles because that was too expensive and I would literally die of health problems eating instant noodles for weeks on end. Chicken, rice and lettuce are what I built my body off growing up. I’ve tried so many variations and to this day I still eat it when I have no idea what else to eat and I have very standardised recipes that I cook.”

“I used to buy those red bean bun packets that had like 6 inside and tried to make it last for 2 days. I remember it was like S$1.80 back then. Now I don’t know if S$2 can cover,” another noted.

When one suggested cup noodles, another wrote that packets are cheaper.

“The extra saved can get cheap add-ons like eggs, imitation crab sticks and some fresh veggies,” they added.

“For breakfast it would just be some bread and water. A lot of cabbage potato veggie soup and rice to stretch it out for the week. If I’m lucky I can add egg and milk to these meals. The only seasoning would be salt and pepper. I’d rotate this with indomee if I have it on hand. I avoid cup noodles like the plague,” one commeted. /TISG

Read also: S’poreans share the ‘best money choices’ they’ve made to help them save towards retirement