Using the Poor Man’s ‘Calories per Price’ Ratio

This is an old blog post from a website of mine that I recently deleted. The original date of this post is: April 29th, 2014. Yeah, that was nearly 8 years ago. Thankfully, I have more money nowadays, but using this particular "Poor Man's Method" for a calorie per price ratio still isn't a bad idea, even if it's just used for stocking up on survival and/or emergency food, etc. But anyway, back to the original post...

Hopefully, many of you haven’t had to think of this method before, and are not a struggling low-middle class, full-time worker who doesn’t collect welfare or get monetary aid and handouts or unfortunate enough to not be born into wealth, etc. 

BUT, whether you are just feeling thrifty, frugal, or simply poor like me (I’d have more money if I wouldn’t spend so much on beer and damn cigarettes!), you may find the, as I call, “Poor Man’s ‘Calories per Price’ Ratio” to be a useful guide when making purchases at your local market.

It is a simple method to use, and it is something I got to noticing a long while back, when thinking about how I can get the most calories out of my money – to be efficient when buying energy and/or fuel for my body’s demanding tank.

Okay, all you have to do is this:  Take the total amount of calories (all servings added up within the can, container, package, etc.) and divide it by the price, and you will have a figure that equals the “calories per price” ratio; this will give you a good idea on how much money you’re wasting on foods that just aren’t energy efficient to a poor man’s body. Funny, but true… Ha-ha! 

For example, I bought a package of Little Debbie Fudge Brownies (chocolate is good for you, damn it!) the other day.  It was a package of six, 280 calories each, for $1.59.  Okay, I multiplied the 280 calories times 6 to get the total amount of calories in the package, and this came out to be 1,680 calories.  I divided that by $1.59 and the ‘calorie per price’ ratio was 1,056 calories per dollar.  By the way, that is a really good ratio.  Just think, you can buy a silly Lean Cuisine frozen dinner for $2.50 or more and only get about 2 or 3 hundred calories, but one dollar on the brownies bought over a thousand calories.  Hey, are you getting the drift now?

Another example, I bought some microwavable popcorn that had a total of 2,400 calories for $3.99 and the ‘calories per price’ ratio was 601 calories per dollar.  Now, it wasn’t as cheap as the brownies, but it is still way more efficient (energy wise) than the Lean Cuisine crap.

Alright, here’s where some wise ass could say, “look, rock head, junk food is going to be cheaper per calories than real food.” Then that’s when I would say, “look, dear challenged one, nobody said that this ratio had to be used on ‘junk’ food versus ‘real’ food.” 

See, that’s just it right there…  You can use this calculating method to compare any types of food, when it comes to calories per price.  In fact, if you’re a health nut, you can alter it and start calculating a ‘price per protein’ ratio, and so on.  The point is, as high as everything is today, and the fact that a lot of us are struggling to have enough funds to live comfortably, it doesn’t hurt to get the calculator out and start doing some math to help slash some of those grocery bills, utility costs, and whatnot.

Image Credit: Pixabay.com - Free to Use & Share

---End of Post "Using the Poor Man’s ‘Calories per Price’ Ratio"