Cut my grocery bill from $140 to $78 a week by cooking beans in a thermos, dead serious

Paul Martinez · 2026-09-30T02:30:02.950792+00:00

Money was getting tight after my hours got cut at work, so I started looking for ways to eat cheap without living on ramen. A coworker in Cleveland told me she cooks dried beans by dumping them in a thermos with boiling water before bed, and they are ready by morning. I grabbed a $9 thermos from a thrift store and did 1 cup of pinto beans with 3 cups of boiling water, and around 7 hours later they were soft enough to mash. A $1.50 bag of dried beans makes about 6 cups cooked, which is way cheaper than the $1.20 cans I used to grab. Now I do a batch every Sunday and mix them into rice bowls, tacos, and soup all week. Anyone got ideas for other stuff that cooks this way, like lentils or steel cut oats?

nhfree.com

Loading…

Cut my grocery bill from $140 to $78 a week by cooking beans in a thermos, dead serious | Cheap Eats Club - nhfree.com