r/FrugalShopping • u/ReturnItRalph • 9d ago

Cheapest non perishable food item for donation drives

Hello,

I’m looking to buy and donate non-perishable food for a donation drive where the donations are counted by quantity. The more items donated, the more that will be matched.

I’m trying to maximize the impact by finding the absolute cheapest per-item options. Ramen noodles definitely seem to be one of the cheapest choices, but I’m wondering if there are other similarly affordable items I should consider.

Looking for items under .50 cents per item. If there's a back of 10, counts as 10 items.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7

u/Ajreil 9d ago

You are better off donating money directly. Food shelves have deals with local suppliers to buy food in bulk, buy directly from farms (sometimes b-grade produce), or buy food that's about to expire at a steep discount. They can stretch your dollar farther than you can.

But purely theoretically, spaghetti is cheaper than ramen.

5

u/ReturnItRalph 9d ago

For this event, cash is not an option.

What kind of spaghetti?

3

u/Ajreil 9d ago

When I did the math to win a Reddit argument, store brand spagetti, dry black beans, canned black beans, russet potatoes, dry rice and lentils were all cheaper per ounce than ramen.

That's assuming I buy the cheapest version of each product at my local Walmart. The 1lb great value spaghetti box in this case.

1

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Ajreil 8d ago

My local Walmart sells La Moderna noodles in 7 ounce bags for 50 cents each. That's the only food product I've purchased in years for that cheap aside from gumball machines.

1

u/PoorCorrelation 6d ago

Check your weekly ads. My local version of Albertson’s have had a lot of 10 cans of beans for $5 and $0.17 ramen lately.

1

u/Majestic-Panda2988 6d ago

Maybe a four pack or six pack of something from dollar tree? You said packs count the items right?