I’m excited to find out… I don’t eat standard North American so 
.
My thought is that I am going to season with something… whether it is thyme and sage and rosemary or cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, or five spice, chili, white pepper, chili oregano, cumin and paprika…
Oils. Those are $$$$. Our big olive oil is almost empty.
I feel like oils, spices, condiments and sauces can easily take over my budget and my fridge if I don’t watch out. I have put a ban on new condiments until we finish at least two out of the miso, doenjang, gochujang, other bean and chili paste, and the four different mustards that we currently have open.
I have consolidated and just do doenjang to cover recipes that want that or miso.
My challenge is keeping things rotated when I have such a variety. My wasabi is very old.
Spent $220 this week! I went to Hmart and stocked up on a lot of expensive things I was out of and I’m sooooo happy. 
The next few weeks will be much lower budget to compensate.
ETA: Just made spring rolls and peanut sauce.
January grocery spending:
My main goal this month was to track and record all grocery spending and I did. I didn’t hit my “budget” goal of $700 for groceries. Groceries came in at $792. However, there are 2 wins here:
I’m here to continue Snackuary! Tracking for food I buy for my household, hoping to a) make sure I’m contributing equally to my partner, and b) keep my monthly grocery spend to close to $200, under if possible. January was ~$233, and there were definitely places I made uneconomical choices, so with a bit smarter shopping I should at least be able to spend under January’s total! I’ll track eating out/takeout in here too, but we do it so rarely I’m not going to be concerned about it unless it starts to get out of hand.
Ate out for dinner to socialize with my client and his team. He said I didn’t need to pay for myself, but since I was the only person who had food, it felt a bit weird. Anyways.
Tomorrow I’m eating out at lunch with a person who was recently laid off. So I’m paying.
And tomorrow I’m eating dinner with a person who paid for the theatre tickets. So I’m paying.
And then is the shadowy one’s bday.
After that I guess is getting down to business?
Alright, I spent a grand total of $62 this week! I’m very happy with that hopefully I can keep up a low-ish spend for the next couple of weeks. Then I get another speciality trip!
So far we’ve had no restaurant food in 2023 yet! I will have some this coming week because I’m meeting a friend for lunch. She is the best friend for eating out because she eats everything and is adventurous and also hates picking the restaurant, haha. Perfect match! I chose an inexpensive Lebanese place that I’ve been wanting to try, so it shouldn’t be extravagant in cost.
I did groceries for the week yesterday afternoon. I got everything I needed for this weeks meal plan at king Soopers for $48, but then Ry asked me to go to sprouts to stock up on snack items we can only get there (like cinnamon gummy bears).
Hoy cow inflation has hit hard in the 6-ish months since I last went. I got 1.5# each of gummy bears, cinnamon gummy bears, and yogurt covered pretzels along with a box of made good granola bar bites that were on sale. It came to $25! I’m still shocked that I got a weeks worth of food (minus the meat in the freezer) for only 2x the cost of those 4 snack items.
$254. Ouch ouch ouch. $24 for 3L of olive oil (and actually olive oil has risen less than other oils). A bunch of home stuff and then about half the supplies for the 2 birthday parties next week. Part of me is even wondering if catering would be cheaper 
. But of course it won’t be.
This week (past)felt like the lowest spend we can happily do. So outside of parties we are looking at meeting the 608/month if inflation chills out.
Today I had a medical procedure and the boys were waiting in the car for me for 2 hours. Wr got Vietnamese after - so good! I don’t think I have been out for Vietnamese food in 3 years. As a result we went a little crazy ordering but it was still only $55.
I ouchy and dizzy and shaky and not even high anymore
First shopping of the month. Cleared out the food that went off.
Wrote these up.
we have spent $205 so far in feb. 4 times eating out. Next week has one dinner and one coffee out and one idk what (location is in flux), but I won’t be treating anyone else. So the rest of the month is compensating.
Sunday - salmon corn cakes on tomato sauce
Monday - sausage fried rice with bell pepper and napa cabbage
Tuesday - out
Wednesday - out
Thursday - okonomiyaki
Update: $350. Still need to buy meat from butcher’s, expecting $35 for about 0.5kg each of chicken breast, chicken thighs, and mince.
I had groceries delivered today.
The $65 box contained:
1 Asparagus Bunch
Beans Hand Picked min 500g
1 Broccolini Bunch
2 Broccoli Head Each
3 Corn Loose Each
Sweet Potato Imperfect Kumera Small 1kg Bag
Fresh Herbs Basil Bunch
Fresh Herbs Coriander Bunch
4 Banana Each
2 Blackberries 125g
Figs Punnet 350g
4 Peach Yellow Each
Melon Watermelon Seedless Cut Each
2 Eggplant Imperfect Each
Kale Bunch Each
2 Zucchini Black Imperfect Each
4 Nectarine Imperfect White Each
4 Plum Imperfect Each
Grapes White min 1kg
Passionfruit x10 Netted
Beyond this we will buy bread and milk during the week. We also spent $40 on the weekend for the ingredients to make a bulk batch of bolognese sauce. So far that fed 6 tonight and there are 7 more meals in the fridge, each feeds us (2 adults, 5yo, 2yo). Usually there are leftovers to make at least one toastie for lunch too.
The box is lazy business. I find it less expensive vs going to the shops every day because I didn’t do a proper shop but it’s definitely more expensive than shopping a meal plan for the week.
No idea what to do with sweet corn. I don’t like it enough on the cob to bother 
and my kids hate fritters.
Corn goes well into a chili, or you can add corn kernels to a cornbread. Taco salad or taco rice bowls play nicely with corn. I’ve had corn in a breakfast burrito- odd but inoffensive. And of course, fried rice.
corn - put into salsa or guacamole? chowder? chilled soup? salad with feta?
$69 bulk barn
$36 cat stuff
Bulk barn was not cheaper for a bunch of stuff! At par, but not cheaper. I did get ringolis though
These seem most likely to be eaten by the children 
. Thank you!
I was flipping through the indexes of what I think is a reasonable collection of cook books that we have, but all the corn dishes were iterations of corn on the cob. Most books had nothing to offer for corn 
. Maybe I need a Mexican or South American recipe book?
My favourite part of your grocery orders is the booze. A real perk of the fancy supermarket.
1.5kg of meat was just under $35. The beef mince was $20/kg, and the chicken is edging towards $25/kg.
