Money Saving Mindset- Group Journal

Budgeting
1807
Week of 4/18 Honesty Update

Monday: No spend day
Tuesday: Paper towels at Target, $5ish?
Wednesday: No spend day
Thursday: No spend day! We did it!
Friday: Surprise additional No spend day!
Saturday: We got breakfast out and ordered dinner in, for a total spend of $90. Whew that adds up fast huh? Groceries were $120 since we needed extra brunch stuff. BUT friends left a ton of sparkling water at our place so we’re set on seltzer for a bit.
Sunday: Uber home was $20 with tip. I tried to take the bus home since I wasn’t that tired after the show (live music restores my energy!!), but I think it had just stopped running and I wasn’t up for figuring out a different route home alone at 10:30PM.

So mapping this out didn’t prevent me from spending unplanned money on eating out, but we did SO well with the no-spend days that I really think it was OK. We also meal plan for the entire week so we are free to do whatever on Saturday :person_shrugging:

Week of 4/25 Projected Spend

Monday: Out of unisom, $10
Tuesday: DH’s friend is coming over to make dinner with him. We have a ton of groceries but that was for our previous meal plan and I guess they have something else in mind? So maybe $15
Wednesday: No spend day
Thursday: No spend day
Friday: $7.75 train ticket home to the burbs. We usually pick up dinner on Friday if we’re staying out with my folks, so pizza/salad or something. $45ish? My sister’s also coming out; perhaps she’ll pitch in.
Saturday: No spend day, we will mooch off of my parents’ pantry lol
Sunday: Train ticket home, $7.75. We should set up some kind of flower delivery for our moms while we’re in Greece for Mother’s Day. We already bought cards a few weeks ago and have plenty of stamps, so that’s an easy lift. Maybe $100 total budget for flowers? Setting the cards out now so I do not forget them :sweat_smile:
We are going to our first White Sox game of the season!! I am eating a dang hot dog!! And maybe a big ol lemonade or ice cream since beer is out this year. $40.
Will possibly meet friends for dinner in Chinatown, there is a hand-pulled noodles joint we’ve been angling to try. I have no idea how much this will cost but these friends tend to order one of everything haha. Maybe…$50 for our share? Hopefully less :crossed_fingers:
No idea when we will get groceries. Maybe Monday.

Total expected spend: $155 (some expenses above split with DH)

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1808

In my opinion it is always ok to spend money on rideshare to get yourself safely home at night.

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1809

Meals this week!

Dinner 1: Breakfast salad. A house favorite. Greens, avocado, 7 minute egg, bacon, jammy roasted cherry tomatoes, sourdough croutons, and a mustardy vinaigrette
Dinner 2: Mystery! Friend and DH to cook tonight. I heard mention of some kind of Thai meat dip for veggies? Sounds weird but I’ll try it haha
Dinner 3: Spiced Coconut Chicken Rice. We could eat this every day, it’s so good. I think there’s a version with chickpeas in place of the chicken thighs but we haven’t tried that yet
Dinner 4: Probably bumped to next week due to Mystery Friend Dinner. Turkey Burgers with herby sauce and green beans

Lunches:
Leftovers, smoothies

Breakfasts:
Eggs and ALDI hash browns

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1810

100% agreed! Also why I always endeavor to take the CTA to the show (in this case a very easy one-bus route) if I think I’ll need to rideshare home.

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1811

I have begun building a freezer meal stash. In there currently: 1 container of green curry tofu and 2 pint jars of red beans.

Last night I roasted potatoes and made eggs, breakfast for dinner. Threw in the last of the garden pesto and also the dregs of a container of goat cheese crumbles. I have a bunch of leftover potatoes.

I might make some Chana masala later today. That usually results in lots of leftovers.

Trying to make it to Friday before grocery shopping again but am getting low on produce.

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1812

I’m doing a price comparison thing (it doesn’t matter, lol, but I’m playing around with allocating within my food budget) and I’m trying to gauge good prices on organic meats, like sale/stock-up prices. Can people who regularly buy organic lmk what you think is a great and a good price per pound for like, ground beef and chicken? Thaaaaaankkkksss! :slight_smile:

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1813

What are farmer’s markets like down there? Any farm share options?

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1814

There are a couple nearby but I’ve only been able to hit them twice. I did get an entire flat of local strawberries for $15 that I chopped and froze and am still adding to smoothies and oatmeal (because I don’t have the bandwidth to can them).

Overall, their prices seem more reasonable than Chicago’s.

I dunno if I want to do a CSA again; it resulted in large quantities of stuff we don’t often eat. Which was less of a big deal during lockdown, when we did ours; I had nothing but time to figure out WTF one does with a big bulb of fennel or a rutabaga.

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1815

Grass fed organic ground beef I can get at the farmers market in 10lb lots for $5/lb here (recently went up from $4.50). Chicken- cooks venture through imperfect is like $6/lb (pasture raised heritage) for thighs and breasts, Costco organic bones less/skinless thighs are now $5.30/lb now I think?

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1816

Oh of note my rancher isn’t certified organic come to think of it. Too expensive for small scale. But the practices are superior to organic cert minimums.

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1817

This is great for a baseline- thank you!

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1818

Working on easy easy options this week. I’m feeling really rough. I did a black bean corn salsa salad (yes, those are the ingredients) and so far I’ve been eating it with tacos, rice crackers, and this morning in a grilled cheese. Iced green tea in the fridge to reduce coke wants and misery.

I froze half the chicken nihari I made for G, and he chose boneless skinless breast for meat this week.

Yesterday night I did pizzas on frozen rice paratha. The cheese hit me hard but tasted soooo good. I highly highly suggest frozen paratha in every carb eating freezer!

Tonight was gogo quinoa vegan Mac n cheese
Planning maybe frozen burgers tomorrow and curried beyond the next day.

Leaning hard into green smoothies and instant oatmeal and cereal.

I’m really trying hard to figure out what to freeze ahead and what to teach g how to cook or reheat.

I even did my taxes and I’ll get a return, plus I found out why I’m missing a lot of other government money.

This is a hard week. Seizures, allergies and a physical trauma response. So gentleness is the biggest key.

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1819

Why have I missed this group journal for so long? Just read the whole thing so now I’m caught up.

Meal planning this term has been weird; Husband has had evening classes so meals that will keep/are ready fast when he gets home starving.

He has taken lunch every day so far except for a couple of meetings over lunch. Well, and his interview for the tenure-track position!

When I have to go in (which has been once a week, roughly), we’ve always carpooled even though on his lab nights that means we’re there past 9pm. So really need the fast supper after getting home! Usually that means leftovers. I take lots of food to work with me on those days. I’ve discovered I do well with a PB and banana sandwich, eating half at lunchtime and half between 4 and 5 pm.

We are low-key looking for a new-to-us vehicle and still waiting for a quote on paving our driveway. Vehicles all have over 200K miles (mine is our best/most reliable and has over 250K, but it’s a diesel). Anyway, we figure we’d better have two that are reliable for getting to work by the time he starts full-time in fall. I’ll be back on campus and in the classroom then (regardless of what Covid does). We’ll keep trying to carpool but shouldn’t get ourselves in a position where we have to count on it.

Spending other than medical has been pretty good. I thought last month was going to be high, but total on the credit card was $1600, just a little above average. That’s everything except utilities and taxes.

TBD if it’ll be higher this month, but a lot of the big things (veterinary!) were on that last bill, so maybe not. Medical expenses, on the other hand, well. But they come from a whole separate pot of money in the HSA. We will meet our deductible this year and should probably get all the things looked at while someone else is paying for most of the expenses.

Did taxes, got about $500 back from both state and federal. Need to figure out more of that stuff since he’ll have full-time income starting in August.

Those are our 2022 money highlights for the moment.

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1820

Scored a dish drainer - which we really do need - from a “free” pile on the curb. Hooray! Just needed some minor cleaning.

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1821

Dealt with food cravings via grilled cheese, frozen burgers, homemade lemonade, and massive 90s style vegan hippy cookies instead of takeout and temper tantrums

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1822

Today on the way back from dropping off my laptop & phone I stopped by the local grocery store to check out their half priced items. They are the most consistent for day-of sale cheese and meats.

to do

Tomorrow I need to turn a beef blade roast into Korean shredded taco meat. I’ve already put the sausages into the freezer. The buffalo mozzarella will be used in lunches for the rest of the week. I should also make some hard boiled eggs because they are so convenient as snacks.

I have blistered green beans, cooked white beans, feta, asiago, plus some cauliflower still.

Thursday lunch - green beans, mozzarella, white beans, pickled red onion, bacon, miso dressing
Thursday dinner - panko cauliflower tacos, pickled red onion, salsa, feta, white bean mush
Friday lunch - green beans in miso-butter with mozzarella, pasta shells (fried egg?)

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1823

Lemonade is really doing it for me lately, too.

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1824

This sounds sooooo good.

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1825

Meal plan is done, and groceries ordered for pickup :slight_smile: I was able to keep it to right around $100 for the week, which makes me super happy.

Breakfast: Green Onion Frittata//Fried Eggs + Rice

Lunch: Chicken + Sweet Potato Amaranth Stew

Dinner Saturday-Monday: Loaded Vegetarian Tostadas (beans, corn, slaw, lime, salsa verde, tomatoes, jalapeno, cilantro, cheddar)

Dinner Tuesday-Friday: Cheeseburgers + Homemade Fries/Homemade Sweet Potato Fries

Snacks: fruit, candy, smoothies, protein bars, cookies, nuts, seeds, chips

Oh and I almost forgot!!! I placed an order with butcher box. I’ve been debating it for ages because I am not in love with any of the butchers I’ve found here yet…I know there are great ones out there but it takes time to search and that’s more difficult when you A. can’t drive and B. also can’t really carry things. I don’t know why I’m so skeptical of it but they ran a promo that pushed me over the edge; now for as long as I keep this subscription I get 2 lb. free ground beef with every order. I tried to be strategic in my first order to get a real sense of the quality, so I chose chicken, steaks, one larger roast, and bacon. The total package is $169 a month and from looking at it I don’t think it’s enough meat for 4 weeks, for us, but maybe? It’s funny because they asked how many people were in our family-- I’m curious about how they calculate. Maybe we eat a lot more than most couples? My husband is a pretty big eater, he does strenuous workouts like 5-6 days a week, which makes a big difference. We’ll see! But I’m excited to try something new :slight_smile: .

Maybe considered diet talk? No weight mentioned but talking about processed foods and general 'wellness' and specific ingredients.

I’m also looking into swapping out some of our common-use kitchen items to just lower the amount of corn derived sugar and processed stuff we consume. I don’t mind some sugar in our diets though, and I will still be using honey and sugar in my cooking/baking. I bought an organic ketchup and DH deemed it “really good, can you pass it back here I want some more” or something, so I think that’s passed the test. It has way fewer ingredients and just sugar. We already eat natural peanut butter, so that’s good, and I often make mayo myself. I want to DIY those little salad dressing packets myself and maybe pre mix them for my pantry because I have been buying salad dressing and the affordable dressings are just, so many ingredients. I know there are nice organic dressings but the cost is too high, so this seems like a good solution. The funny thing is so much popular junk food isn’t that complicated to make, like chick-fil-a sauce. My bet is if I use spices, salt, a little sugar, and maybe powdered dairy of some kind I will achieve something similar.

I am also thinking about swapping my vegetable oil for avocado oil. This is fraught, my friends. I am very confused on the information about whether vegetable oil is actually bad for you. I’m of the opinion that you can’t really trust most food/nutrition research since most of it is paid for by companies (either medical or food). I already use avocado oil in my kitchen and I like it, but it does have a bit of a taste. IDK. I’m open to advice on this vegetable oil issue. Clearly my life is very high stakes, lol.

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1826
Summary

I stopped buying salad dressing ages ago, it means that when I do get a little packet, it’s a huge treat! But yeah, they are mainly sugar. And weird oils. I mainly do herby lemony vinaigrette but I have recipes for some “traditional “ bottle style dressing that are good when I bother. If you remember to buy dried garlic and onion they show up a lot in those recipes.

We’ve also switched our convenient pasta sauces from the brands that are 2-5$ to ones with no added sugar or weird stuff and usually 7-10$. The taste is great, and it is still cheaper than takeout. My next level up of that is to batch cook and freeze marinara sauce, because it’s not hard to make, but having an instant sauce on hand makes pasta faster than takeout vs slow and delicious.

Re: oil. I think my research has led me to be anti most vegetable oil, AND in the past two years it has skyrocketed in price. I keep 1L of canola or sunflower on hand for if I deep fry or bake something that calls for like a cup of oil, but try not to do those things regularly anymore. I keep olive oil on hand and do my daily cooking by using a little silicone brush to oil my pan. I threw out my old margarine and have a fresh unopened tub for holiday or birthday baking (lactose intolerant and vegans abound). While I admire people who are certain enough that they eat 0 oil products ever, I’m currently not that sure. If anyone in my house got a cancer diagnosis though, we’d all be on zero vegetable oil even in takeout. I think I’d still use my little brush of olive oil though because the people I see on zero oil ever use a lot of Teflon and non stick. And I know for sure those are carcinogenic! I get good results with my little brush and jar method and I use less than a tablespoon of olive oil a week for the family. It sounds like you are feeling like avocado oil is safest for your family and that sounds good too. One thing I noticed in my research is that the harder it is to make the oil, the less likely it seems to be good for you. And yet corn and soy oils are cheapest right now.

And

Possibly more triggering

My chronic pain levels dropped a bunch when I pulled out oil from my diet. I’d experienced this before doing raw vegan weeks, and I was shocked that it happened with cooked low oil vegan weeks. My pain levels aren’t zero, but I have less days where my ability is strongly affected by pain. And if we have a weekend where we eat out a lot or if my MIL gives me food more than one day in a row I have a pain hangover for 2-3 days. I actually seem to get away with tiny amounts of dairy better than oil, but feel better without both. The diet changes aren’t a miracle cure. But for me any life tweaks or medications that reduce pain by 5-10% add up to the difference between function inside the house or not, and the amount of outings I can do or not.

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