I spent $37 on new year’s day takeout for the two of us that I thought we were splitting cost for but Sweaty venmoed me covering all of . I told him he had to let me get all of the bill when we get takeout from the new vegan place in our neighborhood opening later this month. I’m counting that as 1/3 takeout instances but $0 from the takeout budget. That’s my only real update so far!
Got takeout nachos on New Years Day. Glad I didn’t make a no takeout rule, as I felt 100% “allowed” to get Nachos with my bonus pay. Nachos are the only thing I eat from restaurants anymore, I am obsessed. Really, I should always expect $52 mo spending on this.
Farmer’s market yesterday and trip to Aldi for cheese:
Green cabbage, red onion, two 8 oz block cheddar = $9.90 (orig. challenge was $8 for no real reason other than to keep it under 10)
This Friday I prepped no churn ice cream that half turned out (edible, but not correct) because I have to whip cream by hand. The amount of extreme whisking I’ve been doing lately makes me think I might need a hand electric mixer. Also prepped mayonnaise which again almost broke my arm.
Picked up 2 cans of chickpeas that someone shared in apartment lobby. And thanks to generous forumer coupon sharing, next week I’ll be getting 6 servings of potato hash with cheese and some spices.
I have $50 in Amazon gift cards I can use for Whole Foods delivery too, so this can be a super low food expenses month.
Just started my first Kombucha January 1 so we’ll see how that turns out. I don’t crave kombucha as much in cold weather so haven’t spent a ton on it store bought lately, but it will be nice to have.
Awhile back bought some tapioca pearls for homemade boba (white pearls–because they are so much cheaper) that I’m still waiting on USPS delivery for, although it seems like they never even left the factory to get picked up for delivery yet.
This is an early progress report since we are only a few days into the year
Spending:
So far this week we’ve spent $20 on takeaway Thai food for me. Yum.
Tracking of other goals:
I’ve been writing down what I eat since there are a few things I am keeping track of, I’m making a habit of writing down what I eat as soon as I’m done. (I don’t track amount, literally just the food items).
So far no alcohol or seltzer water, yay!
1 salad, oatmeal, smoothie. 2 more of each to go.
I am going to use a bag of frozen pureed tomato and make either chili or spaghetti, tbd (enough for 2 dinners).
ETA: chili is underway, so “check” using a bag of frozen tomato puree. One down, one to go. This is going to be a bean and roasted sweet potato chili. As per usual I am not following a recipe, so whether it ends up slightly edible or actually good, it’s quite likely never to be repeated!
I also brought some frozen soup up from the freezer chest to the kitchen freezer, as well as frozen bananas. I think I need to keep gloves next to the chest freezer. Rummaging around in there really hurts my hands, brrrr!
Ok, after a day of reflection, my Snackuary challenge is:
A limit of $60 for unplanned restaurant meals, where unplanned means I didn’t give myself permission at least 2 days in advance in this thread.
For all restaurant meals throughout the month, I shall log the amounts spent and feelings before and after meal and whether or not it was “worth it”, by gut feeling.
So far, 4 “Sunday Fun Dinners” count as planned.
I want to report that last night after joining Snackuary 2021, I suddenly had the urge to order boba tea via a delivery app. I really wanted it for a few minutes. Then I decided to try to make egg pudding the next day (today) and make my own milk tea with boba and egg pudding instead. So now there’s some hopefully-egg-pudding chilling in the fridge, and I don’t even want milk tea as much as when I couldn’t have it last night.
Checking in since it’s the end of week 1, but I haven’t been to the grocery store so it’s not a very interesting checkin $0/$100 spent, and crockpot chicken/carrots/sweet potatoes are slow cooking for lunches and trading this week.
DH went to the grocery store once since the month started so we have 3 shops left! We didn’t order any take out even with a couple friends over for the weekend. I did make an amazing ham last night. There sadly were no leftovers for today.
Since the first I have spent:
$0 on dry grains + bread (bread, rice, pasta, etc) as we’re pretty well stocked here
$14.66 on dairy
$45.22 on spices (for making Indian food. I would feel bad but it’s less than our usual Indian takeout order so…)
$34.71 on meat
$7.47 on baking ingredients
$11.21 on produce
My update is that this year I have spent $0 on food so far. I have been at work where they supply most food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and I have so far resisted the vending machine.
Back home from Wednesday so should have more of an update next week
My update is more things used from the freezer tonight: fish “fillets” (breaded mystery whitefish, sue mr) and broccoli roasting on a sheet pan now.
I’m keeping a running grocery order, but I don’t really know when we will need or want to fill it at this point. Maybe next week, maybe the week after.
I hope its not too late to join, I heard this mentioned on the livestream yesterday.
My goal is to keep my grocery budget to under $200 for the month (maybe even a stretch goal of under $150). This is for a 1 adult household and I have a modestly stocked pantry that I should work through. And I want to limit my takeaways to 5 orders for the month, this shouldn’t add too much to my budget since I have a couple gift cards from the holidays for some of my favorite local spots.
I had enough food for last week, so 0€ spending.
I have bought bread today, and have picked up food for dinner.
On Thursday I will get my groceries for the week delivered. I also ordered meat which will be delivered next week.
I will post a weeks overview on Sunday with the spend of the week.
Until Thursday I plan to use up loose ends and bits from the fridge and freezer, this will be really nice I think.
This massive Costco haul took a lot to categorize, ooof. Not to mention I worked up a full on sweat in the store speed running this all not pictured is a giant bag of rice and then non food stuff.
I think I just want to track grocery expenses this month, without judgment. LOL, that is not possible for me! But the reality is, we have chosen not to go into buildings until we are vaccinated or cases calm WAY down, so that means our spend goes up due to the sources available to us, delivery costs, the hazard-pay tips I feel compelled to give delivery people, etc.
Imperfect Foods reminds me of Whole Foods - spendy, fancy brands, not a whole lot of “normal” food. The milk in particular is GODAWFUL expensive. But it has been an excellent source of meat for Boyfriend; he vastly prefers it to Aldi or Jewel which were the places we shopped in the Before Times. And in these times, having a weekly, totally customizable box just show up weekly, with free delivery if we buy enough, has value to us, so it kind of is what it is for the moment, I think?
I’m still worried about riots, and the end of democracy, but now I have 5 lbs of onions and 2 lbs of garlic to keep me company. Plus a bunch of batteries I can also use as barter.
This post really, really resonated with me. I’m trying to go into stores as little as possible, especially now. But we feed the baby four to FIVE TIMES PER DAY and try not to give her any “snack” foods. And just like; raw veggies are a choking hazard. So we go through tons of fruit and cheese and cooked greens for sides, and it’s just… a lot. Imperfect is nice for filling in gaps around limited Fred Meyer selection for pickup and irregular trips to Costco or TRader Joes. But it all adds up so, so much. PLUS we moved cities and I can’t bargain hunt like, at all.
whine whine all this to say, it’s really hard to remain non judgemental to myself.
We did
3.74 on takeout and
101.70 on groceries so far
@mirepoix my old baking blend is 2 parts rice flour to one part chickpea flour, and a spoon of cornstarch per cup. Now I do a lot of Masa arepa. I’ve always done lots of rice cakes. I also can do oat flour which is nice in muffins but terrible in cake.
In summer a big thing of bean salad or channa chat always gets eaten. I throw hemp seeds at myself often. With feeding a baby, deciding that lunch is always beans helps with thinking and budgeting. My instapot is a miracle
A good discovery from last week is that cauliflower crust pizza even frozen is better and cheaper than most gf pizza
. I told him he had to let me get all of the bill when we get takeout from the new vegan place in our neighborhood opening later this month. I’m counting that as 1/3 takeout instances but $0 from the takeout budget. That’s my only real update so far!
not pictured is a giant bag of rice and then non food stuff.
