Week 4 check in:
Tried to boil my chestnuts today only to open them up and discover they had gone bad
Almost done with my first big batch of yogurt experiment, will be making more this coming weekend
Had a pretty busy week so can’t super duper remember everything I ate, mostly relied on mac and cheese to keep me going.
When I was in my hometown I bought a fancy bag of coffee beans for $17 and just cracked into those this week ---- it is really good coffee. Not good enough to exclusively drink super expensive coffee all the time, but as a once or twice a year treat.
the story of buying the coffee is actually pretty funny
Summary
So these beans are from a roastery/coffee shop that is super hipster, very good coffee, sells records in the shop, has the absolute coolest branding and design ever, and I wanted to support my hometown business so when I was home early in January I knew I wanted to get some beans to bring back. i’ve never bought whole beans from them, only stopped in for a cup of coffee, so I went over to the beans shelf, picked one 12 oz bag, but was not seeing a price. I knew it was going to be expensive, but also knew I still wanted them. I go up to the cafe register and the price is $17. i powered through but momentarily forgot how exchanging money for goods works and the cashier/barista seemed very concerned for me. the fog lifted and I left with my beans, though. lol.
This week I did a lot of eating from the vending machine at work too, because I was recovering from my very bad cold.
Today spent $21.53 on stuff at Aldi, and my pantry is very well stocked right now.
I am actually considering starting to order a lot more of my pantry staples on Amazon. I have lots of gift card money to use, and was thinking of doing auto-order to just take some mental strain off my day to day life. I might elaborate more in my journal at some point about the labor and environmental implications of how I feel about this. I have never used Amazon a lot, but I am now using it more often, even though it goes against a lot of what I stand for. Maybe I’ll become too guilt-ridden and end up reneging on the auto-order stuff.
edit: just did the Amazon auto-order set up for bulk quantities of my staples for $83.58
Plus untracked Whole Foods gift card - picked up eggs and cheese this week.
Pantry cooking this week:
More smoothies with frozen/canned fruit
Stuffed acorn squash
Used up the last of the tasty homegrown potatoes
The occasional pot of herbal tea.
I got pad thai last Monday and it was $11 deliciousness.
This week I still need to meal plan, but don’t anticipate needing to grocery shop for much more than cream for coffee. Also, the veggie CSA I used last summer is already taking reservations for next summer. I think I’ll pay the $300 in February and try to have another $200 grocery month, to help defray the extra cost.
We failed the stretch goal for groceries but are still going to come in a few dollars under budget for the true goal.
We went WAY over in restaurants (I’m estimating $450 spent vs. $250 goal). Some of this can be funneled into the vacation budget, about $50 could technically go into gifts since I bought a meal for my new parent friends, and I did a grocery run for our vacation hosts) but the reality is, we blew the budget and then kept spending because the budget was already blown. The third cocktail I had last night was definitely not worth the hangover or the budget pain.
$235.63/$350 on groceries. We’ll be fine in this category. We are having a small dinner party this week, but I just have to buy a chicken for it (but I will probably buy it from the fancy butcher shop).
$167.37/$125.00 on eating out. Took husband out for breakfast on the morning of his birthday. Looks like $200 is a much more realistic budget for this category for us.
Week 4 check in
My original list of perishables is almost done! (just 4 items left) Fruit (apples) is still a challenge. Why don’t I want to eat them? This week I:
Made one more round (two servings) of potato-onion hash with scrambled eggs and salami
Made two more quesadillas to finish off the sour cream
Did not eat any apples
Didn’t toss any food
Finished, week 4:
2. an opened tub of sour cream.
5. half a package of hard salami.
15. two pounds of potatoes
27. dozen eggs, bought 1/5, best by 1/21
29. feta crumbles (the new package, and I need to buy even more)
Remaining:
9. 5 apples (one golden delicious, the remainder honeycrisp)
10. the rest of the bag of clementines still two left
13. a bag of sweet onions - just 1 remaining
16. cranberry sauce
24. 2/3 package of graham crackers
26. most of a bag of Aldi ginger cookies
New:
30. half a bag of spinach
31. half a cucumber
32. roma tomatoes
33. chicken breasts I defrosted then only used 1/2
Previous weeks
Finished:
.1. a small amount of lemon pie filling. finished 1/3, ate on honey bread
4. a few slices of sharp cheddar cheese finished 1/2
8. one pear eaten 1/5
17. two eggs, best by 12/24 used 1/5
22. a small loaf of honey bread, gift from a neighbor finished 1/5
23. about half a head of broccoli, cut up eaten 1/4
25. half a box of triscuits - finished 1/6
6. prosciutto finished week 2
11. grape tomatoes finished 1/8
12. three ribs celery - used in lentil soup, week 2
20. about a pint of OJ, exp 12/31. week 2
21. bacon, exp 12/23/19 week 2
7. about 2 pounds of grapes, green and red. used the remaining red and half the green in pasta sauce, ate the rest of the green as snack week 3
14. most of a bag of baby carrots - put the rest in a lentil dish for potluck dinner week 3
18. a tub of feta cheese crumbles. finished, then had to buy more! week 3
19. a small block of smoked cheddar, from mid-November used in mac-n-cheese, with salami week 3
28. Lentil soup. ate some and froze the rest, as planned Week 3
Wasted, week 1:
3. about 6 egg whites. decided not to risk it
unnumbered: a tub of hummus that I’d thought was unopened. It was partially eaten, and fuzzy.
Plan for the week:
Eat fruit! Apples - I mean it this time
Make cranberry orange muffins
Use chicken, spinach, cucumber, and tomatoes in chicken gyros
January grocery spending, to date: $60.07 This is quite a deviation from my usual $150 (though I need to do one more small shop this week). It’s amazing what effect not wasting food can have.
Week 4: $205.30 / $400. Looking low so far as we got a supermarket gift card for Christmas and I’m not counting what we spend on the but we only did one top up shop this week, plus I got a few seconds fruit and veg from my volunteering this week, which helped. But the main thing was sticking to our menu plan, which was entirely vego and using up what we had in the fridge. I made 2 new recipes last week, which cooking towards my 2020 bingo goals (I Don’t count the one recipe I made that was so Frankenstein it barely resembled the recipe book. ) A good week in the kitchen!
Prepping lunches for the week is no longer a part of the plan as it resulted in wasted food and money.
I ate small amounts of fruit this week.
Bought quite a bit prepared food during Week 4, more than the previous weeks of this challenge. I did still cook some food at home.
“Necessary” is too fluid a term in my mind surrounding eating out. My current lifestyle also doesn’t allow for much wiggle room here. I’m stocking up on protein bars and other shelf stable food items at work to cut down on this if I don’t go straight home after work.
I was on a work trip last week so that helped for 1 week of the budget challenge. Going back to my original intent we cooked with dried beans for meal prep this week!
We have not thrown away any food that we have cooked yet, and last night we had some veggies that were about to go bad so we threw them into the soup and the stir fry.
I do not know if we are going to be able to use a coupon. This has not been high on the priority list but I have been checking Ibotta after our grocery shop to see if any apply and they typically don’t. I think it would defeat the purpose to use a coupon for something that we would not have purchased anyways.
All right, down to the last week of using up random left-behind beans (at least for now)–potato and chickpea curry for lunches for the week, and since I had most of the other ingredients on hand, grocery spending is only up to $87. Apparently I can’t count and the Indian curry I’d planned for next week will actually be for the first week of February, but that works too.
As of this week I have spent $612/$400 on groceries. Next month I’ll be tracking in food type categories, along with categories for planned vs unplanned but needed vs complete impulse.
Eat down freezer I don’t think I had any progress this week, but it’s half as full as it was at the beginning of the month. I’m going to toss out some items that have been in there for probably a year at this point
Eat that Trader Joe’s lentil soup that’s been in my cupboard for 6+ months Done.
Buy snacks from bulk section with reusable containers Done.
Drink 1 cup of tea a day I missed 1 or 2 days this week.
Make pitcher of iced tea Not yet
Bring lunch and snacks to work, and bring utensils, reusable napkins, reusable containers, etc when doing so Successful week.
Avoid buying from cafeteria and vending machines at work (I put a container of oatmeal in my desk in case I run out of packed food. I will bring a spoon and jar tomorrow to leave at my desk so I don’t use single use cups or plastic). Successful week.
Obviously we’re still in the last week, but the stickers for snackuary have arrived and are very cute. If you complete Snackuary, you can get a sticker mailed anywhere in the world for free.
Stickers will be mailed February 10th, please submit your address before then.
Week 4 update: No bread bought. Lunch today is leftover pasta; lunch the rest of the week is sandwiches from the bread I made last weekend. I made banana bread this weekend and have biscuit dough to bake in the mornings.
We are on track with grocery money! We may even end up with some left over. This is helped along by my MIL taking us out to lunch on Sunday.
Since a lot of folks focus on Valentine’s day, what about something related to dating expenses/nice things for your partner/joint income, alternatively (or alongside) self care?
