I make these cookies to use up bananas. I replace the egg with another banana because I rarely have eggs, and I use oatmeal instead of oat flour. My friends and I really like them, and they’re easy to make vegan.
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Those look delicious!
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We got really tired of mushrooms in EVERYTHING this week so we will not be making that mistake again. But we ate everything we were supposed to.
We had a small meal prep session yesterday and made a big pot of chili for our guests. We have quite a bit of food left to eat in the fridge due to 3 work dinners and 3 work lunches last week that I forgot to plan for.
We have been doing a good job not having unhealthy snacks in the house. This is helping with both the budget and waistline.
Hopefully we will stay on track to lower our grocery spending by the end of the month. We splurged and got take out on Friday but it was $30 for 4-6 meals so I call that a successful date night. It is hard to know if grocery spending now is what it will be forever. Because we have only lived here for 1 month we find ourselves needing to buy things that we will not purchase often in the future (oil, spices, bulk beans and rice, bulk other foods, sauces, vinegar, etc.). I think we are doing a good job managing the spend on these “extras” it does add a big chunk to the budget.
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UPDATE: [quote=“Gdogg, post:16, topic:1413”]
Goal (Draft):
- Eat down the pantry - including freezer - To date have used salsa verde, fish sticks, beans from freezer, canned beans from cupboard, partial can of corn from fridge;
- Eat at least 2 salads / week - on track (woohoo);
- Make at least 2 pots of soup - one down, one to go.
[/quote]
So… My leftover eating has been going well, and this week I hope to bring in more leftovers for lunch. I made meal plans.
But… I’ve spent almost $300 of the $400 budgeted for groceries. We’ve gotten takeout once. And it’s only the 13th. I’m feeling discouraged. I don’t really understand how we went from about $400 a month on groceries to $500 without any obvious increase in the quality or quantity. Maybe we ate more beans in 2018?
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Success continues on the not-buying-bread front. (A vegan croissant doesn’t count, right? That was a treat, not bread.) I made bread and pizza this weekend (I have another thing of pizza dough in the freezer for next weekend). I also made biscuit dough and have a couple of frozen bagels left.
I think we’re doing OK, though not great, on the food budget.
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Do you include stuff other than food in “groceries”? In my experience, food varies less than other things like toiletries and paper products (over the year it balances out but in a given month the other stuff can vary widely). This is part of the reason I track food separately from other stuff. Also, do you include alcohol in there? Alcohol can be expensive (at least in my state it’s stupid expensive) and can also vary widely depending on if you are stocking back up on hard liquor or wine or not (for example).
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Yeah, I basically include everything from a grocery-ish store. I include alcohol too.
Tracking one retailer in two different budgets just makes it hard enough where I know I won’t do it.
I keep thinking I should do an ultra-broken-down-grocery-spending month where I sit down and figure out what I spent on different categories: meat, non-meat protein, dairy, veg, fruit, cleaning, toiletries, alcohol, baking stuff, sweets, junk food, other. That would just be a LOT OF WORK.
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Managed to actually succeed at grocery shopping/meal planning yesterday for the week. Yay! Also recruited @aaronpk to make chili for the week, which turned out great.
Groceries month to date: $66.19
“Treats” month to date: $3.71
Donuts month to date: $9.20
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@Greyweld I did the ultra-tracking month a few years ago (can share the spreadsheet if you like) and it was valuable, though I wouldn’t do it every month!
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Yeah I’m thinking I would do it for one month, target a place to adjust, then do it again in a few months.
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Week 2 Update!
I think overall me and SO did better this week than last week…
Could do better…
- Ended up getting takeaway for breakfast most days last week. Granted, these were Whole Foods or PCC Market smoothie. Goal for this next week/mitigation tactic: Make own smoothies! (I started today on a good foot, but it still took me 10-15 minutes to do it… a lot of time when that could be the difference between a 40 and 90 minute commute.)
Small Successes!
- We ended up sticking to our eating out 2x/week goal this week! We saw Patton Oswalt and had a yummy vegetarian dinner at The Carlile Room as a date night Saturday night, and SO brought me home my favorite takeaway on Friday night.
- We ate up most of our SunBasket meal kits! We only have 2 coming this week, so this should easily be an achievable goal.
- Instead of eating out and doing the easy thing after a later night this week, I made myself go home and make dinner from things we already had in the house (GF with roasted sweet potatoes, nooch, olive oil, and spinach).
- Though I didn’t meal prep all of my lunches, I had to do internal testing at work that allowed me to spend $1.50 on lunch for the entire week. This seriously cut down on the amount of
I spent on lunches, while still having something relatively nutritious for lunch.
Things to try this week…
- Meal prep my lunches! (Doing my meal prep grocery shop tonight!)
- Finish our SunBaskets
- Eat up all of the pistachios in the pantry
- Attempt to make a vegan dish where I have to soak cashews overnight; I tried a few recipes last year with cashew-based creams and things and they were just awful. I’d like to try again and make something tasty.
Good luck to everyone this week!
On to Week 3! 
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So I dropped my lunch today, spilled it all over the floor, and had to buy lunch…
…but I kept it cheap (salami and cheese) and I did say I wouldn’t buy snacks, not lunch.
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Omg I did that once, and it was the only thing I was looking forward to that entire day (back when I worked in politics). Plus, I broke my favorite glass tupperware. Sorry that happened 
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That sucks!
I once took my mason jar of overnight oats out of the work microwave and the entire bottom of the jar literally cracked and fell off. Hot oatmeal splooshed all over the break room floor, mixed with glass shards. Good times! Not a fun cleanup.
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As of today we’ve spent:
~$130/$300 on groceries
~$110/$250 on restaurants
I think we’re going to have to spend a couple more dollars on groceries today or tomorrow because it doesn’t feel like there’s enough food in the house…I just ate leftover soup from yesterday and am still STARVING but there is only cheese and kale in the fridge (plus all the prepped and packed lunches). Hmmmm, didn’t we just go shopping yesterday?? Anyone have good ideas for cheese + kale? (We have no eggs, crackers, bread, etc. that I would normally add to make this an actual meal)
We’re visiting friends for the long weekend and will probably use most of the restaurant budget plus pay for some groceries so I’m glad we’re still a little under half spent in both categories. It’s going to be tight!
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Sautee kale with garlic, top with cheese
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Week 2 update the second:
A Costco trip is in my plans for week. Certain staples (ok, dog food) are running low and I have a car rental already scheduled for this week.
I’ll be stocking up on the Costco things, which may tank my lower grocery budget goal, but I have a car and want to take advantage of it. I’ll keep on eating down the pantry this month, but I’m just going to give myself permission to ‘fail’ this month’s $200 budget goal.
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I’m allergic to garlic 
but it would probably be good with some other herbs and spices! Sounds like a good idea for tomorrow night. I also remembered that I have some canned pumpkin and some chicken broth so I can make soup with parm and/or cheddar.
There was cheese and crackers served at my meeting tonight so I was fed a little extra for free!
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Picking up a grocery order today, adding nothing to that freezer. We’re not far from being able to spice everything into the fridge freezer long enough to defrost.
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