Less than a week until I start

With only four days, really, until I start this crazy thing, I'm beginning to have doubts that I can do it. I'm running into some things that have a potential to develop into total road blocks. One problem I'm encountering is that the price of rice has gone up- a lot- in the last couple years. Pricing it out at the Asian market has shown me that if I can't find a much cheaper source, my bulk starting point is going to be much lower than I had hoped.

Another problem is that sometimes a cheap place to live means carry over from the previous tenants. In my case that means I have several million six legged pets. Gross, food crawling on, infesting pets. So any bulk stuff I get I'm going to need to be able to secure from roaches. Wish there were a faster way to solve this problem.

So. Potential ways to solve my problems.

• I can buy smaller portions more often, still using the 78.50 to pick up bulk stuff a month at a time.
• I can change the balance of money. Instead of $3 a week (about) for grains and protein I can have $4 a week, leaving $3 for fresh veg and fill ins.
• I can drop rice totally and just buy flour as needed. This would be much more affordable, as white flour is $12.50 for 50 pounds.
• I can eat less- fewer calories, and more unhealthy ones
• I can increase my budget. This is not happening yet.

I need to get excited about this. I need to do my shopping. I need to find cheap beans. I only have three days left between now and the start of my shiny new food budget, it's time to get serious. Or at least cheap and creative.

I'm also thinking about changing the allocation of weekly cash around a bit. I'd like to have some money to get spices and seasonings at the beginning- I was thinking of pulling $0.50 a week from the veggie money, for $13 at the start for seasonings. That should give me enough of my most used spices to get through the entire year, or at least spread the replacement cost over the end of the year. Also, I'm lucky in my timing of all this- I should be getting some kind of tax refund in the next week, so that gives me a good amount of starting cash. If I didn't have that, I'd have to buy smaller amounts more often, and that'd lead to waaaay fewer calories- one thing I really don't need.

Anyone out there have ideas about how to work around or solve my price and bug problems?