Budget Wrap-Up Post Part 1, From Atlanta Airport

Would you believe me if I said life had been a bit busy the last few days? I've managed (somehow) to offload the majority of my belongings (selling what I could), including the left over food.

Left over food? What's that?

Easy, I bought a bottle of apple juice that I never drank. That actually got tossed after spending some quality time fermenting in my car. I also had flour, spices, baking soda and powder, half a (small) vat of yeast, most of a bag of sugar, a pound and a half of lentils (the half actually started @ Moms, and she was less than thrilled to get it back...), Um...I'm sure there was other stuff. I *know* there was, actually, but I didn't sleep last night, so I'm a bit fuzzy...

So far as money totals go, I am not the best keeper of actual really for-reals budgets. Really not. But I grabbed up all the receipts I could find (and guessed on some of the others...) and came up right around $400 for most food including non-chip cheating. Um, and excluding the month I just kinda took off. I think I spent about $150 that month...

For cheating, really it was probably about another $500. I don't see how it could really have been more. I know how much money I had last year, and how much was left after paying for everything else that I couldn't play with. I probably averaged about a bag of chips a week, if you spread it all out and included the couple (several?) times I ate the chips but didn't admit to it.

I ate over at moms, I don't know, maybe once a month? Once every other month? I got a meal out of dad around my birthday. Mom also probably supplied me with around $50-100 worth of veg and random other stuff. I'm not totally sure of that number, actually. I'll check with her when I get where I'm going.

Those numbers really don't sound right, though. That puts me at a total food cost of close to $100 a month, and I'm pretty sure I *never* had that much. Maybe including the soda, but I doubt even then. Bookkeeping FAIL, I suspect.

Or else I wasted a heck of a lot more money than I thought I did.

Now, off to grab some food from this here sky club before I have to leave and catch my forking flight. You know a day is going well when your only really clear thought is "what in the name of santa claus am I forking doing!!!???"

Bear will be very sad.

Day 360- Easy Food, Mom Style

Yesterday was dinner at mom's. I made some tasty "not meat" meatballs, and ate it with sweet potato and asparagus. Sweet potatoes are (obviously) cheap. Asparagus not so much.

Of course, asparagus is (I'm told) pretty easy to grow. Heck, it grows wild out west. It can't be that tough. You just have to wait a couple years before getting to eat anything off the plants. Tastiness. If only I were a stick-around-3-or-4-years kinda girl.

Today I need to (actually really for reals) get some food together before heading back over to Drama City. Or else, you know, put my crock pot and rice cooker on dad's big shiny granite counter and cook my (cheap) food there. Actually, that sounds like *fun*. Probably not in a good way.

Yay, weekend?

Oh, yeah, I'll pull out all the receipts and add them up over the weekend, and toss out a (close-ish) number Monday. Since it's, you know, actually the last day.

Day 166- Pizza Dough Twists

I'd like to start off by saying-- I miss my camera. Last night I had *perfect* red dipping sauce in bright white plate. Even I could have pulled off something food-porn-worthy with that to work with. Sadly, I think the board is fried. I'll dig out my tool/toy kit in the next couple days and poke around inside, but I think it's time the camera when to the great electronics recycling depot in the sky.

Back to that tasty red sauce.

I've been lusting after tomato-y flavors for weeks. I just love them, and usually (when not doing crazy budget stuff) have tomato in some form or other just about every day. Yesterday I gave in.

I was just going to get a little jar of tomato sauce. I didn't think I'd *quite* afford the tomato paste. Turned out that I probably could have- I brought 60 cents to the store and tomato sauce was 59 cents. I was worried about tax driving me just over what I had, though, so I stuck with sauce. Which was a pretty good move, actually. The 14 or 15 oz can of tomato sauce (the one the size of a normal can of beans) was on sale. I thought I was going to have to get the tiny half sized one- it's usually about 40 or 50 cents, and it was yesterday, too. But the bigger can was 57 cents.

I snagged it, dashed to the checkout line, and was out of the store in about 5 more minutes, with only one strange comment from the cashier about not being able to "just get one thing" herself. Having exactly enough to get what you planned for at the store and not one other thing is amazingly inspiring, so far as not overspending is concerned, but I don't think she wanted to hear that.

When I got home, I mixed up the pizza dough. I added some extra Ital. seasoning because I knew it wasn't getting topped with pizza stuff- no, this dough was going to be twists. Sometimes the only job of the tasty carb is to be a dip/ topping/ dressing/ frosting delivery system. I tried to make the twists a bit more interesting than that, but at the time my only real plan was a tasty good way to get the sauce in my mouth without using a spoon.

Note- spoon is a great way to get just about anything else into your mouth, just not tomato sauce. Ends up tasting funny, like clowns.

Back on topic. I let the dough rest and got some work done (yay!). When I came back (long before it'd doubled in size, I never wait that long) I sliced the loaf of dough into 10 kinda skinny strips. If my hunk of dough were a playing field, my slices were along the goal/ center lines, not the sidelines. I left the dough on the cutting board, put some (magic) heavy duty, non stick aluminum foil on the baking sheet, and mixed up the topping for the twists. It's just oil, kosher salt, Ital. seasoning, and some garlic. If you have it/ can be bothered, you can add a bunch of shakey cheese (the parm in a can) or chopped fresh (or jarred in oil) garlic. Just stir it up.

The twists are just that- grab a piece of dough and strech/ twist like you're making rope (or those twisty 2 strand braids), and let the whole thing fold in two. Roll the top in your topping (om nom nom) and put it on the baking sheet. When they're all been rolled/ topped, toss them in the over @ 450 for about 18 minutes.

Then it was time to make the sauce. I had waited all day for that. tomato sauce. Yum. I had/ have plenty. It's really nice.

I chopped up the last of the onion I started using this week, and a couple cloves of garlic. they went in the wok with a bunch of oil and salt and cooked on pretty low for 5 or 6 minutes. Dumped in the tomato sauce (which is actually pre-seasoned), a bunch of Italian seasoning, a bit of crushed red pepper, and some onion powder. Mixed it up, let it simmer for about two minutes, and it was time to pull the rolls out of the oven.

It was all organized, it'll never happen that way again.

I ended up using about 1/4 of the total sauce for the whole batch of twists. The rest I can use for something else later. It actually has a pretty unspecific flavor, so I should be able to push it in a different direction if I want to make something, say, southwest-y.

Got the food back to my eating cave, dipped the first twist in the sauce, and nommed.

ZOMG, it was good. I don't know if it was because I really wanted tomato sauce, but it was seriously good. Like the sauce and bread were having a grown-up nekkid party in my mouth, good.

Oh, other food yesterday? I just ate most of the rest of the cookie dough. It actually reminds me a lot of the crumbly topping on a coffee cake, now that I think about it. I really need to cook some beans.

Magic weekend bonus- Hulu has The Pride of the Yankees available. US only, I think, sorry. It's one of my favorite movies, and it doesn't hurt that the real Gehrig was pretty darned hot.

Question for you guys- Does food taste better when you've been thinking about it for a while, or does it disappoint you? I know sometimes I remember something tasting a lot better than it really does.

Day 37

Went shopping early in the morning on Sunday, while everyone else was at church.

Gave in and got the asparagus. The stalks are tiny, and it'd probably be great raw. Wasn't paying attention to the price of the lemons. For that much it should have been organic. And, of course, the sauerkraut. Om nom nom. That's a 1lb jar, so it's within price per pound anyway.

Checked the frozen veggies while I was there, hoping to get some green peas to use in samosas and stuff, but at $1.49 or more a pound, frozen veggies are out for now.

Planning to hit the veggie store today, as well as pick up some more flour. The bag I got from Save-a-Lot is pretty much gone, and I'd rather replace it with something higher quality. There was something off with the texture and flavor of the smaller bag, but I don't know what it was- age maybe? I can portion it out into gallon freezer bags, so I don't have a big open bag of flour in the pantry, and so I can rotate it all through the freezer and kill off any stowaways.

Food was pretty boring. Leftover "curry" for breakfast.

Dinner was the mock pork leftover after I ran out of wonton skins, and some asparagus- oil, salt, cajun seasoning, broiler. It was gone before I even sat down. Won't be eating the "pork" on its own again. It soaks up flavor, but then I don't know where it goes. And the way the gluten is cooked... I must be doing something wrong, because it ended up with that half-cooked, gristly fat texture. It was kinda gross, actually.

I still have a whole onion left- I've never gone a month on just one bag before. I also have a bit of cabbage and a bunch of fruit. I need to work on the fruit, I just don't like to eat it. Cabbage will just have to go in everything until it's gone- it'll make the fridge stink if it starts to rot.

Day 4

Finally made it to some stores for tasty food on my list. Some of the stuff was still more than I'm willing to pay, and some of the stuff I want to try and get somewhere else, but I've got quite the little haul now.

I walked, as is starting to seem usual now, and found a whole bunch of stuff in the area I'm willing to walk to that I wasn't expecting, including a small health food/ vitamin store, and a primarily mexican grocer.

I think it's important here to stop for a second and make what might be a silly point.

I am spending more than a dollar a day right now.

I know, silly thing to point out, right? I'm actually doing it on purpose, because with a (somewhat) stocked pantry I don't have to:

• walk to the store as often,
• buy smaller batches for more, or
• figure out what to make with half an onion and some oatmeal.

I don't have everything I want yet, and some of the stuff I bought yesterday I found this afternoon for less- like close to 30% less, but that's learning, right? I know where to buy that item now.

So onto the shopping!

This is from the Mexican grocer. It's for some chili powder and cinnamon. I was also tempted by but didn't get a "box" of adobo sauce.


At the dollar store I used my card and got some other stuff as well, only $3.06 of this comes out of my money for the year. I have to replace $4 I used for something else yesterday when I needed cash. Cinnamon was cheaper here, and if I do lots of breakfasty baking, I'll pick up a 50 cent container here next time. I also got mustard, which I use in several recipes, but mostly in a "cheese" recipe I have.

Save a lot I did in two batches

Veggies- a month's worth of onions and (hopefully) carrots, and a good sized cabbage. That's $1.72 (with tax) for monthly veggies, and $0.72 for weekly ones, though I expect the cabbage to last more than a week.


And the main shopping. Wins (relatively) here include 10# of rice for 50 cents a pound, black beans right @ $1/lb, and pintos and lentils for 79 cents a pound. If only I loved pintos and lentils, I'd be rolling in beans. The flour was close to my goal of 25 cents a pound.

This place also had veggie oil for about $2, or almost 80 cents less than I paid last night. Oops.

But now I can cook!!!

So totals for today-

• $1.72 for monthly veggies, leaving $3.28 for later
• $0.72 for veggies for *this* week, leaving $1.78
• $20.96 for staples/ basic stuff

So far I've spent a total of $34.82. Do I think I have a month's worth of food? Except for veggies, I have easily 2 or three months of food, I hope...

Ohh, today so far I've eaten oatmeal-

I don't have fruit yet, so I don't think it's going to look any better anytime soon.

• 1/2C quick oats
• 1C water
• salt
• dash of cinnamon
• 1tsp of silk creamer
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar (needs more)
• 1tsp EB

Microwaved to perfect paste consistency. Yum. And for dinner, stir fry!

I'm thinking about putting a countdown ticker thingy in the sidebar. Days and dollars, both going down, I think...

Opinions?

Day 3, part 2

Finally made it to the store tonight, but not the one i wanted.

Food first, though. I ate the rest of the rotini pasta, and almost all the sauce, same as day 2. It was at least 2 huuuge servings, and i'm still full now- almost 10 hours later.

back to shopping. Earth Fare was closed- 20 minutes early, which was annoying. So, by then, was everything else except for the most expensive store in town. There are still bargains there, don't get me wrong, but when it's your only option you'll leave without a lot of stuff.



And that's everything on my list that wasn't wildly inflated. They wanted $5 for 5 pounds of conventional white rice. So no rice. And $1.25 and up for dried beans! are they nuts?

Some of the things I got- oil, popcorn- were more than i had figured on, but not by much. I could have come in under my estimate on popcorn of $1, but for less than 50 cents more it was worth it to get the 2 pound bag. I will almost definitely need to buy more oil during this, but I shouldn't have to get salt again for more than a year.

Tomorrow I'll walk to the local store and pick up a 60 billion pound (20lb) bag of rice. Hopefully they'll have some beans below my target price of $0.70 a pound. If not, I'll check the other store when I walk to the dollar store for spices and "stuff" later on.

But hey, I can make oatmeal now.