October152009

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Days 4 and 5

These two days have been pretty great. I think I’m finally starting to appreciate how little $30 worth of food really is.

Yesterday I left my lunch at home. Darn. So I went to Willy’s, where you can get a veggie soft taco for $1.95 plus tax. And what a deal it is. The taco is probably about 1/2 to 1/3 as filling as a veggie burrito, which is wayyy too filling for me. Plus, free chips. Lots of ‘em. I’m going to hit that up again, probably before the end of the week. Then lunch for dinner, and another beer. That brought my total to $17.35.

I’ve been rocking the PB on toast, delicious. And more beans. I’m a great roommate. I picked up some more bread and beans today, total up to $18.63. Two days to go with over $10 left, I can do this. Good luck folks!

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October132009

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Day 3 - Black Beans and Paulaner

After an overnight soak, the black beans are awesome. But I’m sure most of you already knew that, having cooked beans before. Beans and rice for dinner, and assorted combinations of peanut butter, apple, banana, spaghetti, marinara sauce, and coffee.

Oh, and I decided to have a beer. We had a bit of a flood at home. After a good cleanup I had earned a beer. So I’m factoring it in. It was a Paulaner Hefeweizen, and it was delicious. A 12-pack is about $18, so I’m rounding up to $2 for the bottle since you can’t buy individual bottles at the grocery store.

I also got a fantastic deal on apples. Yep, apples. A 5 lb bag of Granny Smith apples at Kroger was just $1.59. Along with some bananas and factoring that beer, I spent about another $4.20, bringing my total to $13.26. That’s $16.74 to go, and plenty of beans, rice, bread, PB, apples, and coffee to go. Time for some more creative meals, especially after seeing yet ANOTHER day of awesome meals from the other folks.

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October122009

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Day 2 - I Love Beer

Yep, I love beer. But I can’t have any of it this week. Crap.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it was my birthday on Saturday. I got a few gifts - 90% of them are beer gifts.

All this beer taunting me in the fridge has me thinking about my beer love. It’s not cheap - I probably spend $30-$50 per week on beer and alcohol, sometimes way over that on a night out. I’ve always been aware of this, and haven’t had a problem with it, but planning all my food (and drink) expenses has me thinking hard about my purchases. I’m going to keep thinking about it next week when I’m drinking all of this delicious beer-y goodness.

As for my meals today, they’ve been rather drab, due in large part to poor planning. I’ve never cooked beans before - always heated from a can. I was going to make black beans and rice for dinner, but the overnight soaking thing has me eating spaghetti and marinara sauce again, which I don’t mind.

I had some of my value coffee today. It wasn’t bad at all, but I don’t think there’s as much caffeine an in my usual Trader Joe’s coffee. Possibly the fact that the value coffee is already ground and I usually grind my own? Just looked around on the web and didn’t find a definitive answer, but seems that may be the case.

Check out the other folks participating in #Eaton30. I’ve added links to the right column.

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October112009

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Day 1 - A Change of Pace

Tami over at Running With Tweezers has organized Round 2 of Eat On $30 - a challenge to live on $30 a week, which is slightly more than the average of what Americans receiving assistance are given for food weekly.

Check out Tami’s post, here’s an excerpt:

I did it for a variety of reasons. The first being…times are tough for a lot of folks these days. Living on a budget is a way of life for many, many folks. Secondly, hunger issues are the cause I most believe in.  I’ve chosen to do the $30 challenge again to draw attention to the food and hunger issues that many struggle with, particularly in our current times of layoffs and foreclosures. The facts speak for themselves:

I decided to participate. My timing is pretty bad though. It was my birthday yesterday, and I had quite a feast. Yesterday I ate: a vegetable pie from the Australian Bakery in East Atlanta, some fries from Five Guys, and a fantastic meal of veggie loaf, asparagus, and cake for dessert at Cafe Sunflower. Then lots of beer. And more cake. And some late night Chinese food.

A bit of a change of food pace today. I ventured out to Kroger and started studying per ounce prices. Wow, what an experience. I decided to go really cheap for the first few days to make sure I don’t go over - beans and rice, peanut butter and bread, spaghetti, marinara sauce, and coffee. I realized that when I usually shop, I do check the per unit price, but I never get the cheapest. I’ll get the second or third cheapest, because of the packaging. But the cheapest items are significantly cheaper than the next few.

  • spaghetti (1 lb) - $0.76
  • black beans (1 lb)  - $0.97
  • long grain rice (2 lb) - $1.34
  • peanut butter (1 lb) - $1.29
  • pasta sauce (1 lb)- $1.09
  • ground coffee (11.5 oz) - $1.89
  • bananas (3 medium) - $0.59
  • wheat bread (1 loaf) - $0.78
  • total with tax - $9.06

I bought all Kroger Value brand items…I didn’t even realize there was a Value brand before. The packaging reminds me of all the grocery items in Lost. Not appealing to me at all. But the prices were right.

Today I’ve eaten two peanut butter sandwiches and some spaghetti with sauce. And lots of water.

I’m feeling great so far, but I think that has a lot to do with my decadence day yesterday, and needing a bit of a digestive break. Good luck to the rest of the Eat On $30 folks! You can find us on Twitter using the #eaton30 hashtag.

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