use real butter

NaBloWriMo day #13.

Eat on $30 day 3.

Don’t forget about the (2) $25 Macy’s gift card giveaway. You have until this Friday to enter. Even if you don’t shop Macy’s, you can always give the card to someone who does.

NaBloWriMo has me on a manic posting schedule, but this week in particular is the intersection of so many things at once. Add to that, the Daring Cooks reveal tomorrow! Oy. So let’s cover what we have eaten and will eat for this, Day 3 of the Eat on $30 challenge. Then I’ll share a few more thoughts with you.

brekkie

For breakfast this morning, I had 3/8 cup plain oatmeal with a pat of butter, a spoonful of brown sugar, and a dash of cinnamon.

Jeremy had 5/8 cup plain oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and some milk stirred in. He also had a soy sauce egg and 12 ounces of non-fat milk.

lunch

I had 3 ounces of chicken left after the enchiladas (so apparently, I used 5 ounces instead of 6 on the enchiladas last night) which I didn’t want to spoil in the refrigerator. So I chopped the chicken up and realized that I had forgotten to leave myself one stalk of celery for the chicken salad. I had used it up for another dish (to be shared in a few days). Doh! Chicken salad is always better with something green and crunchy. I grabbed a few of the leftover broccoli florets from the first night and diced them into the bowl.

making chicken salad sandwich

When planning the meals, I needed a couple more lunches for Jeremy to take to work, so I knew I was going to reserve some chicken for the salad. And even though the man says he doesn’t like white condiments, mayonnaise is what makes a chicken salad stay in the bread and not fall into your lap. I only needed a little bit, but wasn’t able to afford a tiny jar of the stuff. So while shopping, I grabbed two packets of free mayonnaise from the pre-made food section of Safeway (I’ve been known to do this with all manner of condiments when we go backpacking). A little salt and pepper, and his bagel chicken salad sandwich was ready to go with enough left for a second sandwich tomorrow.

hopefully enough calories to help jeremy unlock the secrets of the universe

My lunch was a bowl of beef stew with a cup of cooked rice, and a soy sauce egg.

dinner

Dinner is going to be some manner of leftovers. Maybe Chinese noodle soup again or perhaps the beef stew? All I can tell you is that for the past two days, I get peckish around 8 or 9 pm and I gladly devour that little gala apple which placates me for all of ten minutes and then I crave sweets. I’m a little worried because we are not going to have enough apples to last us the week. We have no sweets on our menu this week except for the dessert we are taking to a party on Saturday. I don’t normally crave sweets, but lately…

I’m guessing it’s because we aren’t eating any snacks and we don’t have nearly as much fruit in the house as we usually do. Let me tell you, my pantry is STOCKED. I have enough food in our house to last us a few months – or more! And what I’m realizing about myself is that the container of prunes which I passed over for the past several months are now looking like the best, tastiest, most tempting treat in the world – especially because they are off limits. Everything has taken on a magical appeal. It’s like beer goggles! So clearly, eating on $30 for the week is starting to take its toll. I think that is in part because we are rationing our food from the get go so we don’t leave ourselves high and dry come Friday.

I say we. Jeremy is such a good sport. He never agreed to this, I just informed him, “Hey, I’m doing this eat on $30 challenge, and now so are you.” But he’s been helpful and we’ve had some great discussions on the socio-economic factors that contribute to the state of the hungry in this country. A reader asked how Jeremy was faring without his coffee. He’s a little frazzled around the edges, but he’s none the worse for wear… so far :)

Just a few more thoughts:

1) My savings from my Safeway Club Card (free, aside from letting them track your every purchase for the marketing hacks) was: $10.69 and from Target (just a price reduction) was: $1.25 = $11.94

2) I didn’t use any coupons. I used to use coupons when I got out of college and found that I wound up purchasing complete junk because I had a coupon for said junk. Over the years the intersection of the foods I buy and the foods that have coupons has steadily decreased. On occasion there are coupons for good deals, but I only use them if we wanted the item in the first place.

3) Many of my cohorts in the Eat on $30 challenge have stated that they hate math which made figuring their budgets even more of a task. I like math. Math is your friend. I’ve taken more math than I really care to recall (math and I cooled our relationship after tensor analysis). I stand in the aisles of stores and determine per unit costs in my head – something my mom taught me (she’s a human calculator). What I noticed is that stores do not often try very hard to HELP YOU FIND THE BEST DEAL. Seriously. The big bright red sign that says, “Buy these on sale!” sometimes fools the non-calculating into purchasing the more expensive package than the non-sale larger (or smaller!) quantity of the same product right next to it on the shelf. And even if they have the per unit cost displayed, I love how they sometimes mix up the units which inevitably discourages some folks from calculating which is the better deal. So what percentage of people on food assistance do you think have strong basic math skills? I don’t know the answer, but it’s one more thing to ponder.

4) Several commenters have noted that one key advantage I and other food bloggers have over most folks is that we know how to cook. I agree 100%. Cooking allows me to utilize nearly every ounce of every ingredient I purchased for this week. It is a life-skill that is getting edged out by convenience and pre-packaged food pumped full of preservatives and additives. These days fewer and fewer people cook and that costs them, not just financially, but health-wise too. And if you are poor and don’t know how to cook, I can’t imagine it is possible to feed yourself well (i.e. with healthy food) AND within such a small budget.

That’s all I got. See you tomorrow!

NaBloWriMo day #12.

Eat on $30 day #2

How are all of my Eat on $30 buds doing? Hanging in there? Good! I don’t mean to snark because I snark a lot and this time I’m really not meaning to. I want to point out that it’s not possible to buy an arbitrary quantity of most foods like soy sauce or diced tomatoes. I guess I’m trying to keep it as realistic as possible. Otherwise, as I said in yesterday’s post, it’d be easy peasy for me prorate and charge myself for 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder and 1 tsp of vanilla extract so I can go make oatmeal cookies. That’s not how it works, yo.

I do want everyone to know that I am loving the thoughtful discussion in the comments and encourage you to keep sharing tips and observations! You guys are GREAT!

This morning, Mr. FedEx brought me a big box with a dog treat on top. All of the delivery people in my town carry heaps of dog treats – it’s a dog town. I had to sign for the package and promise that I am over 21 years of age. You know what that means…

booze! lovely wines from st. supéry

Rick Bakas (follow on Twitter @RickBakas) graciously sent me bottles of the wines we were served at the infamous lunch at BlogHer Food 09 in San Francisco. I’m so excited to try these wines (and Jeremy is even more excited)! But they will have to wait until after the Eat on $30 challenge is over. I just don’t think most people on food assistance get complimentary wine FedEx’d to their homes. I had to put them away because just looking at the bottles made my mouth water.

what i did with some of the veggies

salt and pepper on the beef chuck

Breakfast got a little screwy today. I was up late and Jeremy woke up at 5 am to head down to the office and start remote observing on a telescope. My intention was to prepare breakfast for him each morning, but I just mumbled, “Bagel. Eat a bagel,” and I quickly fell back to sleep. I discovered that he only ate half a bagel, leaving the other half for my brekkie which I toasted with a little butter. For lunch, Jeremy took some of the huge pot of beef stew I made yesterday.

beef stew with rice

**Jump for more butter**

NaBloWriMo day #11.

There is much going on and I will completely understand if you’ve missed the news from the past few days. Just look at the top of the page where I have links to posts on the Good Bite-Quaker Oats competition where my chosen charity Farm to School could win $10,000, and on my giveaway for a $25 gift card to Macy’s.

Today (Sunday) was the first day of the Eat on $30 challenge that Tami of Running with Tweezers is hosting. I’m proud to say that I’m participating in this hunger awareness campaign. Yes! Yet another one! I told Tami if all the leaves in Colorado had fallen or were brown by this week (i.e. no reason to scour the state to shoot fall colors), I’d join. So here I am. I discussed the idea of the campaign earlier and got a lot of reader comments and suggestions. This isn’t just about seeing if I can feed my household on $30/person, it’s about getting a dialogue started about hunger in this country and maybe understanding the predicament that so many Americans find themselves in today. What does it mean to eat on $30?

produce i bought for the week

Eating on $30 is *easy* if you have access to a library of spices, typical staples (I always have butter, flour, rice flour, sugar, brown sugar, confectioner’s sugar, rice, beans, soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, vinegar(s), ten different kinds of Asian noodles, dried cranberries, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, hazelnuts, chocolate(s), chiles, etc.), and a freezer full of homemade broths and meats. It’s *easy* if you have a garden. It’s *easy* if you live in a place where food is cheap and you have access to terrific and affordable farmer’s markets. This is not about the EASY. This is about what struggling Americans have to deal with. Forgive me for having a little (or a lottle) attitude, but people who act indignant that others can’t make ends meet really chap my hide. As if the poor are at fault for being poor or hungry.

meats and most of the dairy

As far as I’m concerned, the hard part of Eat on $30 is over. That would be the menu planning, price comparison, and shopping. Now I get to cook (easy) and eat (easier). Let me describe my situation first. I live in a small mountain town of 1500 people at 8500 feet above sea level. We have snow on the ground from as early as September to as late as May. There is a decent (but small) local grocery store and a local co-op. Both places are on the expensive side for what I deem less than quality produce and it’s hard to find certain ingredients. Boulder is the nearest town of sizable population (~100,000) and it is a 30 minute drive down a steep and windy canyon from my town. I try to shop ONCE a week in Boulder. Food in Boulder is not cheap. We spend approximately 50% more on food per week than we did when we lived in Southern California. The quality of our groceries is lower and the selection is smaller. I shop primarily at Safeway, Costco, Whole Foods, and my local Asian grocer. I prefer organic, local, and sustainable products when I can get them. To be able to make a statement with my dollar is a luxury.

grains, canned foods

My approach to the challenge was to keep our eating habits as normal as possible. That means meat, vegetables, fruit. Tami gave us four gimmes: salt, pepper, oil, and butter. Because I am making a dessert to take to a party on Saturday, I threw butter into my budget since I needed more than just a smear on some toast. I opted out of Costco because I think that’s cheating. The membership is something like $40 (see, I don’t even know anymore) but the cost of volume, as I discussed before, is a large cost up front that people on food assistance likely don’t have available to them. In a few instances, I took down the price of things like flour, sugar, brown sugar and added them to my costs without purchasing them since I have all of those things at home, taking care to note the amount used is less than or equal to the amount I theoretically purchased.

what i bought for the week

**Jump for more butter**