See that container down at the bottom next to the eggs? Those are Scotty's fishing worms. We'll save those for when we're really desperate.
And the soy sauce and buttermilk? Not all that strange to have in a fridge, but there's a back story on those. Our friend, Nate, comes home from work every day and takes a shot of soy sauce straight from the bottle.
Guys.
He drinks soy sauce.
And he also drinks buttermilk.
So the other day, our doorbell rang, and we opened it to find a bottle of soy sauce and a half pint of buttermilk with a note inviting us to "take up the flask."
(Somehow, we've been able to resist).
Empty fridge aside, I think we've been eating pretty well from our pantry, freezer, and food storage. We are lacking fresh produce and other perishables, but we're not to the point where we're eating tomato sauce for dinner. We're still pulling together some great meals.
Here's the run-down from this week:
Productive/Creative Tasks
- Baked and froze some cookies (thanks to my friend, who brought me butter just to be nice) (seriously, I have good friends, right?)
- Found some new recipes to try
- Sold a painting and used some of the money to go to lunch with my in-laws on President's Day (Is this cheating?) (I am addicted to The Habit) (teriyaki char with cheese and tempura-battered green beans)
- Shopped at Smith's since they have free fruit for kids
- Made a double batch of homemade refried beans (and threw two portions in the freezer)
- Started gathering eggs again (the chickens just started laying after a winter hiatus)
- Frozen odds & ends (fruit, spinach, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic butter, biscuits, peas, lunch meat, pepper, onions)
- Canned green beans
- Pantry odds & ends (mini marshmallows, Chinese noodles, curry powder)
- A box of gluten-free waffles (nasty!)
- A box of mini pancakes
- Dried pinto beans
- A jar of pepperocinis
- Apricot nectar
- Chicken pot pie filling over biscuits
- Honey mustard curry chicken over rice
- Skillet Turkey Meatballs with Lemon Rice (minus the parmesan because we don't have any) (this is the first time I've made this. I thought it was delicious, but everyone else hated it)
- Bean and cheese burritos
No big temptations to report for this week. I even went to the grocery store for milk and didn't bat an eye!
How I Spent My $10 Cushion
(I had a $2.50 deficit from last week)
- $4.65 (2 gallons of milk and a bag of rolls)
- $.27 (Redbox movie with code)
I. Am. In. Awe!!! Seriously, I am so crazy-impressed by this! At this point does it seem your only purchases will be food? Your only temptations will be food?
ReplyDeleteAnd what is this painting you sold? I'm super curious about that. Are you a painter!? Or was it a piece you had and got rid of?
xox
Okay. So after reading your first post I decided to give this a try, to an extent. I don't freeze food ever, and my pantry is pretty bare because we live on only fresh real food. So I decided to participate in this challenge MINUS groceries. After talking to a friend about it she brought up one point I hadn't thought of...kind of like a gas strike, in the end you have to spend the money anyways on food. I wanted to know, did you budget for AFTER February when you have to restock all of your cabinets, freezer, and refrigerator?
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I've done good with this. We've used money from my hubbys dad as a valentines gift to go out to eat on a planned night that I didn't buy groceries for. I've only bought food twice out of our account in all of February. Once was last weekend during baseball try outs, my hubby and kids were up at the field all day for baseball, I wasn't due to grocery shop until the next day and I was out of basically all produce and bread. I gave in and bought sandwiches for the family, knowing it would have cost me about the same to go buy tomatoes, bread, lunch meat, etc. The second time was when I headed into town to run errands on an empty stomach and gave up three grocery stores in, and had a vegan sandwich at Whole Foods before the hunger took over and I came home with all of isle three.
I've run into a few bumps in the road though. My son had a sudden school presentation which required a costume that I could 100% not create at home, so I had to spend about $30.000 on that. I actually said no for the whole week, that he could go to school in plain clothes because "no spend february." The day of I felt awful, rushed out to get the costume, arrived at school like a hero, only to find I had the time wrong in my calendar and I had missed the entire presentation. I feel like that was my punishment for being such a dick about buying the costume from the start. Also I got my blood work back this week and I'm super mega low in Vitamin D, and my bi polar has kind of been taking over, so I did spend money on some Vitamin D drops and B 12 complex.
I really wanted to to do the no spend project with gusto, and I think not eating out has saved me a ton of money, but limiting my groceries was never a possibility (we spend close to $400.00 a week, holy shit, I know). The one other place I noticed a savings is that I wanted to finally organize, paint, and build a work space in the office of my new house. Usually on a whim I would have gone out and blown a ton of money at home depot, and hobby lobby, and office stores, and then figure out the money part after I spent it. This time I set a goal to do this the first week of march and I'm instead actually PLANNING how I will do this, and trying to find the most cost effective way of making it happen.
This has been an interesting month. We have saved money though. I do wish I could get a handle on our groceries but it's hard. Imagine living in a house where one person (me) was a strict vegan who lived on lentils, beans and veggies (cheap right) but the other three people were carnivores, one of which is allergic to ALL LENTILS, BEANS, NUTS, AND LEGUMES. That means I make two different meals for every single meal. Also, where I could normally stretch a pot of beans or lentils for the family I have to instead find other carbs, protein, and veggies to fill up that void. Plus we buy only dye free, un processed, no HFCS food, to help with brandons behavior and I swear, while it's changed his life, his mind, and his behavior in school, it's breaking my bank.
I hope we continue eating out less on weekends, and we continue to plan first on projects before just randomly spending. I think I failed the challenge but it was a really good eye opener for me.