Day 3 & The End

This morning, we ate savory oatmeal for breakfast. Apparently, savory oatmeal is de rigeuer and I thought it might be a nice way to spice up the morning gruel. We (meaning hubby-I was too busy sleeping) cooked the oatmeal with a sprinkle of salt, several grinds of fresh black pepper, a shaving of parmesan cheese, and a drizzle of flaxseed oil. Upon tasting it, we both quickly agreed that sweetened oatmeal is more enjoyable when breaking one's fast. Would I try it again though? Sure, but as a side dish for dinner.



Our lunches were quick and easy...I had one pork and mushroom jongzi and two tangerines while Eric had one pork & mushroom one and one red bean one. He also got two tangerines and string cheese. I packed him some soup too but he was too full to eat it.

On our way home (as in home to my parent's house), Husband found out that a local grocery store was selling 10 ears of corn for $1! 10 for $1??!? Unheard of since perhaps 1998! I was all for holding firm but husband was so right..10 for $1 is mighty economical and it is YUMMY. We'd be fools to pass up fresh produce at such great prices! So...sadly...after just 3 days...(yes three because we actually started on August 31st), we have given up and purchased food. Since other produce was cheap, we ended up leaving with twenty ears of corn, ten apples, and three onions for $8.11. In case you are curious, this is what we ate on August 31s: Salad with green goddess dressing, avocado, leftover roast chicken, and leftover oxtail soup (courtesy of Mama-in-law.)



Do I feel guilty? A little...because we really didn't "need" to buy it but come October or November when produce is scarce and expensive...we would have kicked ourselves for not enjoying summer's bounty when it was fresh and cheap. We're still going to continue with our experiment except we shall harken back to the early goal of just trying to account for everything we spend and spend frugally (without sacrificing on nutrition) rather than going a month without buying any food.

Oh, and by the way, my Mama totally hooked us up with a fresh zucchini, fresh green onions, and a handful of fresh cilantro today. Dinner was pretty kick@$$ as well.



The fish were $2.49/lb. I'm not sure how many pounds of fish were in that dish but I'd hazard a guess of 2lbs for a total of $5. The live shrimp were SO good! Dad got about 1.5lbs @ $11/lbs for a total of $16.50. The zucchini came from the garden and the tofu puffs probably cost about $2.50. Not including the clear bone broth my Dad made today, the four of us ate about $25 worth of the most excellent seafood. We polished off the shrimp but there was enough squash and fish leftover for them to enjoy another hearty meal.

Although we did not have to pay for dinner with my parents, I thought I would add that into consideration as if we had purchased it ourselves.

Total spent on food: $8.11(produce) +$12.50 (our share of dinner not including leftovers) = $21.61

Tomorrow, actually, tonight, I am babysitting two sweet little girls with appetites on par with lumberjacks. I shall be making them blueberry pancakes for breakfast and spaghetti with Bolognese sauce for lunch and most likely dinner too. Let's see how that fares manana!

Day 2

For breakfast this morning, hubby made us oatmeal with blueberries, a spoonful of brown sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and a drizzle of flaxseed oil. I really cannot recall exactly how much everything costs nor do I really know how many servings I get out of each item so for now, let us call it much cheaper than $4.99 for a bowl of oatmeal that the local cafe charges for a similar item. Sans the organic cold-pressed flaxseed oil. No picture, but we plan on eating it every day now so I'll catch up with a photo on another day :)

For lunch, hubs ate yesterday's leftover soup while I had my little sushi. I made it a wee too large so I had trouble popping it into my mouth. Ok, so I stuffed it in but it was neither a delicate nor discreet manner of eating with my chipmunk cheeks out in plain sight.



Dinner was our "meat-free" meal of the day. Although we don't know what our cholesterol levels are, it doesn't hurt to prevent it before it gets to a point where action is necessary. It doesn't look all that special but it was so good!



We used up the last of our salad but we still have two more avocados. Arrgh...I absolutely adore this salad dressing--it's a homemade Green Goddess dressing (made lighter with just plain yogurt and no oil or mayo) and already we are thinking about caving in to buy more salad. For protein, we have some garbanzo beans marinated in a little bit of balsamic vinegar, parsley, and onions. We had a pomegranate that was starting to go bad so I sprinkled some of it on top of the salad. To round out the corners, we indulged in copious amounts of watermelon and the last of my homemade bread. But no worries! I have another batch of dough sitting pretty on my counter for tomorrow's baking.

I do not feel inspired to cook lunch for tomorrow so we're going to eat some leftover zhongzi. We are struggling a little bit with the salad situation...salad is affordable, healthy, and even more importantly, so darn delicious! Wow...day 2...we are already in trouble. What should I do? Spend the $4.79 on 6 heads of organically raised lettuce that will last us about 10 hearty meals? Wouldn't it be MORE wrong to prevent those two beautifully ripe avocados from reaching their full potential?

Decisions...decisions :)

Day 1

I suppose I should share how much we spent in August as a reference point. August was a little skewed because I had friends stay with us for 5 days and we did a lot of driving and eating out. Nevertheless...it might be helpful to see what an atypically expensive month looks like for us.

August Expenses

Groceries: $289.00
Dining out: $300.00
Total on Food: $589.00

This breaks down to about $9.50/day per person out of 31 days. I wonder how much the average person spends on food each day.

In fact, if you read this, please leave a comment and let me know how much you spend on food on average each day!! If you don't know for sure, just tell me how much you spent on food today.

$9.50 doesn't seem too shabby for all meals, snacks, drinks, and tips in a day but I know we could easily trim this down some more. Part of it is not having enough time to cook--the other part is...once you get used to dining out, you kind of just want to continue dining out because it is more fun and generally yummier. The downside, of course, is the health and cleanliness of the food and the cost. Eating one's own cooking is most definitely a better choice all around.

For breakfast today, we had homemade granola bars. Snack involved tangerines and string cheese for both of us.

This is what I packed for hubby's lunch today:


Cucumber Salad with fish sauce


Leftover Indian-style Curry, chicken, and brown rice


As for me, something a little lighter. Leftover chicken, lettuce, and cucumber made its way into Vietnamese-style salad rolls.


For dinner today, I ate random stuff such as bread & cucumber with rou song. It is so good! I was too hungry to wait for dinner to cook so I ate it first. Husband got the good stuff: Korean-style seafood tofu soup (made with yesterday's chicken stock). Coincidentally, this will also be his lunch tomorrow, along with the requisite tangerines and string cheese.



My lunch tomorrow is Japanese-style sushi with cucumber, avocado, rou song, and a bit of rice. Hehe, I like how everything I make is a bastardized version of an ethnic cuisine. I have to make do with what I have, right? Plus, it is a great way of eating the same ingredients without getting tired of it. I'm not sure what we will do for dinner tomorrow, but we haven't had dinner with my parents for a few weeks now. I am going to give them a call tomorrow to see if we can come over--if not, we'll get creative tomorrow!

Total on Food for today: $0
Total of Anything Outside the Realm of necessities: $0

*Necessities include: all school related expenses (books/insurance/tuition), all utilities/mortgage

The Calm before the Storm

I realized yesterday that August has 31 days so my social experiment will begin tomorrow. Last night, we invited some friends over for dinner and they were really psyched about this experiment! Somehow it evolved into seeing how far we could go without buying any food/groceries for the entire month.

"What about lack of fresh vegetables", queried an inquiring mind.
"Our little garden should suffice. See what I picked two days ago?

It isn't much but if we get desperate, my parents have a successful garden of their own. We shall also glean our greens from them."

"Arrghh matey, but what about potential "problems" when your supply of fruit runs out", arrgh'd Captain Doubty-Pants.

"Blimey, scurvy and constipation are a great concern of ours, but we picked 12lbs of blueberries this summer that is sittin' pretty in the cozy freezer. Plus, we currently have 1 pomegranate, 1 chermoya, 2lbs of clementines, half a giant watermelon and 4 avocados in our fruit supply. I think we shall be fine."

"Protein?" wondered a healthy Korean male.

"We have plenty in the form of beef, chicken, duck, seafood, tofu, eggs, and beans. In fact, I took out a whole chicken that I bought a few weeks ago and took it apart. The leftover bones I put into a pot with some filtered water and leftover vegetables to turn into pure liquid gold (aka chicken stock)."







"Dairy/calcium?" inquired a medically educated friend.

"We have a Costco pack of string cheese, about 8oz left of yogurt, and some soy milk. Also, leafy greens and bone soup (see above) also provides plenty of calcium and minerals.

"What if you run out of food" posed a responsible wife of 10 months.

"My Parents-in-Law own a noodle manufacturing company. Not spending money doesn't mean not using one's resources! Besides, my fridge and freezer still has a lot of random "rainy day" rations in the form of wontons, dumplings, shao long baozi, zhongzi, scones, butternut squash ravioli (homemade), and the aforementioned protein."





With a good natured chuckle and an open invitation on September 15th for dinner (or whenever our supply runs dry), my friends encouraged us to give this social experiment a try. They did plant one seed into my head that perhaps unfairly alters my plan just a tiny bit, which is...to run to store and stock up before night falls on August 31st! Although I only intended to get flour and coffee, I emerged with $32.58 worth of additional supplies later. On the other hand, I now feel confident that we can go an entire month without buying food and still eat very nutritiously.

So what exactly does $32.58 buy? This.



Soy Milk
Organic Coffee (if I don't brew my own, I will spend money to buy it.)
Organic Kefir (probiotics are my friends)
3lbs Naturally raised ground beef (because it was on sale)
A dozen eggs (certified humanely raised)
Organic whole wheat flour

Thus armed with everything above, some ingenuity, $32.58 of supplies and $38 worth of gas...we venture into September.

A Social Experiment

A few months back, I read a blog about this couple who conducted a month-long experiment to see if they could survive on $1/day (per person) on food. I don't want to do what they did (subsisting on Top Ramen) but I am curious to see how frugally we can live. Part of this social experiment is because we got bombarded with a lot of expenses over the past two or three months. Between tuition, weddings (5 this summer + 1 requiring travel), routine car maintenance, property taxes, unexpected expenses etc etc...we really need to tighten the belt.

So...beginning tomorrow, I will account for every last cent that is expended over the course of 30 days, excluding our usual mortgage/utilities. The goal is to spend as little as possible without sacrificing on our usual standard of health. This means no Top Ramen and yes to organic chicken. On the other hand, I have a well-stocked pantry and freezer and a mini-vegetable garden so I would love to go through this entire month without having to purchase any groceries.

Alright...let the savings begin!

Random Musings

The Bed.

The hubs & I decided to cancel our order after all. Much as we'd like the nice bed, it wasn't really that high on our list of priorities. The money is better spent (or in our case--saved) elsewhere. Elsewhere being lots of vacations and travels before we start a family! Next year, we plan on going to Europe and Asia. If/when hubby starts a new job, he's going to take a month off just to relax. Getting married while being in school is the craziest thing ever. It's been a year now but what a stressful year it has been!

When you're not looking

It was hard to curb my enthusiasm for furnishing our home but we've done a decent job stretching it over the course of the year. Most of our living area is furnished now but our bedroom could use some sprucing up. We splurged on crystal orb lamps and a nice dresser and bed tables but our bed is still on metal castors bereft of any dressing. Almost a year ago, we fell in love with this Collette bed from Crate and Barrel. We both liked how it was klutz-proof so even if I do bang my shin against it, it probably won't hurt as much as it would against sharp wooden corners. I guess we also have a thing for cream colored curves with nailhead trim because it's pretty much just like our sofas haha. I dislike the look of matchy matchy stuff but I think it's far removed from the living room enough that it won't look like we bought a set yet close enough to unify the decor.



Anyway, over the course of time, I've stumbled on the Collete but at $1800, we just couldn't stomach the price. I found a similar one on Overstock a few months back but it was still $1100. I decided to switch tactics and searched for headboards only instead of a platform bed. There were plenty of tufted upholstered ones but they still cost $400 or so for the ones that I liked and it still seemed wasteful to spend $400 on a piece of fabric covered plywood.

So what did we do?

Nothing. Dismissed it. We decided after our harried dining table adventure that we wouldn't rush into things. (In our defense, we had to get a dining set quickly because hubby's grandmother wanted to have dinner at our place before she went back to the East coast after our wedding). I digress. Tonight, tired and bored, I felt the urge to look at Target and found Collette's twin, Rochelle.



For about 1/3 of the Crate & Barrel's Collette, free shipping coupon, a bing 10% discount and a forgotten wedding gift card (Thanks Dan!), we got it delivered for just under $450! Is it risky to buy online, sight unseen? Nah, in this case, it's actually "Return to Target Store" friendly!

Now that we can handle! And it will be ours very soon. I cannot wait!