Deal of the Day

The joys of home ownership has its ebbs and flows...it is fun decorating and playing house but it is not so fun managing it on a budget. Currently, I am in love with crimsons, rubies, and scarlets. I very much want to make/buy/source some new pillows to warm up our space for the winter. There is also plenty of room for decorations on the walls and I'd like to find or create some artwork for the walls. There are two expanses of wall that could use some attention. The main one is our upstairs book. It is wide enough to accommodate my childhood upright piano, one large table, bookshelves, or a "time out area" some day if our kiddies are naughty. Since I only intend to birth perfectly well-behaved children, the latter obviously will not necessary. (That and because I foresee the naughty monkeys climbing out and creating mayhem and injuries.)

So anyway...we have this lovely deep-set nook that is currently uninhabited. It looks odd left vacant but I don't want to just fill it up with randomness. The converted one of our bedrooms into the office so we don't really need another desk in the hallway. The piano is a perfect fit but hauling it up and down stairs is a big hassle. Plus, I don't know if it is normal to have a piano upstairs. I think it'd be a better fit downstairs in our dining room.

That leaves a bookcase. It'll be more decorative than functional. Will it even be a good use of space? We'd probably get the set of 2 in the first picture because it is a wee more economical and the size fits more symmetrically in the nook.


$192 (free shipping + 3% cashback)


$259 (free shipping + 3% cashback)

It is rather useless though. Other than displaying a few of my more favorite books and random pictures/plants, there isn't much use for the thing. I would love to get a sewing machine and turn it into a crafting corner. Would that be a good use of space? I could move my current desk out there and do a few simple and inexpensive additions to make it more craft & study friendly. The upside to this is that the hubster's will have more room in the office. The extra space in the office can be used to accommodate additional guests if we ever need the 4th bedroom.





Obviously, I won't make it quite as kitschy and cutesy. It'll definitely double as a respectably stylish and useful space. What do you think? Leaning bookshelves or decorated craft/study space?

2/3 Recap

As of today, we are 2/3 done with our experiment. How have we fared thus far? Though we did not intend to do grocery shopping or "impulse buy", we succumbed to both this week.

As of 09/19/10, we have spent a total of $133.85. However, that includes groceries that we purchased and have not yet used so the more accurate figure is $81.91. This total came from estimating the actual cost of the food we used. $81.91 for 20 days = about $2.04 per person per day. $2.04 for all three meals. Our average is actually getting smaller with each passing day despite our new batch of groceries. Not bad!

Days 17, 18th, & 19th

This weekend was certainly a sign of the times for us. Over the past three days, we've been to a birthday, a wedding, and a baby shower. I didn't get many pictures so I will just summarize each day briefly:

Friday:
Breakfast & lunch were leftovers. I spent $2.95 on a small coffee during work because I was so tired. For dinner, one of my HS friends invited us to dinner at a Chinese buffet restaurant for her birthday. The food was very similar to what my family used to serve when we had a restaurant so it was kind of a strange but rather nice jolt of nostalgia for me.
Total spent on food: $22.95 (for coffee and dinner buffet for 2)
Estimated Cost: same

Saturday:
We had guests come over and stay with us on Friday night. They were also attending the wedding. We did not get much sleep because they had to wake up early to be in the bridal party. For breakfast, they had oatmeal. We went back to sleep after they left and did not wake up until noon. By then, it was too late for lunch so the hubby ate some veggie snacks and we were on our way. At the wedding, I ate a coconut macaroon while the husband ate a big peanut butter cookie. The dinner banquet wouldn't start for three more hours so we went to a local sports bar nearby to catch the big game while we waited. None of us were actually football fans so we sat around drinking beer in an awkward setting for an hour until we all decided it wasn't really our thang. We then left to go to a cheese bar, much more fitting for epicureans such as ourselves. While there, we shared a cheese plate while I had a cup of black coffee.



Dinner was a full blown 10 course Chinese banquet. The bride & groom hired one of the most extravagant wedding planners in the city and completely glammed up the place. It was very nice and most definitely worth it. It changed your typical run-of-the-mill Chinese restaurant into a romantic and cozy space filled with lush red roses and candelabras dripping with crystals. Our pictures are not uploaded yet. Just to give you an idea of what it looked like, here are a few pictures from the wedding.





Total spent on food: $3.00 (share of cheese plate) + $1.50 (coffee) + $4.50 (beer) = $9.00.
Estimated cost: same (wedding gift obviously not included)

Sunday:
We didn't get home until 11pm and didn't go to bed until after 2am. Our friends stayed up chatting with us---it was nice and fun. Because we were all so tired, we didn't get up until really late today. For lunch, they treated us out at a Vietnamese restaurant to thank us for hosting them this weekend. That was very nice and totally unexpected. Shortly thereafter, I left to go to a baby shower. Husband's parents invited us out to dinner but I was feeling very tired so I stayed home instead. We've been eating out so much that my system didn't really feel up to another meal at a Chinese restaurant. Instead, I had an apple, oatmeal, and peanut butter. Hubby was super sweet---while I was at the baby shower, he took his friends to the Japanese market to stock up on some supplies. Apparently the hubster missed me so he bought me a little pack of rose flavored milk tea to warm me up during the cold mornings. He also bought a pound of clams for dinner.

Total spent on food: $0
Estimated Cost: $1 (apple) + $.10 (oatmeal) + $.63 (1 ounce peanut butter) + $3.99 (clams) +$4.19 (milk tea) = $9.91

Day 16

We started our vegetable garden in late May and after 4 long months, we FINALLY reaped the rewards of our toil today! Behold! Our happy little garden!



There is something uniquely satisfying from eating the fruits of one's labor. The vegetable just tastes sweeter and more tender. I don't know what to do with our two precious tomatoes yet but perhaps I shall make some simple bruschetta tomorrow. Tonight's dinner was a chicken chow men with zuchini, carrots, and garlic. So simple and quick to make yet so satisfying.



Total Spent on food today: $43 (from groceries that weren't used today)
Estimated cost of food: leftovers for lunch and breakfast. Dinner: $1 chicken, $.10 for corn, and $.10 for carrots. Everything else came from our garden or papa-in-law's noodle factory. $1.20

Food Wish List

Day 15 is now behind me and I cannot help my habit of looking at new grocery ads each week to see what is on sale. This week, my favorite market happens to have plenty of items that I like on sale. If I were going to go grocery shopping as normal, I would buy the following:

Vegetables
1. Japanese white yams @ $1.29/lb. This is a slightly more expensive and luxurious treat but I'd probably get 4 yams. I like to throw them in the rice cooker to steam. It is so yummy and nutritious that I don't mind spending money on it.
2. Organic apples @ $.99lb. Probably 5lbs. We go through apples quickly and organic apples are rarely <$1lb.
Estimated Cost: $5+$5 = $10

Meat
1. Fresh manila clams @ $3.99/lb. One pound has about 20 clams so we could easily make a meal of $3.99.
2. Locally raised, drug-free, vegetarian-fed chicken wings @ $1.29/lb. Generally, it comes in a 2lb pack. I like to stock up on this because my guests tend to like chicken wings. Probably 3 pack around $3.50/ea.
Estimated Cost: $3.99+$10= $14.00

Treats
1. Duck @ $1.99lb. One duck probably weighs 4lbs so this baby would cost at least $8. It's a pain to roast duck yet I can't help but loving it! It reminds me of happy childhood days watching my Dad go through the laborious process of making roast duck.
2. Jiajiang sauce for the hubby. $2.99/jar
Estimated Cost: $9+2.99= $12.00

This little shopping excursion would cost us about $36.00. I don't need any of it except for the apples. The yams would be a very nice to have. The meat, especially the duck, I can do without. The chicken wings are always on sale every other week for $1.29lb so if I miss it this week, I will have other opportunities. The clams are very enticing though...I haven't had clams in months and making them at home is so much healthier and cheaper than ordering it at a restaurant. Clams are also very nutritious and packed with iron and protein. I think I will go ahead and splurge for a pound.

So there you have it...my normal weekly shopping excursion would probably cost me about $36.00 but by being more conscientious, I think I will probably be good with $9. Possibly $13 if I get some yams.

*edit* I went to the grocery store today and bout $43 worth of groceries:

1. 1 "good" chicken. Instead of calling it free range/ant0biotic-free/vegetarian blah blah, I'm just going to refer to it as "good" from now on. If it is "good", it is all of the above. In the case of the above, it is also corn-free and wild foraging. $2.49lb @ 4lbs = $9.96.

2. Organic Honeycrisp apples. These are double the price of the other ones but they supposedly taste better. I got 5 apples just to try. $1.99/lb = $5.50.

3. Organic Bartlett pears. $.99/lb. I got 4 pears at about $4.

4. Organic peanut butter--normal price is $6/jar on sale for $3.99. 4 jars = $16.

5. Organic yogurt-huge tub = $2.99

6. Coconut Water Kefir. Normally, we get milk kefir but this was on sale and I've always been curious about the coconut variety. $3.99.

Total spent on food: $43

Yes, it is considerably more than what I anticipated haha. The peanut butter really threw us over the top but I love peanut butter and good peanut butter is rarely on sale. Hopefully it will last us a while. What is the take home lesson from this Kids?

Don't go shopping when you're hungry.

Day 15

I was able to come home between classes today and was a lot more productive because of it. For dinner, I braised lettuce that was a little too limp for salad and stir-fried some chicken with mushrooms.




Dessert was a red bean jongzi, which we shared. The other will go into hubster's lunch tomorrow, along with tonight's leftovers.


Total Cost of food: $0
Est. Cost of food: $1 (chicken) + $.50 (lettuce) + $.50 (mushrooms) + $1 (rice)= $3 max. I have to estimate the cost of mushrooms and rice because it came in bulk and I only used a teeny portion of it. It might actually be less than my estimation but I'll just guess conservatively. The best part is that I have enough to make 1.5 lunches from the leftovers. Le score!

Day 14

We had a few tricks up our sleeves before we started this experiment in the form of gift cards! We have 2 or 3 gift cards that we never got around to using. Most of the time, we don't go to these restaurants but we just happened to past by one of those restaurants today and we decided to burn it up. We kind of regretted it after we ate it because the food itself was kind of gross and we had to add $5 on top of the card to pay for tip. I ordered a chicken marsala thinking it would be healthy but I can tell that everything (veggies and all) was just dropped into the deep fryer and topped with an oily and salty sauce. I also started to feel uneasy about where they get their meat. I'm pretty sure it isn't locally raised and vegetarian-fed. It is no wonder that 99% of the patrons there were overweight. Now I remember why we don't go to these restaurants!

In hindsight, $5 would have been much better spent if I had just spent the money to purchase groceries. On the other hand, we did get 3 meals out of it so that saves me time and energy. We had a very early dinner so we even had time to clean house and go for a brisk 2 mile walk up a steep hill near our house to burn off some of the calories.






Total spent on food today: $5
Estimated cost of food: $30 (including tip)