Out & About

My goal is to cook vegetables five times per week. This week I have not even come close to meeting that goal. The drawback is that when I don’t have a bank of veggies to draw upon, it is difficult to feel full. Today I had red beans and potatoes for lunch with some leftover squash. By 4:00, I was very hungry, a state in which I don’t really like to spend much time. I ended up standing at the PSU Bookstore before my class started debating between the overly large package of saltines, the overly large package of potato chips, the even bigger bag of Cheetos. I rejected the various nuts because they were either hideously flavored, or had shells. I ended up with a package of frosted animal crackers to go with my apple.

Not surprisingly, I was ravenous by the time my class ended. I stopped by Cafe Yumm! before getting on the train and had a Yumm Bowl with Greens. It set me back $6.95 which leaves me with $30.80 for the month. I’m about to go out in the dark and find some diakon radish greens to steam. I’ve got to have more food for tomorrow.

Sometimes this being an adult is no fun.

I’ve been trying to get a US Savings Bond for a bat mitzvah present all week long. It took five trips, three to one bank, two to another, and I succeeded. In the middle of all that, I bought a brownie at whole foods. So my remaining money for the month is $37.75.

Often I will cook or bake things for presents and I had promised to bring a cheesecake to the bat mitzvah for the Sunday brunch. However, the ingredients for said cheesecake are expensive and I knew that they would eat up the majority of my remaining funds. What to do? I did what all poor artists do: find a patron.

“Sweetheart, if I make a cheesecake for Peri’s bat mitzvah, will you pay for the ingredients as your part of the present?”

“Uh, I guess. How much would it be?”

“Probably eighteen or twenty dollars.”

He agreed. It turned out that I low-balled the estimate a bit, though I didn’t do that intentionally. The ingredients for the Chocolate Zebra Cheesecake cost $25.50 at my local Fred Meyer. And that was with the chocolate on sale for $1.99 per bar, down from $2.79. Expensive? Yes. But incredibly rich and worth it? Indeed.

I heard it today and ended up buying a bar of fancy chocolate at Whole Foods. It was $2.79 which brings me to $39.74 remaining for the month. “Less than forty dollars,” seems much less than “More than forty dollars.” I think I’ll be alright because I have enough vegetables from the garden to get through the week. That gives me $20.00 each week to spend on vegetables for the following two weeks. Assuming I don’t hear the call of chocolate again.

I’m building up a bit of a cushion to my food budget. I want to leave a little left over every month, partly so I don’t accidentally bounce a check and partly so I have enough to get my quarter of beef next August. So here is what I ‘m doing.

I’ve made a list of staple food I eat each month. At the beginning of the month I am doing a “big shop” so I have all my basic food. My goal is to only shop one other time that month, however now that the meager amount of vegetables I harvested this year are beginning to peter out, I may need to go more often for vegetables.

I’ve done my “big shop,” as I’m calling it, for the month and have figured that to have an extra $10.00, I need to keep my spending on food for the rest of the month to $45.00. Is this possible?

Yesterday I bought thyme (they never had it in bulk and I had to give up and buy a regular jar) for $1.99 and a cup of dried beans for $0.48. This leaves me with $42.53 for the remaining 25 days in the month.

I’ll report in now and then, so you can follow along. In my opinion, the only way to save is to make things fun. It’s a fun test for me, and it will also probably keep me from spending $3.00 on cookies at The Pearl Bakery. Every time I do that I picture my grandmother rolling over in her grave. Sorry grandma, sometimes that shortbread just calls to me. Perhaps not this month, though, eh?