I recently downloaded an app for my iphone that is based on the website, www.mint.com. It takes all of your financial information and comes up with a list of how much money you have, how much money you owe, and where you spend all of your money. It also allows you to create a budget based on your lifestyle. I found that I spend a ridiculous amount of money on food. I don’t mean groceries. I mean burritos. Iced coffee. Lunch because I was too lazy to make something that morning. Grilled cheese because I had midterms and I wanted to cry. Being an unemployed graduate student, I saw this as a pretty significant problem in my financial statement, yet something I have control over. I decided to challenge myself to one week of not buying a single food item other than groceries. This is the first part of a three-part series entitled Challenging the Bitches.
Day 1 (Sunday)
I had spent the weekend visiting my sister in New York and knowing that I was starting this challenge, I made the most of my last days of being able to buy food other than groceries. It was a fabulous excuse to eat out! Before I left for New York, we went to The Talk in Watertown, which is one of my favorite restaurants. We also got a delicious calzone from Upper Crust Pizzeria.
When I left for New York I got my favorite, Dunkin Donuts iced coffee.
When we were in New York City, we went to Quickly, where we got Hot Pot. Check out our amazing spread! (Granted, with hot pot you do all of the cooking yourself, but it was still “going out to eat”).
When I got back home I went grocery shopping and hopefully got enough to last the week.
On Sunday night I was exhausted and didn’t want to cook, but I knew that if I did, then I would have leftovers to bring for lunch on Monday. I starting defrosting sausage to make spaghetti and sausage, but all the pots and pans were dirty. I was far too tired and uninspired to do the dishes, and realized that we did have one clean pan: the wok!
I remembered that I had bought some frozen stir fry vegetables from Trader Joe’s and I had just bought some chicken at the grocery store. I cooked the chicken in the wok, then took it out and added the frozen veggies. I also added some frozen corn. In the meantime I cooked some boil-in-a-bag brown rice. Ihave to admit I cooked it in the microwave. I rarely microwave anything, so that really goes to show how lazy I was feeling. As soon as the veggies were just about done, I added the cooked chicken and tossed it all in some Trader Joe’s General Tsao’s Stir Fry Sauce that I had in my cupboard. I put the rice in some bowls and topped it with the stir fry. Delicious!
This meal was really delicious, very healthy, and extremely easy to make. If I had more time (daylight savings gets me every time) I would have used fresh vegetables and I wouldn’t have microwaved the rice. I also would have made my own stir fry sauce instead of the Trader Joe’s. But given the circumstances, it was great in a pinch.
Even better, it was inexpensive (see the cost list below), it was delicious, and it didn’t take more than a half hour total. Now both Dan and I have leftovers to have for lunch. If I had done what I usually do when I am tired and lazy and not wanting to cook, we would have made a frozen pizza by which we were only mildly satisfied, and I wouldn’t have delicious leftovers for lunch, causing the need for a $7 sandwich. And probably a $2 drink. And $1 chips. And since it’s rainy probably dessert too.
Total cost of dinner:
Nature’s Promise Chicken Breast: $4.88
Trader Joe’s Frozen Stir Fry Vegetables: $2.99
Trader Joe’s General Tsao’s Stir Fry Sauce: $0.50 worth
Two bags of Stop and Shop boil-in-bag Brown Rice: $0.375 each, $0.75 for both
Total cost of meal: $9.12
Cost for two people: $4.52 per person
Cost for two meals for two people: $2.28 per individual meal
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