Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative, Holidays, Informative

Another chapter in my life

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To all the readers who are in the New England praying fervently for spring to finally be here, so the snow mountains can begin melting and we can reclaim half the roads, I am one of you now!

Yes, that’s right, the Budget Epicurean has physically relocated across the country from Denver, Colorado to New Haven, Connecticut.

I question my sanity too, join the club.

Jobs brought us out here, but I already have a sneaking suspicion the beauty and ocean may make us happy about the change. Of course, driving a UHaul with a car being trailered behind it and two dogs in the cab for 32 hours, the final 12 of which are a force-you-to-do-20-on-the-highway blizzard isn’t exactly a picnic. But we made it!

I am quite excited to try all that the New Haven area has to offer, and it seems there is so much here! Of course, you may experience an uptick in seafood-related reviews and recipes. Cannot tell you how excited I am that the ocean is only 30 minutes away! And NYC only 2 hours by train. Lots of exploring to be done this year.

So dear readers, that’s the scoop. Hope you stick around for whatever comes next.

 

I’ll leave you with some ideas for St. Patrick’s Day this Tuesday. These recipes also work great for St. Patrick’s Day leftovers like leftover mashed potatoes, or leftover cabbage.

Administrative, Finances, Informative

Track Your Finances: Mint.com

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Everyone wants to have healthy finances. We all want to feel the freedom to spend our money however we please, to not have to worry about bills or making ends meet. And we probably all know a budget is the best way to make that happen.

The simplest way is to just sit down yourself and draw up a budget. You can use plain paper and pen, or fancy Excel spreadsheets. The most important thing is to be realistic and thorough. You need to know exactly how much money you bring in each month, from your job or business and investments, and how much money you spend each month.

Then, you need to make The Gap as large as possible. This means when you subtract your spending from your income, you have a positive number. The more positive the number, the more you can save for big goals like retirement, college, a vacation, or starting a business. You should also budget in some “discretionary spending” each month, so you do not feel deprived and unable to buy yourself small treats. Just make sure you keep it small.

Make sure you have an idea of how much you actually spend in various categories.

Consider the following categories of spending:

  • Housing (mortgage, HOA, insurance, taxes, rent)
  • Utilities (water, trash, sewer, gas, electricity, phone, internet)
  • Food (groceries, dining out, fast food, convenience foods, lunches at work, kids school lunches)
  • Health care (premiuims, copays, medicines)
  • Travel (gas, car maintenance and repairs, insurance, auto loans, bus passes, air fare, cabs or uber rides)
  • Gifts (birthday, Christmas, graduations)
  • Clothing (work clothing, uniforms, replacement or updates to you wardrobe)
  • Pets (vet bills, food, toys, leashes/collar, tags, shots, spay/neuter)
  • and even more categories if you’re a parent (diapers, formula, school expenses, doctors, child care, babysitter, activities, etc.)

The best way to get an idea of what you spend is to keep all your receipts for a month, or better yet a year. But who has the time and patience to collect all the receipts, keep them safe in one place, then add them all up by category?

Mint.com, that’s who!

Mint.com is my personal favorite finance tracking website and app. They have a super secure site, and amazing features. It enables you to link all you financial accounts: loans, direct deposits, credit cards, checking, savings, 401k, IRAs, and more.

Now Mint has three separate products:

  • Mint
  • Mint Bills
  • Mint Credit Score

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I use the classic Mint, because I signed up with the site many years ago. The Bills feature allows you to link all your bills in one place, and set a date each month to pay them off. This automates all your payments, so you are never late on a bill again, avoiding costly late fees and dings to your credit.

The Credit Score feature helps you get your free credit score, and see ways you can make it better. There are many factors which go into calculating your credit score, including total available credit, total credit use, length of credit history, and more.

The most widely used credit scores are FICO® Scores, the credit scores created by Fair Isaac Corporation. 90% of top lenders use FICO® Scores to help them make billions of credit-related decisions every year. FICO® Scores are calculated based solely on information in consumer credit reports maintained at the credit reporting agencies.

You have the right to access your credit score for free, once per year, from three separate companies:

It is recommended that you check one site each 4 months, thus enabling you to keep tabs on your credit throughout the year. Set alarms on your phone calendar or write it in your planner to help you remember when it’s time to check.

Back to Mint. There are several features which I love. First of all, they categorize all your spending. You can set up categories if there is something you spend money on regularly, such as “online video games”, “basketball season tickets”, or “Parks pass”.

You are also able to go in and manually change expenditures and put them into categories. If the program does not know what an expense is, it goes into “uncategorized”, like checks.

mint trends

As you can see above, all expenses for the past year are laid out in a pie chart. You can click on any piece of the chart to open that category and view each purchase. For example if you click “home” you would see each month a check or charge for the amount you spend on rent or mortgage.

This is a fantastic feature because if you’ve ever looked at a credit card bill and thought “WHAT the heck am I spending all that money on??” This chart can help. You can click through the “uncategorized” and “bills” and “shopping” and see each and every charge add up. It even adds you spending over time and tells you the categories in order of spending. So if you spent 12000 on housing, and 3000 on utilities, and 1200 on food, it will list those in order.

You can also break it down over time. So you can see how much you spent this month, the past 3 or 6 months, the past year, or over all time you have been part of mint. This helps track longer term spending, if you are trying to get a better hold of your budget, you can see your progress or backsliding.

Another feature, in the regular Mint, not even the Mint Bills, is their bill tracking feature. The software learns which bills come through at the same time each month, and can track the anticipated days you will be charged. Then you can see on a calendar all your upcoming bills for the week or the month.

mint budget

And finally, the budget tracking feature. Super amazing. You can set up as many or few categories as you want, and set your expected spending amounts per category. The program then tracks each expense for you, and shows you how much you have left to spend. This is a nice visual so you can see on the 20th of the month, you have $120 left budgeted for food, so you can keep your spending within budget.

The software can also add up all your expenses and debts, as well as any income and investments, and tell you your net worth. You can track this over time, as it is the greatest indicator of your overall financial health. A steadily increasing net worth is the greatest feeling there is. Link up your car loan, mortgage, student loans, etc. and track your progress paying them down. It is great motivation, and they regularly offer advice and ways to save even more money.

Of course, this only works if you actually check it regularly and stick to it. Luckily, Mint also has an app available for Android and iPhone, so you can track and check yourself on the go.

There are many other tracking softwares and options out there. This is just one, use a few and see what works best for your budgeting style and your life. Ultimately your budget is personal and unique to you, and its up to you how you want to maintain it.

 

Disclaimer: I am in no way receiving compensation from Mint.com or any other financial entities. This piece is author’s opinion.

 

Administrative, Healthy, Informative, Review

Book Review: Plant-Powered For Life by Sharon Palmer, RD

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Do you want to feel vibrantly alive? Do you want to be in the peak health of your life, no matter your age? Do you want to enjoy a constant kaleidoscope of rotating colors, flavors, textures, and aromas in your meals? Do you want to do your fellow mankind, animals, and the planet a huge favor?

Living a plant-powered life can give you all that and more.

I had the great honor of being asked to read and write a review for “Plant-Powered For Life“, the recently-released second book by Registered Dietician Nutritionist Sharon Palmer. Also the author of “The Plant-Powered Diet“, an avid blogger and speaker, and with hundreds of hands-on hours helping people empower their life and better their health through diet, Ms. Palmer knows her food.

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This is an insightful, instructive book which focuses on a whole-lifestyle approach to better health through better eating. It is exactly the kind of book I have been looking for. It includes tons of practical tips from how and what to shop for at the grocery store, to ways to prepare and cook different vegetables, to 125 plant-powered recipes.

There are also gorgeous full-sized photos of various recipes and produce sprinkled throughout every chapter. The food looks so tasty, it would make even the most hard-core carnivore crave a Farro and White Bean Burger, Thai Lettuce Wrap, or Strawberry Soy Lassi.

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She begins the book simply, by asking the reader to create a plant-powered life goal. There is a whole spectrum from die hard carnivores simply aiming to include more plants in their daily diet, to going full-blown vegan. You choose how vibrantly plant-powered you want your life to become.

Since I am a lifelong omnivore, I’d like to add more veggies into my diet every day, as well as having a minimum of one meatless day per week. I will keep packing in more and more veggies, until they begin to supplant the meat naturally.

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The book is broken down into 52 chapters, and each is a call to action about changing one small segment of your life. You can choose to take on one chapter per week for a year-long journey to plant power, or you can skip around to whatever chapters best fit in your life and speak to you.

Included in each chapter is 2-3 plant-powered recipes. These recipes feature seasonal produce, and a rainbow of variety. Ms. Palmer repeatedly makes the point that eating varied, whole, plant-based foods is the most ideal diet humans can follow.

Each fruit, vegetable, legume, or grain has a unique mixture of micro- and macro-nutrients that contribute to vibrant health. We need a rotating variety of these vitamins and minerals to achieve and maintain ideal health.

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All the recipes have suggestions for substitutions or variations; for example, if you follow a gluten-free diet for dietary reasons there are substitutions included to make the recipe gluten-free. Most have very brief ingredient lists, and prep/cook times under an hour. I have already found at least a dozen recipes I am super excited to try and get into my weekly meal rotation!

I am so happy to have this handy plant-based eating guide slash cookbook on my kitchen shelf. I’m sure I will refer to it for advice, ideas, and inspiration for years to come. Count me in for eating more plants this year!

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The best part of this article, is that Ms. Palmer’s team has been generous enough to enable me to give one lucky reader a copy of their very own! Below is a Rafflecopter giveaway; you can earn up to four entries, plus an extra one each day you Tweet about us!

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This giveaway begins at midnight MST on Sunday January 25, and ends Sunday February 22nd at noon MST.
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Administrative, Dips and Sauces, Main Dishes

Walmart Grocery To Go – Part 2

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This is part two of my experience with the Walmart Grocery To Go service.

This second order was in anticipation of a birthday party. My boyfriend got lucky, our birthdays are exactly one day apart. No excuse for forgetting my birthday, ever.

So we were both at home in our respective states for the holidays, meaning we did not get to celebrate our birthdays together. We decided when we got back we would throw a joint party for all our friends to come hang out and tell stories of their holidays too. This would be the first time we all saw each other in about a month.

I had placed the order a few days ahead of time, and set the delivery for between 6-8PM on Thursday. We had dinner, watched a movie. It was 6:30… 7:30… 8… 8:30… 9. I called the customer service line to figure out what was going on. The representative was refreshingly helpful and kind, he really was awesome. If only all customer service was like this.

However, what he found out was that the location I had ordered from was running four hours behind, and no one could contact the driver of the delivery truck, though my order was apparently already loaded onto the truck.

My order might not be delivered until after 1am… do I still want it? Ummm… no! I’m not staying up way past midnight when I have to wake up the next day at 5:30AM for work.

So I thought he cancelled it, yet I still got a call from someone around 11, who left me a voicemail telling me the same thing, my order will be delivered around 1am, do I still want it?

No.

However, there were no delivery times available the next day, which was the planned day of the party. I could go pick up the order at the store after noon, did I want to do that?

No, thank you.

The whole point of delivery, is that it is delivered. I don’t have to drive a half hour and go into the store to pick it up then load it into my car, drive home, and unload it all.

Needless to say, I was frustrated.

However, three of the people we invited had other things happening that weekend anyways, so we moved the party date to the following weekend. Good news for Walmart I guess.

So I rescheduled the delivery. And as a bonus for having messed up, they increased my budget a little and gave me free delivery again. Something is better than nothing I suppose. Now the delivery was set for the following Thursday night, same time, 6-8PM.

Thankfully, this one showed up on time, right around 6:45.

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I had decided to go with an Asian theme for dinner. I stocked up on some stir-fry noodles, teriyaki sauce, fresh veggies and chicken, sweet & sour sauce, and egg rolls. I already have some chop sticks I bought forever ago, so I busted those out too.

There was one item out of stock (the bok choi for stir fry) and a substitution of Lays brand dip for the Walmart Great Value brand. That wasn’t a problem, because the substituted brand was actually more expensive, but they do not charge you the difference.

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Then for the “party” portion after dinner, I got several types of chips and French onion dip. A few cans of chickpeas and a can of tahini so that I can make my own hummus. Several party size bags of white cheddar popcorn (pretty sure the “white” part is crack. Cause for real, I can eat an entire bag in a day), and jelly beans.

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In terms of the rest of the party experience, I also decided to get some “Island Fresh” Febreze so my house smells pretty, as well as Suave clinical strength deodorant, so I smell pretty too! And bonus for those readers over 21, beer is an option on Walmart Grocery. Count me in for a 24-pack of the 16 oz cans of Budweiser. For after the party, I got a gigantic bottle of lemon scented Cascade, to make dish clean-up easy breezy.

On to the cooking!

Chicken Teriyaki Stir Fry

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Ingredients:

  • 2 boxes Thai stir fry noodles
  • 2 cups shredded Napa cabbage
  • 1 cup julienned bell peppers
  • 2 cups broccoli/cauliflower
  • 1 cup shredded spinach
  • 1/2 red onion, sliced
  • 1 small bottle teriyaki sauce (or make your own)
  • 3-4 pounds chicken breast strips
  • 2 tbsp. cornstarch or flour to thicken sauce
  • Sriracha or hot sauce, to taste
  • 4 tbsp coconut oil

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Step 1: Bring a pot of water to a boil, and boil your noodles 7-9 minutes. In a large frying pan or wok, heat the coconut oil. Add the peppers, broccoli, and/or cauliflower and cook 5-6 minutes, covered. Then add the spinach, cabbage, and any spices/hot sauce. Cook another few minutes, until all veggies are soft.

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Step 2: Either in a separate pan, or remove the veggies and keep warm, cook the chicken strips 8-10 minutes both sides, until no longer pink in the center. Pour on the terikayi sauce, heat to simmering. Add the cornstarch and whisk to combine. Cook until sauce thickens. Combine with veggies.

Step 3: Strain the noodles, and add to the pan. Mix everything well, and heat through.

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We had a lovely dinner together, sharing stories and catching up. The stir fry was a hit! The teriyaki sauce is delicious but thinner than I thought. I added some cornstarch to thicken it up and it worked like a charm.

Homemade Hummus

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Ingredients:

  • 1 15-ounce can chickpeas/garbanzo beans
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, about 1 large lemon
  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • 1-3 garlic cloves, depending on taste
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons warm water
  • Dash of ground paprika for serving

Optional: black or red pepper, roasted red peppers, dill, cilantro, parsley, cooked edamame, roasted beets

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Step 1: Add the tahini and lemon juice to a food processor or blender, and blend on high for at least 1 minute, up to 10. According to this recipe from Inspired Taste, this makes all the difference in a smooth, store-bought-like consistency.

Step 2: Open the can of garbanzos, and put in a colander. Run cold water over them for several minutes to remove any toxins & excess sodium. If you wish, add to a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 2-3 minutes to soften them. Then add to the tahini paste and blend another 4-5 minutes.

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Step 3: Add the garlic cloves, olive oil, and sea salt to taste, along with any other desired ingredients. If you don’t have tahini, try peanut butter or almond butter. You can use whatever spices sound good to you. Roast some beets and add them for a shocking pink hummus or a cup of cooked edamame for a delicate green boost of protein and fiber. Get crazy!

Step 4: Blend everything well until the desired consistency, adding a few tbsp water if needed. Use a spatula to pour into a bowl, and garnish with some olive oil, a dash of paprika, and/or some fresh herbs. Enjoy alone, on sandwiches, or with fresh crudités.

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Several games were gifted to us during the holidays, one of which is always a huge hit at parties: Cards Against Humanity. With game-play much like Apples to Apples but with a much more… “mature” card content, our group of friends loved it.

If your friends (and you) like intricate games with a lot of thought and strategy, you might want to look into Betrayal at House on the Hill.  In this game, you are a band of brave explorers who find a haunted house. You go through the house discovering new rooms. Based on the rooms you find, different events can happen.

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At some point during the game, “the Haunting” is triggered. The game decides who becomes the Traitor, who must now try to accomplish their goal to the detriment of their former friends, whilst the Heroes now try to defeat them first.

With 50 different unique stories, and endless unpredictable variations, this game will keep us entertained for a long time to come!

One whole bag of the white cheddar popcorn disappeared within the first two hours, and the homemade hummus was way better than even the freshest deli purchased tub. No one commented on the Island scent, but no one said it smelled bad either, so that’s a win. And the lemon Cascade works great for clean dishes with no streaks, and just a hint of lemon scent.

All in all, this delivery was far more trouble and frustration, though it worked out in the end. If I had this planned for an event that actually happened the day it was planned and my delivery just didn’t show up until after midnight, I would be extremely displeased. They did try to make it right after the fact, but we are at 50% (one of two deliveries were positive experiences).

One more delivery remains, so stay tuned!

 

This post contains affiliate links.

Administrative, Holidays

Top Dozen Recipes of 2014

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Hope all of you are off to a great start for 2015!

If you are among those making health-based resolutions, congratulations! I sincerely hope you are choosing to make positive lifestyle changes for yourself, and see them through. If you want ideas here are a few that can truly change your life for the better:

  • Drink more water – 1 8oz glass every hour if you can
  • Eat more vegetables – have a salad or soup pre-meal, add frozen veggies into soups or casseroles
  • Get 7-8 hours of sleep every night – go to bed 15 minutes earlier every day until it happens
  • Move more – exercise, go for a walk, do household chores
  • Cook at home – as often as possible!

In looking back on 2014, I have been very blessed. So many good memories with family and friends. Leaving academia for full time work in a clinic. Blogging successes. Kitchen successes, and failures. Moving, a birthday, adopting two puppies. Quite the year! And I am hoping that 2015 will be even better.

Also, looking back at last year’s resolutions, I did quite well on keeping most of them. Except the working out three times per week. This is the most common struggle, tied with eating healthier. So that is the goal I will focus on most this year.

In honor of the ending of one year and beginning of a new one, I put together the best recipe from each month in a top dozen recipes for 2014. Revisit some favorites and discover new ones! May 2015 be brighter, happier, and healthier than ever.

January – Cinnamon Raisin Soft Pretzels

These warm, chewy pretzels have the perfect harmony of cinnamon and raisins, coupled with a sticky sweet glaze. Perfect during cold winter nights, date nights, or any time.

February – Red Velvet PokeBall Cupcakes

For a birthday party or a Valentine’s Day surprise for your nerdy love, these cannot be beat in wow and cuteness factor.

March – Fruit-Filled Banana Bread

As a quick breakfast or on-the-go snack, this bread is delightful. Moist and delicious, it is packed with several servings of fruit from blueberries, blackberries, and bananas. You can amp it up even further by using applesauce instead of eggs and/or butter.

April – Ethiopian Series

In this series I shared recipes I made for an Ethiopian dinner party, including beef, pork, chicken, fish, greens, potatoes, lentils, cheese, and that addictively different bread, injera!

May – Meal Planning Made Easy

Meal Planning Made Easy

This was a tough call, since May had several stellar posts! May is also when the Budget Epicurean moved over to WordPress from Google and got its own home. But the most popular post was definitely the meal planning post. It is what got me invited onto the podcast “Stacking Benjamins” to talk about how meal planning can be so easy, and improve your finances so much.

June – Taste of Austin

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In this two-post series I shared eight different food locales I visited on a trip to Austin, TX. From taco trucks to the fanciest waterside restaurant, Austin has so much to offer in foodie culture. June was also a successful month for blogging, as I was invited to enter a strawberry shortcake baking competition (which I sadly did not win), and a post about iced coffee netted me a business relationship with Keurig.

July – Lemon Pollock with Olive Tapenade

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This super-quick salty topping is perfect on any kind of fish, or as a bruschetta like topping on crusty bread. I bet you can come up with more uses too. I also got to take a nice vacation in July, which we all need from time to time.

August – Mediterranean Stuffed Mushroom Caps

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These little guys are perfect party appetizers, or you could use larger mushrooms and make it a full meal.

September – Jambalaya

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Not gonna lie, this is probably one of my favorite recipes I’ve ever made. Packed with sausage, chicken, and shrimp, as well as fresh celery, tomatoes, onion, and peppers, served over steaming white rice. This was also the month when I took the one-week SNAP Challenge.

October – Barley & Kale Salad

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A beautiful cacophony of colors and flavors, this salad is hearty enough to satisfy but light enough to not weigh you down. With chewy whole grain barley, power green kale, and multiple other fresh veggies, this will keep you full long past lunch time, and you can feel good about seconds.

November – Acorn Squash Mac n Cheese

Easily adaptable to any type of squash you have, this recipe pumps up the fiber and vitamins of your typical comfort food. It adds a sweet depth of taste and creamy feel. You can sub in any other veggie you like more than spinach as well, such as tomato, onions, peppers, or asparagus.

December – Last Minute Gift Ideas

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When you didn’t know a birthday was today, or got distracted and realized Mother’s Day is today, or somehow Christmas just snuck right up on you. This list of crafts and cooking ideas are all fairly simple, quick to make, and frugal to boot. All of them I have ether tried or am saving to try at some point.

 

There you have it, 2014 year-in-review of the best of this blog. If you have anything you’d like to see in 2015, or have a different post that was a favorite than one mentioned here, please comment below! Thanks for contributing to this blog’s success in 2014, and I hope to entertain and educate you all this year.

Administrative

Happy Holidays from BE!

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Hello dear readers,

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season and all the delicious treats it brings! But even better than sugary cookies, pepperminty beverages, warm honey hams, and classic family recipes is the memories we make this time of year. Time off from classes and work combined with holiday cheer should lead to hours of talking, bonding, and laughs with friends and family.

Whether you have a manger scene on your hearth and sing in your church choir, save all year to go all-out on a giant pile of pretty boxes, or choose to ignore the consumerist culture demanding you splurge because baby Jesus was supposedly born, this should be a warm and happy time of year. We all have so many things and people in our lives to be thankful for. A warm bed at night, a meal shared with people you love, reliable transportation, a job or career, a tiny bundle of your genetics, or not-so-little offspring making their own way in the world.

Wherever you are, whatever you do today, whoever you spend your time with, I wish you warm thoughts and happiness.

Merry Christmas!

Administrative

Testing Walmart Grocery To Go

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Hey readers! Exciting news.

Walmart To Go is expanding to Grocery To Go. It is a shop online, home delivery service for food & other goods, and is now being offered in the Denver, CO area.

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I was recently invited by Walmart Grocery To Go to collaborate on an event initiative. They will provide me with food and other items through their delivery service and I’ll photograph my events to show how their service fits my lifestyle.

They’re not paying me to say good things, and I’m free to share my honest opinions. If you want to know more about the service, check out www.walmart.com/grocery and enter your zip code to see if it’s available in your area yet.

Feel free to ask any questions using the hash-tags #PartyToGo and #WalmartGrocery.

My first dinner party using their service will be this weekend, so stay tuned for a post about how that went, and follow along with updates via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BudgetEpicurean) and Twitter (@BudgetEpicurean).

Walmart to go truck

Administrative, Holidays

Giving Thanks

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Happy Thanksgiving dear readers! I am so thankful for each and every one of you.

I sincerely hope that your Thanksgiving day is filled with good food, friends, family, and stories. Laughter and hugs and sore stomachs from wayyyyy too much to eat.

For some light reading to avoid the football madness or post-turkey nap, see my post from last year on how to do Thanksgiving under $20 , or read about the history of Thanksgiving and why it should be “thanks-giving”.

Or check out some more awesome food bloggers’ Thanksgiving ideas and leftover uses:

Chewingthefat Thanksgiving daily
TheSimpleDollar leftovers roundup
FeedYourSoul2 dessert roundup

(This is not permission to ignore your family in favor of your smart phone or tablet! Pay attention to what your Aunt Edna is saying, you never know how many more holidays you have.)

In honor of that train of thought, some things I am thankful for this year:

  • My amazing, supportive family, who love me from far away
  • My amazing, supportive S.O. who keeps me going daily
  • Finally getting a house & a yard! (renting. but still.)
  • Puppies!
  • Friends who keep in touch through big life changes
  • H Mart. Y’all not from Denver, you just don’t know.
  • Flowers
  • A car that keeps working, despite my lack of attention
  • Jobs that are mostly rewarding and fun
  • Cool people with good stories
  • Board games
  • All the lovely people who have read, shared, supported this blog!

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What are you thankful for?

Administrative, Finances, Informative

SNAP Challenge Week Lessons

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So today (Tuesday) marks one week of the SNAP Challenge for me. (If you don’t know what the SNAP Challenge is or why I’m talking about it, take a peek at my earlier post).

The week went very closely according to plan. I ended up having so much leftover from the soup I made that I did not use the can of tuna. I had coffee 6 out of 7 days, but only one cup. And I only needed an extra boost from green tea on three days.

FOOD BREAKDOWN

Here is a breakdown of all the food purchased and consumed throughout the week:

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If I calculated out the exact costs for the week, it would be quite a bit less than my target, as I still had 2 eggs, 1/2 bag broccoli, all but 4 tbsp margerine, plenty of garlic salt, 6 slices turkey bacon, half a jar of peanut butter, a few slices of bread, some rice, potatoes and lentils, and 6 bags of oatmeal left! Even with the full price added in, I had $2.44 left to spend at the end of the week.

There were only a few cooking-intensive meals, then several meals consisting of leftovers. Peanut butter sandwiches were always a go-to in case I didn’t want leftovers for lunch and dinner, or just needed a hearty snack throughout the day.

SNAP MEAL PLAN

Here is a break-down of all the meals I ate this week:

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This ‘diet’ may actually have been for the better, as I was eating less meat and calories in general, and slowly cutting down on caffeine. I actually felt quite healthy throughout the majority of the week, though energy spikes and troughs as well as a growling tummy was more frequent.

LESSONS LEARNED

Overall, this week was not as difficult as I imagined it being, but I recognized some significant advantages:

1. I have a fully functional kitchen. This includes a microwave, stove-top, oven, refrigerator, and freezer. I have ample containers in which to store excess cooked food to be eaten again later. This all helps in stretching the food you do have.

2. I do not mind the process of cooking, eating leftovers, or the same meal multiple times. In fact I enjoy those things. There are tons of people who do not like one or all three. Being able to cook, even simple methods, is limitlessly helpful in stretching your food dollars versus convenience foods. And being willing to cook large batches and re-eat that meal later is also a huge money saver.

3. I have access to fresh, affordable produce and very reasonably priced staple food items. Many, too many, people do not have access to fresh produce, the ability to stop at four different stores to price-compare, or to pick up 2 cucumbers for $1 just because they’re on sale, they look fresh, and you want a snack.

4. I have been in the practice of planning, shopping, and cooking for myself on a very tight budget for a very long time. Many people who end up on SNAP due to unfortunate circumstances have no practice with coupons, budgeting, or meal planning. They may not know how to stretch a dollar because they never had to before. This just adds to the overall burden.

Over the next few posts I will be posting the recipes of meals I cooked during the challenge, so stay tuned!

 

Final Thoughts

I decided I am going to buy a duplicate of all the foods I had this week, and donate them to a local food pantry so others in my community can be fed. I am also hosting a food drive at my work place until the end of the month.

I hope you took something away from this, and if you’re not inspired to take on the challenge yourself, at least you’re more aware of the daily struggles millions of your fellow Americans face, and know more about how you can help.

 

 

 

**UPDATE: All SNAP Meal Recipes listed below:

Administrative

The Budget Epicurean on vacation

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Hello blogosphere!

I know you will be so disappointed to hear, but the Budget Epicurean will be taking a short hiatus. But you may say, taking vacations is not frugal! Nay nay. Vacations help keep one inside the budget I will retort. Planned or spontaneous, taking a break from the day-to-day can help to relax, recharge, and keep the frugal fires burning.

Sometimes, we all stumble, despite our best intentions. This is usually due to stress and being overwhelmed. Whether it’s family, friends, work, or personal life, when you are too busy to think straight you are more prone to mistakes. You give in and have a jumbo muffin, latte, fruit, another latte, and a doughnut, just to get through the morning. You forget to pack lunch and have to buy a cheeseburger and fries in the car on the way to a meeting. You didn’t prepare and need to purchase travel-sized things at an inflated price. You’re just too tired to cook, so looks like it’s pizza for the fifth time this month.

You also sometimes need a break from being frugal to avoid “frugal fatigue”. This is what happens when you are being good and sticking to a budget, making your own food, not eating out or going out often, and all in all being frugal for a long time. It’s like cheating on a diet, the more extreme you begin the faster your willpower wears out. Frugality is a way of life to be sure. If you go from upper-middle-class lifestyle of eating out constantly, new toys, new clothes, trips, etc. and jump right into a cabin in the wilderness where you grow and shoot all your own food, you will break in about a week I’d guess.

To avoid frugal fatigue, it is perfectly fine to ease yourself in, and take mini-breaks. When you save an extra $100 in one month, go ahead and allow yourself one Starbucks run. If you make your own laundry detergent, and buy no new clothes for a year, I’d say you deserve the running shoes you’ve been eying. Planned for or occasional small indulgences are the icing on the cake of life.

Therefore, it is essential to take a break once in a while. Especially in the US, we pretty much work ourselves to death. Down time is essential to overall health and well-being. An occasional indulgence and/or respite is often just what you need to push through or recover from a particularly crazy phase of life, a big project, a family event, whatever.

With that in mind, this blog’s author is taking a much-needed break from all things normal, including internet and this blog. If all goes well, we will be back in full force come August. See you on the sunnier side! 😉

~BE