Day 25 - Costco

I made it to Costco (finally!).  I say finally, because we are low on many non-food related items.  Of course I picked up food stuff too.  It should be noted here that most of the items are in rather large quantities (ie costco size), so if the prices seem high that's part of why.  I tried to indicate specific quantities when possible.

Hellman's Mayo (64 oz)  $3.99
Flat Bread $3.99
Bourbon Chicken $10.49
Asparagus $5.49
Strawberries (4 lbs) $6.99
Roma Tomatoes (about 8) $3.99
Heinz Ketchup $1.93
-I actually bought 3 at this price, but I figured I would add them into the total as used.  I don't suspect I will need to open another bottle before the time (90 days) is up.  I've heard that ketchup is pretty easy to make from homemade... so I am wondering I should have done that instead.   
Flour Tortilla's - $3.79

Total $40.66


Not too bad of a run considering it's Costco.  You can check out some other peoples Costco bills here.    


Ok, and now for some ranting!
One issue that I have hesitated to bring up here as it's somewhat personal, however it sort of directly affects our experiment here.  We have reason to suspect that one of our roommates (there are two) may be pinching some of our food.  Has anyone else noticed how fast we have been downing the coffee creamer?   While we do really love the stuff... I'm not sure we love it that much.  It's not totally the roommates fault as I believe she thought creamer came under the condiment clause - that clause may need to be re-written.  Interestingly, though this experiment would suggest otherwise, I am not really that protective of food.  I like to be rather generous, however in the past we have either had open ended conversation of who took what, what is shared and what is unshared with roommates... and the current situation leaves me to do way too much guesswork... does this bottle feel lighter?  Did we have three sticks of butter in the fridge or two?  Why is there jam in our butter? Who finished the Skinny Cows (husband or other)?  All these question are starting to make me a little anal retentive about our food - and I'm not comfortable being that way.  Based on those questions - you may assume that I am anal retentive already, but I can assure you that while some of the items are cheap stock items the volume used has been significant.  We've had a talk with this roommate about not using the more expensive items (In fairness, the current situation is much better than the original food pinching that was going on), but I guess we will need to draw the line a little darker and harder.  Even though having a renter is still a net positive (though less of one), respect of my stuff is still a nice bonus.  Anyway confrontation can sometimes lead to people putting walls up, and we already have some distance in the relationship with this individual that I am dreading the situation even more.   

Besides all the bother with relationship side of this (read: sarcasm), it's affecting our dollars/day! Agh! Part of me thinks I should be able to credit myself when things are awry.. but because much of the missing items are taken in hard to recognize quantities (i.e. not singly packaged items) - this is easier said than done. 

Day 24 - Breakfast Sandwiches

One of my favorites - these are pretty easy to make.  I just have mimic the recipe seen at many a fast food resturant.  Layer of English Muffin, Layer of egg (scrambled or fried), layer of sausage, Layer of cheese.

Otherwise, we have been falling a bit behind on our "eating out" allotment - currently we have eaten out a total of 5 times of the possible 12.   

Day 23 - BBQ

A couple of our friends hosted a big BBQ at their house last night.  We were asked to bring a dish, so I brought my favorite dish to split - Chinese Cabbage Salad.  It's rather easy to make and in my opinion rather tasty.

First off more spending

4 Packages Ramen - $0.80
1 head Green Cabbage - $1.40
1 head Red Cabbage $1.60
3 bottles Coffee-Mate Creamer - $2.97 (99cent each)
-terribly unnecessary I know, but too good of a deal to pass up. 
Arnold Potato Bread - $1.98 (on sale)
Arnold Fiber Bread - $1.98 (on sale)

Total - $10.73

Okay onto the salad

 I started with this.

Shredded and Shredded - I used a mandolin for this task.  I have the cheapest mandolin known to man, and it works great for this task - although I can't say the same for all others. Break up the ramen and mix that in too.   

Don't you just love color of "real" red cabbage... as opposed to out of a bag cabbage. 

Mixed up some sauce - Oil, Vinegar, Sugar and the Ramen Spice Pack are the key ingredients.  I added pepper and oregano too.  

Mix in and taste.

We brought it too the BBQ and got many positive comments.  Here's the rest of the Spread

and my plate:

I ate the Pineapples too, but those went directly from the serving bowl to my mouth... as well as a few tomatoes.  lol

There was also desserts that didn't get pictured and of course - coffee! was available, but 
I won't be disclosing how much coffee I had yesterday.

Day 22 - Chicken Chili

I found this recipe on TheSimpleDollar blog, and I found it very tasty and interesting.  I cooked it up a bit ago and just reheated it today for dinner.

  I threw some olives in it along with some other spices to enhance the flavor and it worked really well. 

The last of the of the spring rolls were polished off today and hubby is happy to have his lunch meat again for sandwiches.

One aspect that many people don't consider is that although eating cheap takes some level of discipline, often times it does not take us extra time.  There is no traveling to the resturant, waiting for the waiter to take the order, waiting for the food to arrive, waiting for the check, and driving back home.  All of those elements are time consuming, so we are saving both money and time... and both items are hard to come by.

Day 20-21 (Recap) Summary and Shopping

Despite the fact that the blog has not been updated the way it should be we have been "on track".  The interesting thing about eating for $5/day is that most of the time it really doesn't require too much "work".  The last couple of days we have been enjoying leftover spring rolls, I had a free lunch at work (for cinco de mayo), and yesterday my sister came over for a simple stir fry I created.  Stir fry is a really easy way to eat cheaply and easily - with impressive variety.  Although I usually come up with my "stir fry recipes" on the fly - the most recent one really worked and I thought I would share it with you - as best I can.


Ruby Leigh's Easy Stirfry

Mix the following ingredients to make a marinate for chicken - can be any kind of skinless/boneless chicken.  
-1/3 cup Kung Pao sauce
-1/2 cup olive oil
-1/4 cup rice vinegar (err on the low side of this)
-2-3 teaspoons dijon mustard
-1-2 tbs soy sauce

Let chicken marinate anywhere from 30 mins to 8 hrs.

Other ingredients
-Chopped carrots
-Green Beans
-Ramen - Oriental Flavor
-Beefsteak Tomato (Chopped into large chunks)

Cook Chicken with Carrots in wok over medium heat until chicken is brown.  When finished add green beans and cooked Ramen.  Let this simmer for 5-10mins until green beans are bright green... but not to soft... you will want them to still have some crunch when you eat.  Lastly, add the tomato and let simmer for 5 mins max, just enough to absorb the flavors of the sauce.

So onto the shopping trip... yes this was a couple days ago.  Anyway this was our biggest trip yet, and not to point fingers, but I think it had something to do with DH coming along.

THE GOODS

Grocery
3 boxes kraft mac-n-cheese - $2.57  
-I know that a generic would be cheaper... but I swear by the fact that there IS a difference.   
Swiss Rolls - $1.28 
-umm... husband! lol! 
4 lb bag of sugar - $1.99
Store Brand Hazelnut Dry Creamer - $3.35
4 Cans of Tuna - $2.36
2 Packets Kool-Aid - $0.40

Meat
2 - 6oz (total 12oz) packages Hormel Chicken Strips - $3.69
2 - 16oz (total 2lbs) packages Turkey Lunch Meat -$4.99

Fresh Produce
3.85 lbs bananas - $1.85 
- bananas are still uber cheap! 
Green Onions $0.59
Green Leaf Lettuce $1.49
Carrots Bunch $1.29
1.40 lb White Onions - $2.51
Parsley - $0.59 

Frozen
2 lbs frozen corn - $2.19
5 boxes Lean Pockets - $10.00

GRAND TOTAL - $44.63

This trip was meant as a run to stock up on fresh foods... I thought we would be spend a lot on them as there is this notion in my head that they are "so expensive", how ever only $8.32 was spent on produce... which was only 18.6% of the total bill. 

SO that is that....

One thing that was not in the plan was a $4.63 mocha at a local coffee shop last night with my friends.

At this point in time (day 22) we are averaging $6.15/day - if we make it to day 27 without spending another dime... we will be right at $5/day.  The cupboards are in great shape to do this. 

Day 19 - Quick Update

Too tired to post anything substantial today, but here's the bullet point review.

* Shopping Trip (not costco)
   -got sugar
   -coupons for lunch meat - hubby is happy
   -spent some money - more details later, but will say need to make it until Day 26 without extra expenses to stay on track

*Made Spring Rolls for dinner
  -yummmm!
  -made extra for future quick fix lunches. 

Meanwhile - if you wouldn't mind checking out this post, I am still looking for tasty soybean ideas.  Obviously, I know how to google it but I love personal input. 

Day 18 - COFFEEEEEEE!

I drink a lot of COFFFEEEE!  I am saying coffeeeee! instead of coffee, because that is how one feels when they drink Coffeeeee! Today I have had 3 mugs of the stuff (considering a fourth).  In the family of my origin, coffee consumption is practically a right of passage.  Even still, I was a late bloomer.  I didn't get into the hard stuff until the summer before senior year of college (when I had to wake up consistently at 7AM), before that I only dabbled in softer stuff like Chai Tea Lattes and Berry White Mochas.  Sooner or Later I ran into more and more situations that required getting up early and a lack of cash-flow to fund such aforementioned $4.00 (sometimes more!) drinks.  This drove me to the place where coffee and I became daily companions.   

I have been adding "Dulche de Leche" (which I made myself! and you can too) to my coffee instead of sugar to my coffee.  It tastes pretty good, but I'm doing it because we are out of sugar.  I have to say this is not entirely my fault - one of the roommates - who shall remain nameless - consumes copious amounts of sugar.  At any rate, I figure it might be my turn to buy. 

Sugar is not the only thing that has been added to the Costco Shopping list for the ever being postponed Costco shopping trip.  There are two reasons that I am reluctant to go to Costco.  One) This Month's "costco coupon book"  has not arrived yet... and that is always something worth waiting for.  Two) Costco has never been a cheap trip.  And when you impulse buy at Costco - it's like impulse buying times 20.

Sometime this week I will most likely manage to make it there, and at this point we will have sugar, perhaps lunch meat (hubby has been moaning), not to mention laundry detergent and dish soap... and if I can help it not too much more. 

Food Today
3 Chicken Burritos
3 Mugs of Coffee (perhaps 4)