On Winter spending her own money on food

Winter gets a regular allowance while she lives here. As a rule, I pay for anything she needs (her material needs are few, if I'm being honest), and her allowance is hers to spend or not spend as she likes. She is very independent, and goes many places by herself since we do not own a car. She walks most places, and takes the bus to some. I don't want her to have to always ask me for money for a snack, or for this or that, because she is usually not with me when she is buying something she wants. She is usually alone or with friends.

Initially she used her allowance on snacks on occasion, like a soda or an energy bar, or something along those lines. Recently she has been using some of her money on food though. Like, food for regular meals that she brings home and prepares herself. At first my compulsion was to tell her to hang onto her money, and let me buy all her food. But I held back. Sometimes it was a matter of it being near the end of the month, and I had to watch the budget too closely to buy anything unplanned for, so I told her "if you want X, you may buy it yourself, because we don't have much left in the budget right now." Sometimes she did, and other times she decided it wasn't worth it.

Now I have realized, in watching what she decides to buy and not buy, that this is an important step for her in becoming an independent functioning adult. She told me once that she likes to buy groceries for herself sometimes because it makes her feel grown up. She gets to sometimes eat exactly what she wants instead of being limited just to what I buy and make. I see her carefully weighing her options before purchasing something. Looking for the best price. Learning how to make mashed potatoes from scratch because it costs less than buying them premade. She asks me for my opinions and advice. She is learning things about how much food costs, and how that varies depending on what you buy and where you buy it. She has a more experiential appreciation for the choices I make when buying food.

One thing I am proud of her for is that even though she is spending her own money, she is still generous. She shares the food she buys with friends, and almost always offers me some if I am around.

I have struggled a bit over whether or not I should include the food she buys in our monthly budget. In the past, I have sometimes. Going forward I don't think I will. My reasoning is that the money she gets for her allowance is budgeted desperately and accounted for, and also because it is always 100% her choice to buy food or not. There is always enough food here for her to get plenty to eat without it. The food she buys is more for her spirit than for her body.

Last day of November wrap-up

We ended November having spent $448.39 with a budget of $450, so we made it in at $1.61 under goal! To be honest I wasn't sure we were going to squeak in under the line, but we still have tons of food left in the house.

Sunday morning I was getting out the crock pot to make turkey soup and I dropped it and the crock part broke. I was honestly only a little sad, because we've been taking about getting a bigger/better one for a year now. We found a 5 quart programmable orange one on the Target website on sale for $27, plus I got 5% off and free shipping by using the Target red card.

So Jeremy had to make the turkey soup, and he did an awesome job, despite the lack of appropriate seasonings in our cupboard. He used the turkey bone broth we made by boiling and reducing the turkey bones an  gross bits, plus added some chicken bouillon, a bunch of leftover turkey (we STILL have more!), leftover carrot sticks cut up smaller, and egg noodles. He seasoned it with garlic, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and some kind of no salt seasoning blend. We have lots left over in the fridge.

Winter and I went to Seattle Sunday Assembly in the morning, where I had a cup of lemonade and split a cookie with Winter after service, and then I went in to work for five hours to cover for someone who left town for the weekend. When I came home there was awesome turkey soup! I am not a huge fan of turkey meat other than cold cuts and sometimes sausage, so the fact that I really like it is a huge accomplishment.

Breakfast: banana muffin with honey goat cheese
Lunch: chicken and cheddar sandwich with dijon, apple
Dinner: turkey noodle soup, leftover roll
Snacks/desserts: cupcakes, half a cookie
Beverages: lemonade, water

September is almost over

We picked up a few things from QFC yesterday. Ginger sesame salad dressing for $2.44 (on sale with coupon), a container of mild salsa for $1.99 (reduced for quick sale), a cucumber for $.99 and three bananas for $.99.

We have $5.99 left to get us through this Tuesday, but I'm not concerned at all. Compared to the last few months we actually have a lot of food left in the house. So much so that rather than worrying about making those last few dollars stretch until the end of the month, we are actually stocking up on a few things in preparation for next month,

I have been thinking about how we will do our budget for October, which will be different from usual since I will be in San Diego for six days for a prenatal massage certification class, and then the following weekend we are all going to Texas to visit my mom's side of the family. I have decided to budget only based on the number of days each of us is home, and out of town meals will not be counted against the food budget. We will do what we can to reasonably minimize how much we spend while out of town, but sticking to a budget of $5 per person per day while not at home would be extremely difficult. I'd like for us to able to fully enjoy our time away from home, and not worry too much about what we are spending.

So that means next month we will be budgeting $390. I am leaving early in the morning Oct 1st, so Winter and Jeremy will need to do some shopping while I am gone. We have lots of leftover soup in the freezer, and a pretty good stock of frozen chicken breast, frozen fruit, rice, pasta, and quinoa to help them out as well.

Yesterday I got up early and made pasta sauce in the crock pot. I used two 14 oz cans of diced tomatoes, two 7.4 oz boxes of tomato sauce, one finely grated zucchini (Winter doesn't like the texture), two turkey and pepper jack sausages, granulated garlic, Italian seasoning, two tablespoons of olive oil, and 1/3 cup of red wine. I love making pasta sauce in the crock pot because the flavors get really rich after slow cooking all day, and boiling pasta when you get home is very fast. The zucchini cooked down completely, and I couldn't really tell it was there. I was concerned the turkey sausage would be weird, like having hot dog slices in spaghetti sauce, but it turned out great.

Breakfast: apple spice flavored Greek yogurt
Lunch: turkey sandwich with dijon and lettuce, last of the pinto beans with shredded hot pepper jack cheese, nectarine
Dinner: spaghetti with turkey sausage spaghetti sauce
Snacks/desserts: oatmeal cookies, cashews
Beverages: coffee with vanilla coconut milk creamer, water

My thoughts on the SNAP challenge

September is the month that many people do the SNAP challenge. For the SNAP challenge you must spend no more than $4.50 per person per day on food, which is the average amount a family recieves on SNAP (formerly known as Food Stamps). Many people blog about their experiences doing the SNAP challenge, or write articles about it.

Ten years ago, back when they were still called Food Stamps, my family of three was living on $150 a month for food. If you have any income at all, no matter how little it is, the expectation is that you will be spending some of that income on food, and the food stamps supplement the rest. The reality is much much different from these expectations.

At the time we were getting $150 a month in food stamps, my husband at the time was working full time for minimum wage, while I attended beauty school full time. Winter was 4. Minimum wage in the state we lived in was the same as the federal minimum wage of $5.65 an hour. Our rent was $525 a month. We also paid for a landline phone and electric. We had no car. After paying for housing and utilities we were left with less than $200 a month, and we still had to manage bus fare, $50 a month for day care (the state paid for the other $250 it would have normally cost), clothing, toiletries and paper goods, health care items, and everything else. The reality was simply that there was no extra money for food above and beyond the $150 we recieved in food stamps. We had to make do.

We made it work, because we had to, but it wasn't easy. I clipped coupons and paired them up with sales, walking miles to four different stores so I didn't have to spend money on bus fare. We were lucky to live in a suburban area with a nice, cheap indoor farmer's market close by. That helped. In that way we had many options that people in more urban areas do not. We ate a lot of pasta. A lot of potatoes. A lot of pancakes. A lot of beans. Pretty much no meat. We did eat some fruits and vegetables, but since they didn't provide as many calories per dollar as starchier foods, we had to limit them.

We had few small appliances, and minimal cookware of very low quality. No crock pot. No rice cooker. Now that I have those things I realize how much more you can make from scratch, and how much easier it is when you have a good selection of good quality tools to use. We had to buy everything in the smallest sized packages we could, even though the cost per pound is much higher this way, because our budget was simply too tight to allow any wiggle room for buying larger quantities of things. Spending extra to stock up on something would mean not having enough to get the other things we needed for the rest of the month.

We were also lucky that we didn't live this way for too long. I only had a couple months of school left when we applied for food assistance. My now ex husband found a better job, and I finished school and started working. We were still poor, but not three people trying to make it on one minimum wage job. Some people, whether due to family size, disability, lower cognitive function, or some other barrier that cannot be changed, do not have a choice. Some people do not have a realistic way out.

August's goal, and miscellany

Winter comes back this month, late on the 25th. So we get an additional $30 in August for the six days she will be here. I will have to make sure I leave a decent amount got the end of the month, because it's not fun to have $15 left a and a teenager on her way.

Mom said the family is planning a reunion in Texas in early October. I will be in San Diego till the sixth, so I am not sure if we'll be able to make it or not. If we can it will cost around $1000 in airfare. I am a little stressed out about missing that much work all at once, but Winter and Jeremy were not able to go last time, and I don't think Winter has ever been there, come to think of it. So if we can make it this time I would like to do what we have to to go. Grandma is 84 and Winter has only seen her a handful of times. I have some aunts and uncles she has never even met.

Looks like we made it

The goal for July was $310, and the total amount spent in July was $307.83. That is right around $4.97 per person per day. Whew! We'll definitely be picking up a few groceries tonight after work and dinner.

Here's yesterday's food:

Breakfast: banana bread
Lunch: vanilla latte flavored yogurt, the rest of the pepperoni pasta, banana
Dinner: chicken, rice, broccoli and carrots with cheddar cheese sauce
Snacks/desserts: peanut butter chocolate oatmeal cookies
Beverages: A&W Ten root beer with a little half and half (it's like a really easy already melted root beer float), water

What we ate 07-29-14

We're so close to the end of the month! We still have about $6.50 left in the budget, but I need to pick up corn starch tonight after work. I might get bananas too, but maybe not. There is so much lettuce and radishes left, I may just make salads to go with my lunches instead.

I found out that Jeremy had never heard of timecube.com (I told him it seemed like someone I went to school with had been doing bath salts and reading timecube.com based on some recent Facebook posts).

I got about 3 hours of sleep the night before last because it's been very humid and kind of hot outside. It took all of my resolve not to buy coffee or soda at the airport, where I worked yesterday. The cheapest caffeine option there is a can of soda for $1.65, and I can't bring my own in. I kind of wanted to be able to sleep when I got home too. I did take some Tylenol for a headache I had, and managed to get an 8 minute nap in during my break. That helped. 

Breakfast: apple pie flavored Greek yogurt, banana bread
Lunch: sandwich with turkey, caraway havarti, lettuce, and dijon mustard
Dinner: slow cooker pepperoni pasta, the rest of the homemade white bread
Snacks/desserts: none
Beverages: Crystal Light, water

Meal planning on a shoestring

We've all been there. You have a week left before you get paid again, and your checking account has $17.42 and some cobwebs in it. If you have never had this experience or something akin to it, then GTFO. Seriously.

Don't panic. You can make this work without resorting to selling a kidney (But if you do decide to sell a kidney, LMK ok? I can Paypal you.) Here are my tips to working through a budget crunch without having to eat your cat.

1)  Figure out what food you already have:

Chances are you have some. Go through your cabinets, fridge and freezer. Throw out anything that is moldy or smells bad, and isn't supposed to smell bad or be moldy. Now write down everything you have left. Everything. You might be surprised at all the odds and ends you find that have been forgotten by time.

2) Figure out what you can make with what you already have:

Paying particular attention to any perishable items you have, start brainstorming. If you are comfortable with cooking without using recipes, now is the time to bust that out. Keep an open mind. If you normally do one pot meals, consider doing a main dish and sides, or vice versa. If you don't usually do much baking, try some. Think outside the box. Can you use tortillas to make sandwich wraps instead of burritos? Can you serve some veggies and peanut sauce with spaghetti instead of rice? Yes you can.

If you have an ingredient you are not sure what to do with, Google that item + "recipes" and see if you don't find something you can work with. If you are missing an ingredient you need to make a particular dish, see if there may be something you already have that will work as a substitution. Google is your friend. Don't go crazy with the substitutions trying to make something fancy though. Keep it simple, and don't stray too far outside of your comfort range. This is not the time to screw up and wind up with a big pot of something inedible.

3) Figure out out what you still need and buy it:

Here is where you really want to maximize your tiny little budget. If you need a small amount of a particular ingredient, see if you can buy just what you need from bulk bins. If you need any seasonings, definitely buy those in bulk (which you should be doing anyway). If you only buy as much as you need to get you through the week, it will just cost you a few cents per baggie usually. Use less expensive produce. Potatoes, broccoli, zucchini, summer squash, lettuce, bananas, greens, celery, carrots, plum tomatoes. You get a lot of bang for your buck out of these. Check the sales flyer too. Something that is normally more expensive might be super cheap this week. Frozen produce can be very cost effective as well.

If you are short on protein foods at home, go vegetarian as much as possible. Eggs, peanut butter, beans, and lentils are good cheap and healthy sources of protein, and are also pretty versatile. If you want meat, check to see if there are any packages that have been reduced for quick sale. Cut up meat into small pieces and incorporate it into a larger dish (like a soup or stir fry) instead of just eating a big chunk of meat. You can get away with using less this way. These are both great ways to use up odds and ends of vegetables too.

4) If all else fails there is oatmeal, beans and rice

A canister of oats, a pound of rice, and a pound of beans or lentils will cost you around 5$ and will keep a single person alive for a week. All of these things bulk up substantially once you add water and cook them, so you get a lot of food for your money. Add a little sugar to the oatmeal, and a little salt to the beans to make them more palatable. If you have a bit more to spend, use it on some carrots and canned tomatoes to cook with the beans/lentils. And get some bananas to eat with your oatmeal.

Buckling down

Ok, we are just barely halfway through this month, and have around 80$ left to spend. We have 5 lbs of chicken breast, lots and lots of tuna, carrots, radishes, old bananas, bread, pasta, rice, and couscous (which is also pasta).

I'm planning to make some oatmeal banana muffins. I have enough flour for one batch, and then I'll have to get another bag. We can also do some smoothies with the bananas. There is still enough potsticker filling and wrappers in the freezer to make a dinner out of it. We have a couple of flour tortillas left, and I'm planning some chicken fajitas for tonight. We can make a stir fry with chicken, rice, carrots and that one chunk of cabbage that is left. I don't have a lot of ideas for couscous. Maybe a chicken noodle soup, but use couscous instead of noodles? Good way to use carrots too. I can pick up some lettuce and use the chicken and radishes in a salad. Chopped radishes are also good in tuna salad.

We can do this.

Working in Bellevue today

I worked for a spa in Bellevue for a little while last year, and when I left I stayed on the payroll. Every few months I do some sub shifts for them. Today I'm working from 10:30-5:30.

I'm very excited because I do not live anywhere near a Taco Bell, but there is one by the spa in Bellevue. I'm not usually there in the morning, but I am today. Which means I finally get to have a damn waffle taco. I have waited so long. I hope it's good.

The other good thing about this spa is that they have a mircowave, so I can have leftovers for lunch. I can't bring myself to eat cold leftovers (except pizza, but there is never leftover pizza).

Today starts a new month, and with it a new budget period. Last month we were $1.01 under budget. This month Winter will be at her dad's the whole month, so our budget is $360.