A little at a time

Just finished day 36 of my squats challenge.  Should be getting easier but I am in a whiny mood so it was haaaarrrrrddddd.

Moving along on the bike.  Will post the videos later tonight.  Still in KS, but after a week of being sick and then gout  so I am still in KS, but I have hopes of making it to Oklahoma soon.  :-)

I have also added elliptical to the routine - but I'm not pushing hard on that yet.  Doing a minute at a time for at least 45 sessions today.  I'm up to 3 as I write this.  I can do anything for 60 seconds, so whenever I switch activities I take a minute and hop on.  Only burns a few calories at a time but keeps my heart rate going during the day

The $300 - food waste

A huge part of eating on a budget is not wasting food.

For so long it was a part of our culture.  Don't waste food - there are starving kids somewhere.  My grandparents grew up during the Depression and they did NOT waste food.  It was hoarded, preserved and enjoyed.  When you come from having nothing you learn to appreciate the abundance of our lives today.  During WWI this was encouraged by the government

Today I sometimes feel like the government encourages waste under the guise of protecting people.  That's a rant for another day.

Just going to worry about my own waste and what to do to avoid it.  I don't see myself as a wasteful person, but I have to admit that there have been things that spoiled because I simply didn't get to them.  Things I thought I wanted to eat that week, but just didn't feel like cooking until they were too far gone. Things that were on sale and the deal was "too good to pass up".  Yeah, it never is, especially when you buy too many to use up.  Things I forgot about.  Way too much food went bad and was wasted in our house.  I might as well have just ripped up the $$ I spent on it.

Meal planning helps, but I am never going to be my oldest and plan everything out way in advance.  I just plan on things I want to cook that week and go with what feels right that day - or what really needs to be cooked quickly. I'm doing a better job of checking things and seeing that I need to use that pepper or this cucumber before they are not so appetizing.

Buying less is an obvious way to cut back on wasted food.  Portioning it out into smaller sized and freezing them so I don't have to use it all at once.  

Serving smaller portions.  I've downsized the size of our plates and even then sometimes we end up with too much food on them.    I can't really believe we used to use those big plates and fill them up.  My body and more importantly, my  mind, are becoming satisfied with smaller portions.  

I save our leftovers and USE THEM.  That was another area I fell down in before. I would save the leftovers with the best of intentions and then toss them a few weeks later when I realized they were still there and uneaten.

Wasted food is a huge problem and it shouldn't be in a country where so many people go hungry.  How does that happen here?  We have so much but there are people among us who don't have enough to survive.  Kids who eat one meal a day.  I think it may be a combination of social program failures as well as personal failures and bad choices.  I'm not saying it's easy, but the maximum amount given in food stamps for a family of 3 in Missouri is $408 and I wanted to see if it was possible.  My own kid lived on $85 last month, so it's possible for one person who is willing to plan and cook.  I realize that people working two jobs might not feel like they have time to cook, but they are also not getting the food stamps in that amount.  And I do work.  I run two businesses and a charity organization.  I don't work quite full time this time of year, but in the spring and summer I work close to 70 hours a week.  It will be interesting to see if I can keep this going then.  You simply can NOT live on less by eating out all the time.  Even on the $1 menu.

Besides, it's good for the environment.

Day 26

Over half way there!

The past two weeks I've found that I can do the squats or I can do the graphics, but doing both is way too much time for me.

I chose squats.

Virtual Bike Ride - Days 6, 7 & 8

Friday, Saturday & Monday.  I took Sunday off because my legs and butt were sore.  :-)

Friday was the big day.  I went 20 miles and ended up just past Ottawa, KS.  I think that's the last total street view video I do.  Too much of a pain to track where i am and it's also long.  I like the "fly over" version where you can see a wider view of what the country side looks like.  Especially in KS where the interstate is boring boring boring.

Once I go far enough to reach Whicita I will exit the interstate and kind of cut diagonal arcross the rest of the state until I reach New Mexico where I go west on I-40.  When we drove this it took FOREVER.  KS isn't a big state unless you are driving across it diagonally.  When we drive it again this year, it will again take forever, but we will be prepared with more than 1 cd.  LOL  I forgot them last time and we had Taylor Swift. (11 year old daughter with me) and that was it.  Took awhile before I could listen to Taylor again.




Friday - 20 miles

Saturday - 10 miles

Monday - 10 miles

This week's Market Report

Another week - another visit to the market.  Today I came in $4 under budget, though I'm probably going to spend that at a traditional grocery store.

For my $36 I got

4 red pears
2 smaller butternut squash
10 kiwis
1 package of  habanero peppers
2 bags of spinach
1 giant bag of green onions (I have no idea what to do with that many, but it was only $1)
6 mangos
3 large red onions
4 baking carrots
4 grapefruit
1 lb jalapenos
1 lb poblano peppers
5 plums
7 limes
6 lemons
6 oranges
3 large avocados
2 bags of small sweet peppers


I still need to buy for the week
shredded cheese
snack food for the husband and kid
butter
maybe some broccoli

Before today I had $168.97 left over for the week.

Now I have 132.97

Two more trips to the market will use up $80 of that and I have only $17 a week left over for each of the 3 weeks.  I estimate I will spend $10 this week on additional items and think each other week will come in under too.  Basically, it's looking good for keeping it below $300 this month.

The $300 - Most of a week done

Slashing my budget means I need to make use of everything.  No more leftovers sitting around going bad.  That's a lunch or two just waiting to happen.

The other day I made my ground beef coconut curry with peppers

Recipe can be found on one of my other blogs krulewich.com  

http://www.krulewich.com/2015/01/ground-beef-coconut-curry-with-peppers.html

It works out to be less than $1 per serving.  It makes 6 servings for normal people, 4 for us because my husband loves it too much and will eat a HUGE serving of it.  Because there were only 2 people home I was able to have leftovers and we had it for lunch the next day.

I serve it on cabbage.  That one head of cabbage lasted me for 3 meals.  I didn't make it a centerpiece of any of them, but it was something I served stuff over or added to other stuff.  It cost me $1 to buy that head and I got 9 meals out of it.

In the past I have been guilty of not making the best use of my leftovers - even if it was a part of a vegetable that I should use.  Too easy to just let things sit in the fridge until it was time to throw them out.  I can't do that now.  Everything has to be used if I want to stay under budget.  

Waste not, want not.  That's a phrase that should have been my motto all along.  We live in a society of waste.  Huge amounts of good food are thrown out every year.  Food that SHOULD be put to use.  I'm going to do my best to keep the amount of food waste around here as close to zero as possible.

I'm a couple of days away from my market visit.  It's time to start a list of what I need this week.  Surprisingly I'm good on lemons.  I didn't use as many of  them this week as I normally do, but I'm running low on oranges.  We snack the heck out of them and of course the bananas are gone.  They are snapped up after workouts and I like to put one in my morning smoothie.  We still have more veggies leftover than I anticipated so I will be more cautious in my buying this week.  

Squats challenge day 14

Made it for two weeks!!

Virtual Ride - day 3

Today I got 5 miles in on the bike.  I've decided to add walking miles to the next day's video since who knows how many steps I'll get in tonight.

Made it to Kansas today.  Sounds more impressive than it is.  KS is only 10 miles from my house, I do there several times a week.

I drove this route once a few years ago and I will be in KS for a long long long time.  It felt like the state that would never end.  We kept seeing signs for Oklahoma, but were starting to think it was a myth.

And I'm on day 13 of my squat challenge

Squats Challenge Day 11 - Done

got the squats done and also a lot of walking around.  I'm tired.  My fitness pal says I didn't eat enough, but one day of lower calories won't kill me.  Not as fast as the lifetime of super high calories anyway.  I'm just not hungry and I'll eat when/if I'm hungry.  the idea of food just sounds nasty right now.  I'll have some more cucumber water and enjoy some crocheting time and plan for a good breakfast.

The 300 - month one, shopping trip 1

Ham 14.35

chicken 3.45

chicken 3.54

chicken 3.57

tomato paste .39 (x3)

4 ears corn 2.49

bag of tangerines 2.49

green beans 2.50

diced tomatoes .89

hazelnut spread 2.49

shredded cheddar cheese 2.79

chicken broth 1.49

Gluten Free Bread 3.99

Tortilla chips 1.19

Sour Cream & Onion Chips 1.49

Spiral Sliced Ham 16.85

2 lt. Dr. Pepper 1.48

2 lt. Cream Soda 1

Apples 3.50

Pears  3.67

Pork Chops 6.17

Smoked Sausage 3.98 (x2)

6 bell peppers 4.00

24 bananas 4.00

3 yellow bell peppers 1.00

12 kiwis 2.00

7 limes 1.00

12 lemons 2.00

12 oranges 2.00

6 cucumbers 2.00

2 bags blood oranges 4.00

2 large sweet potatoes 3.00

2 lbs poblano peppers 4.00

10 Anaheim peppers 1.00

6 pomegranates 8.00

3 heads broccoli 3.00

2 cantaloupe 1.00

3 boxes of strawberries 3.00

For a grand total of 131.03

That leaves me 168.97 for the rest of the month.  I won't need more meat.  I have a chicken for each of the next 3 weeks plus two entire hams, pork chops and 4lbs of sausage.  I have some ground been in the fridge and some in the freezer, so I'm good on the meats.  I also have plenty of beans and rice.  I will spend about $40/week on more fresh fruit and that leaves me 48 for other things.  That's not bad at all.  

Next month will be more difficult.  I won't have some of the stuff in reserve like GF mac & cheese or potatoes.  I do however have quite a bit of canned and boxed foods that I need to use up.  I looked them over today and I will do an actual inventory sometime over the next week.

Month one will be doable and not even all that difficult.  I'm not sure I could go that low without the kick ass prices at our local market.  It's practically a produce wholesaler.  

catching up

I've been keeping up with my squat challenge - just not with the posting

so here are my pictures

Squat challenge Day 6 - Done

It took me all the way up until 11pm to finish.  I cant say I was too busy.  I just did not make it a priority.  Part of me wanted to say screw it and just skip the day, but I couldn't.  That was the same part of me that wanted to eat guacamole and chips at 10pm.  I wasn't hungry, but it looked tasty and I was dealing with a bit of stress eating.    I told myself I didn't need it and made some decaf coffee instead.  I did splurge on some creamer, but the 35 calories was much better than 500 from the snack!

Squat Challenge Day 4

Was a bit harder to fit them in today.  I went shopping and that took up quite a bit of time.  Made myself find the time.  I have to remind myself that I'm worth the extra effort.

Squat Challenge - Day 3

Hanging in there on Day 3.  It's Friday, so keep your fingers crossed that the weekend goes well!  I can get sidetracked, but it's not the busy season, so maybe I"ll keep it together.

Squat Challenge - Day 2

Managed day 2 and no real additional soreness.  I'm feeling it, but not FEELING it.  Optomistic right now.  After I do the 50 days I'll think about upping the daily amount.

Of course I often get ahead of myself.  One day at a time.

Squat Challenge - Day 1

I said to myself - Self, let's do a squat challenge.  100 squats a day for 100 days.    If I do them in sets of 10 throughout the day I should get it done easy peasy.  So I started

at 50 squats on day 1 I decided to do 50, because you know - walking.

Day 1 left me a bit sore, but a good sore.

Join me if you're in the mood.

100 Days of Happy

I have decided to participate in the 100 days of Happy.

www.100happydays.com

Seems that most people who try, don't finish.  the goal is to find a reason every day to be happy, take a photo of that reason and upload it with the hashtag #100happydays

When you sign up you are asked a reason why you chose to participate.

mine?

Happy people live longer!

I'll be posting my photos on twitter - follow me there - The camera icon below links to my profile



instagram.com/shouldntsaythat

Follow along and join in!  Will you be one of the 29% who manage to finish the challenge??