The $300 - starting month two

I didn't quite make it in month 1.  I splurged and we went $17 over.

Going to give it another try this month.  I do have a lot of leftovers and stuff in the freezer, so we are in pretty good shape starting out this month.  I just need to stay on track and use that stuff.

This week I spent $47 at the market.  $37 on fruits and veggies and $10 on Hummus and Tzatziki sauce.  Both came from a local restaurant/specialty store.  The hummus is probably  my all time favorite variety.  They just get it right.

For the $37 I got

5lbs black grapes

2 bags key limes

12 roma tomatoes

1 bag radishes

2 honeydew melons 

4 beets

3 orange bell peppers

3 red bell peppers

1 spaghetti squash

1lb poblano peppers

4 lbs sweet potatoes

9 oranges

5 nectarines

2 very small head broccoli

3 cucumbers

2 red onions

I also spent money at the grocery store

$17 porkchops (two packages on clearance - lots and lots of porkchops)

$6 thin sliced steak

$7 crumbled goat cheese

$1.50 purple cauliflower

$1.50 orange cauliflower

$5 goat cheese

$5 cheddar cheese

$2 cottage cheese

$2 sour cream

That means I am at $94 for the month.  I have enough meat to last me probably the entire month now.  I might buy some bacon, but we'll see.  I still have some chicken and ham in the freezer from last month.  I also have broccoli soup base ready to go and tons of fruit for smoothies.  We were also given some fruit this week, huge tubs of pineapple and mango and two fruit plates.  The fruit plates came from a vendor at the market.  It's good to be the balloon lady.  Anyway, I suspect that in a worst case scenario I have enough food in the freezer and pantry to feed the family for a month.  We would lack in fresh fruits and veggies, as well as snack food - but it could be done.  That's kind of  where I want to keep it.  I don't want so much I never go through it, but I do want a backup supply for when something happens and we can't work for a couple of weeks.  

I have $206 left to spend this month.  $120 will go to the market for fresh and then I have about $28 a week for other stuff.  I may have to cut back on my expensive goat cheese habit.  I do love my goat cheese, but I'm also pretty determined to stay under budget this month!

French Toast

Starting my budget meals off with a bang.  The kiddo had a friend over so I got fancy for breakfast with French Toast and fruit.  Worked out to be $1/serving.

I realized it's going to be hard to calculate some things because  if I've had them in the house  won't likely remember how much they cost.  Also milk & coffee are luxury items for me so I don't count them against the budget.  

Milk as a luxury?  Yeah, I prefer the taste of raw milk.  It's WAY WAY WAY more expensive than regular supermarket milk.  It's also something that can be eliminated from the monthly budget if I feel tight that month.

With coffee, it's more complicated.  I'm not going to eliminate it and I'm not going to drink cheap coffee ever.  Maybe it's a necessity, not a luxury.  I do save money by roasting my own beans.  That makes it about 20 cents a serving most of the  time.    That's a big savings over 45cents a cup from the kind I buy when I purchase roasted.  Funny thing even that is cheaper than those darn K-cups which are not not not good coffee (and bad for the environment).  Some people think it's fancy and rave over them, but gag - no.

Coffee is an experience for me.  From roasting to hand grinding to pour over brewing.  I don't take cream or sugar in it very often now.  Good coffee will do that.  You learn to enjoy the taste and don't want to hide it with other stuff.  You can follow my coffee life on one of my other blogs www.krulewich.com  I'm posting my year in coffee there.  On my instagram I post a cup a day from my collection  I love thrift shops and have tons of cups.  Too many.  I'm displaying them this year and as part of my minimizing my life I will keep a select few and sell the rest.  They are almost all vintage cups and as much as I enjoy them - I just don't have the space.  I'll post a link when I get around to that.

Back to budget food:

Lunch is leftovers and dinner will be black beans cooked in stock made from the bones of those hams I bought yesterday.  I boiled them with some peppers and made 3 quarts of stock.  Two will be saved for later and one was used today.  Black beans with a bit of ham and some gf cornbread from a mix I have on hand.  Today's food will come in at around $3 per person.  That's a tiny bit lower than my goal.  Good, because some days will be over a bit.    It's a rough estimate of course.  I'm not sure how to count the ham stock.  Mostly those would be trash, but I was able to get some good eating out of them and turn the stock into several more servings.

Oh well, as long as I only bring in $300 worth of new groceries for the month.