Food Project: Day #1

Today I began my “Welfare Diet” project. I was sort of dreading it and trying to prepare myself, but this was difficult.
The goal: spend no more than $21 on food for a week. I can easily spend that in a day, and often do probably.

I woke up early and brewed a small pot of black tea, knowing I wouldn’t be able to afford the $1.75 for my usual small coffee or $2.75 double Americano at Coffeetopia.

For breakfast, I ate:
– 1 piece of toast with grape jelly at home

I walked to the busstop heading to campus early. Instead of waiting for a bus for 7 minutes, I desperately walked over to On a Mission coffee stand. Why couldn’t I just resist getting coffee?? I was already well-caffeinated from the (free & plentiful) tea. I stared at the beautiful pastries on the counter while the barista brewed my coffee. I usually abstain from these sticky sweets for health reasons, but I think the fact that I knew I couldn’t buy one made me want it more? The coffee wasn’t even very good. Definitely not worth 2/3 of my daily allowance.

For lunch, I ate:
– 1 banana: $.50; I bought it at Bay Tree’s express store. I frequent this place for snacks throughout the day, because I am so often near the library. What an expensive banana! I think they go for $.19 at TJ’s.
–  1 veggie tamale: FREE! Even though I had packed a PB&J sandwich that I made earlier that morning, and had already spent $2.50, when I saw a bunch of kids walking around eating tamales (one of my very favorite foods) I decided I should eat one for lunch instead. (Impulse control failure). When I located the tamales with my nose, I found out that the Campus Agroecology Network (CAN) was giving them out for FREE! Lucky break.

I ate my PB&J later at home in between lunch and dinner.

For dinner, I ate:
– 1 cup of frozen bag of TJ’s mushroom risotto: bought this last week, was a couple dollars. Wasn’t very good.
–  1 bowl of the last of the Raisin Bran, which was basically crumbs. I also had purchased a $2 quart of milk earlier in the week.

So far, I’ve really been relying on food and condiments I already have at home. That free tamale went a long way!

Just to backtrack a little bit/put this project into perspective:

Last week, I spent ridiculous amounts of money on eating out. I spent $20 taking my mom out for lunch for belated Mother’s Day, which isn’t too bad. (Well…yes it is if you only have $21 for a week.) Then my sister and I took her out (again, this time together) and I spent $36 that time. We visited my grandma in Merced and took her out to dinner. That ran me another $20. So in one weekend I spent about $80 on three meals. AHH!
Any given time I go grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, I end up spending between $40 and $70. But I do come home with a ton of food which lasts a while; however, with a limited budget, it’s not possible to front the money for that kind of trip.

Anyway, let’s see if I can do this.