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Feb. 28th, 2005 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickMonday night is grocery night, even in the snow.
Old grocery budget: $1759.50
Frozen yogurt thing at mall on Sunday: $3.49
Amount spent at grocery: $23.03
New grocery budget: $1732.98
Seven dollars of the grocery budget was a large thing of coffee. It's not a particularly nutritive substance and it plays hell with the nutrition-for-dollars-spent game, here. However, I buy it and I drink it and it's not a latte or similar upscale $4.00 coffee drink thing (those are the only food items excluded from this little one-person food cost study) so it must stand and be counted. I said I'd mention when I got meat things, and today was one of those days. I bought two cans of tuna. I also picked up the usual cow byproducts (milk, cheese, butter) but they aren't exactly meat.
The green du jour is kale. I bought a little more than a pound. The kale looked better than the rather skiffy collards. While this probably sounds repetitive and stuff, part of the problem is that the pool of acceptable winter-season greens isn't very large. Aside from collards, kale, and bok choy, I'll eat spinach if it's pretty but it needs a lemon to go with. While I like cabbage and I eat it with enthusiasm, it isn't very green, so doesn't count. I am not a big enough fan of lettuces to buy them on my own. My grocery does not carry turnip greens or beet greens with any regularity. Pretty much, it's collards or kale unless both of those look sucky, in which case it's bok choy or nothing.
I started the new brand of cornmeal today. It's a little coarser than the previous kind, but the flavor is quite good. I think it'll stay fresher in the freezer, so that's where I'm keeping it. Five pounds of cornmeal (the amount it's sold in) should last me a long time, a third of a cup at a time. (Review of polenta-for-lazy-people: Mix 1/3 cup cold water and 1/3 cup cornmeal until smooth. Pour slowly into 1 cup boiling water, stirring the boiling water. Stir and cook until thick enough. Very bland without salt.)
One of the neat things I've learned from this little study (which isn't over yet, mind) is how damned expensive (relatively speaking) bought-food is. I have long maintained that I eat on about twenty, twenty-five bucks a week. There have been people who did not believe me about this, but I think it's quite clear that I'm not pulling that figure out of my ass. I spend about twenty, twenty-five bucks a week at the grocery. In that light, a fast food meal that costs about five bucks (25% of my weekly grocery budget, for the math is hard crowd) doesn't strike me as being all that cheap.
Old grocery budget: $1759.50
Frozen yogurt thing at mall on Sunday: $3.49
Amount spent at grocery: $23.03
New grocery budget: $1732.98
Seven dollars of the grocery budget was a large thing of coffee. It's not a particularly nutritive substance and it plays hell with the nutrition-for-dollars-spent game, here. However, I buy it and I drink it and it's not a latte or similar upscale $4.00 coffee drink thing (those are the only food items excluded from this little one-person food cost study) so it must stand and be counted. I said I'd mention when I got meat things, and today was one of those days. I bought two cans of tuna. I also picked up the usual cow byproducts (milk, cheese, butter) but they aren't exactly meat.
The green du jour is kale. I bought a little more than a pound. The kale looked better than the rather skiffy collards. While this probably sounds repetitive and stuff, part of the problem is that the pool of acceptable winter-season greens isn't very large. Aside from collards, kale, and bok choy, I'll eat spinach if it's pretty but it needs a lemon to go with. While I like cabbage and I eat it with enthusiasm, it isn't very green, so doesn't count. I am not a big enough fan of lettuces to buy them on my own. My grocery does not carry turnip greens or beet greens with any regularity. Pretty much, it's collards or kale unless both of those look sucky, in which case it's bok choy or nothing.
I started the new brand of cornmeal today. It's a little coarser than the previous kind, but the flavor is quite good. I think it'll stay fresher in the freezer, so that's where I'm keeping it. Five pounds of cornmeal (the amount it's sold in) should last me a long time, a third of a cup at a time. (Review of polenta-for-lazy-people: Mix 1/3 cup cold water and 1/3 cup cornmeal until smooth. Pour slowly into 1 cup boiling water, stirring the boiling water. Stir and cook until thick enough. Very bland without salt.)
One of the neat things I've learned from this little study (which isn't over yet, mind) is how damned expensive (relatively speaking) bought-food is. I have long maintained that I eat on about twenty, twenty-five bucks a week. There have been people who did not believe me about this, but I think it's quite clear that I'm not pulling that figure out of my ass. I spend about twenty, twenty-five bucks a week at the grocery. In that light, a fast food meal that costs about five bucks (25% of my weekly grocery budget, for the math is hard crowd) doesn't strike me as being all that cheap.
