My goal for the Food Stamp Challenge is to eat as close to how I normally eat as possible. I'll be cutting out the occasional trips to Weatherstone for coffee and happy hour beers, but otherwise I'd like to see how my usual food choices stack up against the budget. For day one, I'm just eating normal meals, counting the totals, and then I'll adjust if needed for Day 2 to stay within the weekly budget of $34.30.
During the Food Stamp Challenge, I'll post my meals daily here to catalog how the challenge is going. Here is Day 1:
Breakfast
Old fashioned oatmeal (bought in bulk at Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op) with walnuts, raisins, and almond milk. Plus, the very necessary cup of coffee. Oatmeal and add-ins $0.70, coffee $0.24, for a total of $0.94.
Snack
Non-fat Greek yogurt, with a banana and cinnamon. The banana is cheap at $0.19 but the yogurt is pricey, bringing the snack to $1.38.
Lunch
Kale salad with garbanzo beans, carrots, raisins and tomatoes, all purchased at Trader Joe's. Total for the meal is $1.49, leaving only $1.09 for another snack and dinner if I want to stay within the $4.90 daily average. Yikes!
Dinner
Yesterday (before starting the challenge), I made a Newman's Own pizza that I had in the freezer. I got it on sale, but it still works out to $1.66 per serving (1/3 of the pizza). At least it's healthy...for pizza.
How did I do today?
Well, I came in at $5.47, a full $0.57 above my daily average of $4.90. I'll have to make that up by being more cost effective during the rest of the Challenge. Today's meals were all healthy, and reflect what I eat most of the time. I would have usually had another snack (or two, who am I kidding?), but I don't think I'll go to bed too hungry at my current activity level.
Do you have to account for travel expenses?
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