Food budget May 5, 2008

One of the easiest places for me to spend a lot of money, in small increments, is on buying food. Not only do I have bad habits/impulses when it comes to eating out at nice restaurants (or at least expensive ones!), but I also have a tendency to get lazy and blow $5 – $10 on breakfast or lunch. I used to regularly stop at Starbucks every single morning and get a Venti Skinny Vanilla Latte – to the cost of $4.15. At least one morning a week, I would also get either a breakfast sandwich or some other pastry, which could easily push the total cost up above $7. I also hate getting up early, and have a very hard time motivating myself to do so and bring lunch and snacks with me to work. My usual solution would be to run downstairs to the Italian place and grab a sandwich and chips, at a cost of $6.15 every time (actually something of a bargain considering the neighborhood I work in).

That was then, though. I am getting much better. Since the beginning of the year, I have largely eliminated Starbucks from my morning rituals – and I actually find that I don’t even miss it that much. I’ve also gotten better at trying to go shopping, and prepare tasty things that I can easily bring with me on the morning.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and spent less than $20, and am entirely confident that this will feed me for the next week. My purchases were:

1 dozen large brown eggs – $2.19
4pack of Activia vanilla yogurt – $2.79
4oz crumbled Gorgonzola – $2.51
1 jar roasted red peppers – $2.99
2 lbs of fresh strawberries – $5.00
5 Packham Pears – $4.46

Total……………………………$19.94

The plan was this: Using 8 of the eggs, I made a spinach frittata that keeps cold exceptionally well. The frittata used the gorgonzola on top of it, as well as a chopped red pepper and an onion. My mother was more than happy to “trade” me the onion and pepper for the compromise of getting to keep the remaining 4 eggs (since I wouldn’t use them anyway). She also made a sort of ham, spinach and provolone potpie that she split with me, giving me 3 good-sized pieces. The roasted red peppers were for this pot pie of hers. I have some left over home-made granola, as well as a good quantity of odwalla bars, so between the granola, the bars, the yogurt and the fruit, I’ve got plenty of healty and filling snacks. I go to the gym on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I will probably just have a bowl of cereal when I get home on those days. I should definitely be able to not spend any more money on food this week, which is a very good feeling!

Just say no to chain food! May 2, 2008

One of my pseudo New Years resolutions was to stop eating out at chain restaurants so much – places like Chili’s, Uno’s, etc. For a while, it seemed like BF and I were grabbing food at one of these places at least once a week, which wasn’t doing anything for either our wallets or our waistlines. Since making the resolution, we’ve been largely successful, and honestly – the food at non-chain places is just so much better that it really does seem worth it.

I mentioned earlier that it was BF’s best friends birthday this week. Well, last night the four of us went out to dinner before heading to our karaoke place. We ended up at this restaurant that we had been meaning to try, called the Fat Cat. I’m a big fan of reading the reviews on Yelp, and they were pretty positive, so I was very much looking forward to our meal. We ended up having to wait about 45 minutes, so we trekked over to another restaurant to have a drink. We each got a margarita, and then we each did a shot of Patron, which put us all in a very festive mood. I paid the tab for the drinks, which was about $72, including tip.

We then headed back over to the restaurant and soon were seated. We all had another specialty drink (mine was called a Hello Kitty), and ordered some appetizers – fried pickle chips and pulled pork nachos. The portions were huge, and we were all pretty satisfied after snaking on the apps as well as the corn bread, sweet butter and black bean hummus that they bring to the table. I ended up having a chicken philly sandwich, with hand-cut french fries, BF and T had burgers, and the birthday boy had some sort of seafood dish. We were all very impressed by the quality and presentation of the food. The bill ended up coming to around $110, which T and I split.

We then headed out for the usual Thursday night festivities, where I had a few more drinks that I didn’t have to pay for – BF bought at least one, T bought me one, and I think another friend of ours might have bought me another. All in all, it was an expensive, but very enjoyable evening. I would so much rather spend that kind of money on interesting food, shared with good people, then on mediocre food eaten out of necessity.

Yum! April 29, 2008

Today is Free Scoop Day at Ben & Jerry’s – one of my co-workers and I just walked over (in the pouring rain!) and got our free cones. I felt pretty bad for the workers – they looked rather miserable as they endlessly scooped ice cream.