It was a very interesting week. Although I did not get to record my thoughts, I have made several mental notes to share. I took on this challenge along with my college bound daughter.
We both learned alot. I was able to do my shopping and spent a bit over $25 so had to give back the peanuts and romaine lettuce. I of course then craved these all week long. I allowed my daughter $5 for each of her 2 events to attend during the week. We packed our lunches had turkey or cheese sandwiches and alternated with peanut butter banana. We were able to eat apples , celery and carrots to help us feel full. I tried to use only whole grain products to also keep that full feeling. It seems that I ate more carbs then usual and the scale showed this.
I had my usual egg every morning which always help to keep me full. I did have milk, however since my daughter is a big milk drinker , I did not drink any to make sure she had enough.
I also had gotten plenty of cereal and oatmeal and this would certainly carry over to the next week. Variety was missing. I did manage to include some pizza crusts to make and sauce, however it would only include the cheese that was left. My daughter thought this was great for the week end as she was on her own to make this and eat the leftovers of fried rice and tuna salad. It was very apparent that being, planful, resourceful and educating yourself would be important to meet this challenge week after week to maintain your nutritional needs etc.

The three "free" meals I had this week really helped. I will have enough food to get through the week-end. I do miss an ability to snack at leisure although this is probably a good thing! My husband brought home chips from the store that were on sale 2 for 1. I made him put them in his car so I won't be tempted. Instead I at my cucumber and enjoyed the "crunch". Variety is more of a challenge, six chicken meals in one week is a bit much. Today I am having peanut butter toast for lunch, egg salad sandwich for lunch and chicken fried rice and lettuce salad for dinner. I just cheated though, I had a glass of milk and that was not a part of my original grocery budget. It is harder to do this when the food is actually right there. I have noticed a tinge of hunger a lot of the time, perhaps this causes a bit of "irritability". I have eaten more bread this week than in the past month. For the weekend; it will be tuna pasta salad and grilled chicken and potato salad, no more veggies left but what a lot of carbs! I have one apple left, that will be a dessert at some time. Tomorrow I will be working with our church's once per month Harvest House food distribution program. For $15 people can receive near expiration food items that includes produce and bread. It is a great deal and I have a greater appreciation of the value of this program in light of this experience.

I have realized that this might not have been the best week for me to do this challenge, but I want to do it at some point! Possibly next week. I had a fair amount of left-overs from the past weekend, that lasted me until yesterday (Thursday), in addition to three free meals this week. Besides that, I have been living off of toast with peanut butter for breakfast with a glass of orange juice and water for the rest of the day.

I have been think a lot about this challenge, and after hearing people's experiences, I have come to the conclusion that there should be more foods that are considered "condiments" for this challenge. Foods such as Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Bread. Feeding just me, it would take me 2-4 weeks to go through peanut butter and jelly, if I have a half sandwich everyday for lunch, and about 2-3 weeks to go through a loaf of bread. This means that I would only really be spending money on these items once or twice a month, rather than once a week. This would allow for more creative breakfast or dinner options, or more of a variety of other foods for snacks along with lunch/dinner for $25. I understand that these items must be purchased at some point, but they would be part of a rotation, more so than just buying them all at once for one week.

This though, does not allow for much variety or provide optimal nutritional value--to eat PB & J's everyday...even though they are very yummy! I am learning that it takes a lot of creativity, and paying a lot of attention to deals at the grocery store to be able to put together a healthy diet. Even more creativity for those feeding a whole family!

Busted!

I've been away, so just catching up. It is hard for us all. It truly has been educational. I did grocery shop on Monday and I was not very creative. I was able to get organic lettuce but washed the cucumber and tomatoes in a wash. I also bought a can of mandarin oranges to add to a salad I put together for a potluck on monday night. Lucky too, because most of the food there was off limits for me. I did get some watermelon there though and there was left over salad to take back home (I was hoping for that)! I bought smuckers organic PB, a loaf of Arnolds bread (on sale!), 4 chicken thighs, a lb of ground turkey, a bag of peas. I think that was it! I drink only water. Wed we went out of town, I packed 2 pb sandwiches for lunches. I made my husband pay for my meal and ate my leftovers for breakfast thursday. I hope that was not cheating! I did bust my budget thougth last night, I met my sister in Duluth and took her out for coffee (she is one of those living off of less than $25 a week! WE met to do her budget!!) . This weekend I attend a grad party out of town, so there will be free food and I will have to pack PB sandwich for Sunday breakfast! Thanks for this experience. I talked with a mom on food program this am and she is managing to do an organic diet for her ADHD kids. She shops at Cub and somehow receives $600 a month for food. She aims to get her kids of Ritalin through diet. Good for her!

Grocery shopping went well, ... until I got to the checkout and it rang up to $29.87 and my budget was $24.00 (even though I used a calculator - I forgot to put a few items down). So when I got home, I took out items from the grocery bags to get down to $24 worth of food. For protein I bought 2 cans of tuna and 6 frozen chicken breasts, 1 dozen eggs and a small jar of peanut butter. For grains I bought bread (yucky white and not the usual spendy Healthy Choice), rice and macaroni shells. For produce I bought 5 apples, 1 cukumber, 4 ears of corn, 3 heads of romaine lettuce and a bag of matchstix carrots. Also a 5# bag of russet potatoes. What I had to give up was a loaf of bread, half of the macaroni, an onion, an apple, a jar of jam and 4 ears of corn.
My menus for the week will include; chicken, potatoes, corn and lettuce salad (3 times), tuna pasta salad (4 times), grilled chicken with potato salad, homemade potato soup if I can figure out a way to make it without milk, chicken, rice and carrot stir fry (2 times), egg salad, tuna salad and peanut butter sandwiches, apples - one every other day. My beverage choices include water and ice water!
Interestingly enough, there are three opportunities to eat at work this week; in one staff brought a "healthy pot luck" and "ALL" were invited, the other are two workshops in which a light meal is provided. YES I will take advantage of them, but I realize that someone living on this type of a food budget may not have even opportunities that would be provided through their job such as a workshop to attend.

I've already come to a lesson in all of this and I think my husband has too. We did have to add cereal into our expenses today and one fruit leather (for our son's breakfast and lunch) but since I haven't used all my money I figure it should even out. I really feel that it is tough not to use what is in stock - of course not everyone has what I have in my cupboards, but I would imagine that most housed individuals have something in their cupboards from day to day/ week to week - even if minimal. I am keenly aware of the lack of variety that I spoke of yesterday. And what a shame for those children who aren't able to experience a variety of foods... and in our education to the public we talk about, not only the experience of variety, but of allowing control to children through choices. It is difficult to provide choices if there aren't many choices to provide. I know that my approach will be a bit more thoughtful and consciencous when educating families on these matters. And how easy it is to give recipes saying "just try it" when a person doesn't have the time to try it or the know how to read and understand a recipe. It isn't as easy for everyone to read a recipe as those of us who can - think it should be. I do feel that if you can learn some of those basic cooking skills it would assist in making a larger variety of healthy choices on a minimal income - bread making for instance isn't something many people do (and I admit, I use a bread machine) but the ingredients don't cost much in bulk and they last for quite a while... bread is expensive otherwise. I was fortunate to have lunch provided to me today at a presentation I did - I found that I didn't use my mayo packets for my sandwich and will bring them home and make chicken salad for tomorrow's lunch (as mayo was my only missing ingredient and it isn't in my weekly budget) - my mother-in-law would be proud (as she is a saver and a user of anything)!

Well, I am going to the grocery store after work to buy my food for the week. Since I had to borrow from my home stock for today's breakfast and lunch I will need to subtract $1 from my total. I had two buns with cheese - one for breakfast and one for lunch. There was a stale cookie at work I ate and someone gave me a can of diet coke. Now I am going shopping while hungry, not a good plan. I am going to drink alot of water to feel full before I go.
My husband wants to know what the point is since we can go back to eating normal after one week. I hope there really will be a "point" to this, an awareness, an empathy and perhaps something that will change me forever. We are having a "healthy potluck" at work tomorrow. I am not sure if I can afford to bring/make anything out of the $24 I have to spend on my food for the week. These are choices many people make every day.