March 2012 – That's Just Me

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: March Month 5 / Week 4

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $78.70

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

March – Month Five, Week Four

This week, I’ve spent $78.70, with a monthly total of $357.15. That leaves $42.85 for the rest of March.

Did well this week; I’m planning on holding off my next big shopping trip until Sunday, April 1st. In the meantime, will need to get a couple of small items, like farm eggs, and perhaps some oranges, but I really hope to end March under budget.

Dining Out: $0
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $9.21
Groceries: $69.49

Spending Details

Mahoney’s Garden Center $9.21: (gardening) Snap peas, shell peas, beets seeds and big bag o’ lobster compost. Cost was $14.91 but I had store reward points for $5.70

Whole Foods Grocery $43.53: frozen organic fillo dough, 3 bags of quinoa (WF coupons), (2) chocolate bars, tub o’ plain yogurt, (2) local fresh ricotta (sale! ricotta freezes wonderfully), bulk dates, salsa, asparagus, organic fuji apples, organic rainbow chard, (3) mangoes, organic kiwi

Market Basket $25.96: Applegate Farms chicken breast (something different for lunch), bag o’ oranges, (4) grapefruit, bananas, (3) Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat flour (stockup sale $4 ea)

Amazon Subscribe & Save: FREE! Wild Planet tuna (See my recent post for details)

Week of Meals

Thursday: Almond butter & jelly sandwich
Friday: Crockpot whole chicken with barley and cole slaw
Saturday: Leftover chicken with barley topped with fresh ricotta
Sunday: Chicken veg stock with brown rice and frozen veggies
Monday: Fried egg sandwich with side of asparagus
Tuesday: Pasta with tomato and feta
Wednesday: Leftover frozen braised beef chuck with white rice & frozen green peas

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget! We’ve got one new blog this week!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

Amazon.com Rocks!

I’ve been a big fan of Amazon.com for a long time. Great products, great prices, and super customer service!

They proved how wonderful they really are the other day when I had an issue with one of my orders.

I went online to check my “Subcribe & Save” order that will ship soon, and I noticed that they reduced my gift card balance instead of charging my credit card. I planned to save that credit for something special, and when I couldn’t change the payment method, I contacted them using the “chat” option.

Long story short, she couldn’t change the payment method either, so she suggested I cancel the order, and re-order, but since the product (Wild Planet tuna) was out of stock, I didn’t want to cancel for fear of losing the whole order. No problem, I figured that I’d keep it as is.

So, I receive a “feedback” email, which I completed. At the end of the survey, there was an option to speak to someone else per phone, so I figured sure, it couldn’t hurt.

Another long story short (haha) I spoke to someone and they couldn’t change it either, but they ended up offering me two options, #1 speak to billing where they could possibly change it, or #2 accept an additional $15 account credit for “my trouble” – YES PLEASE! I took the credit.

So, my tuna order ended up being free! Amazon.com is the best! Looooove them!

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: March Month 5 / Week 3

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $43.88

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

March – Month Five, Week Three

This week, I’ve spent $43.88, with a monthly total of $278.45. That leaves $121.55 for the rest of March.

Spent a lot more for “dining out” than I usually do, but we’ve been having a rough few months, and my DH and I needed some comfort/TLC foods!

I’m on schedule for a bigger shopping trek on Friday/Saturday, and that could possibly carry us through until April. I’m shooting for being under budget, but we’ll have to see how it goes.

Speaking of a rough few months, budgeting is even more important now, as we might have a change in employment very soon. I’m hoping that I will be prepared for whatever life gives us.

Spending Details

Dining Out: $33.87 – take out subs & lunch at Chipotle Grill
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $0
Groceries: $10.01

Ocean State Job Lots (Sat, 3/17) $2.50: cheap Balsamic Vinegar

Whole Foods Market (Sun, 3/18) $7.51: 2lb bag o’ organic carrots, organic apples, bananas, organic cabbage

Week of Meals

I’ve been having a really difficult time coming up with meal ideas lately. I think it’s just that there’s not a whole heck of a lot of food in season, so I’m getting bored and I’m really looking forward to the spring. I’ve been craving asparagus and spring onions!!!!

Thursday: take out meatball subs
Friday: Bulgar topped with fried egg
Saturday: Pasta with tomato celery sauce
Sunday: Roasted chicken legs with spicy carrot ginger soup
Monday: Feta calzone with a fried egg
Tuesday: Wholegrain pancakes
Wednesday: Crockpot lentil soup with leftover frozen pork shoulder

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: March Month 5 / Week 2

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $62.04

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and spices/herbs.

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

March – Month Five, Week Two

This week, I’ve spent $62.04, with a monthly total of $234.57, so that leaves $165.43 for the rest of March.

Dining Out: $10.57
Gardening: $0
Groceries: $51.47

I did really well this week!

My last big shopping trip was Sunday, March 4th, and I was able to hold out for 10 days until March 14 (Wed) until I needed to shop again (not counting a small stop at Market Basket on 3/9.)

There isn’t much I need on sale at Whole Foods this week, so I’m hoping it will be easy to hold out until the weekend of March 23 for the next big shopping trek. We’ll see.

Spending Details

Market Basket (3/9 Fri) $7.25: bag of onions, grapefruit, and Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat flour

Penzey’s Spices (3/14 Wed) $5.89: had 2 coupons: $5 off $10 purchase & free large bottle of cinnamon sugar. With the $5 off, I got a great deal on 8 oz bag o’ sesame seeds & 16 oz bag o’ poppy seeds. I’ll give away the cinnamon/sugar. For anyone with a Penzey’s nearby, make sure you go on their mailing list. They mail catalogs with coupons for a lot of free stuff! You can also use the coupons for their online store, but you will have to pay shipping charges.

Trader Joe’s (3/14, Wed) $38.33: I saved $5 on my $40+ order with MyLinkables.com rewards. Bought frozen organic raspberries, frozen pesticide free blueberries, frozen petite peas, frozen organic vegetable foursome, 5 bananas, 5 lb bag o’ pink grapefruit, 4 lb bag o’ Cara Cara oranges, Feta cheese, organic plain yogurt tub, raw almond butter, organic raisins, pecan halves, shelled pistachios.

Week of Meals

Thursday: Caraway coconut Pancakes
Friday: Take out subs at Subway – had $2 MyLinkables discount
Saturday: Clam chowder with onions, potatoes, carrots, celery and cream
Sunday: Homemade whole wheat pizza with fire roasted tomatoes, roasted red peppers, olives, smoked mozzarella, and Pecorino
Monday: dinner at parents’ – take out Chinese
Tuesday: Pasta with tomato veg sauce (made with leftover frozen braised beef chuck)
Wednesday: Soup made from leftover tomato sauce with added veg stock & green beans along with a side feta cheese sandwich

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: March Month 5 / Week 1

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $172.53

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

March – Month Five, Week One

Wow, I can’t believe I’m already in month 5, time flies!

This week, I went a little crazy on replenishing my pantry. I spent a total of $172.53, leaving $227.47 for the rest of the month.

Dining Out: $24.00 (Chinese Lunch Buffet – DH was in the mood)
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $6.11
Groceries: $142.42
Herbs & Spices: $0

March is tough because there are 5 long weeks. So, I’m hoping to divide the remaining four weeks into just 3 more shopping trips at $75 each.

I think I can do it, but if not, I will not repeat January’s rigidity. If I need another $20 (or $50) more, I’ll adjust & add to my budget total, but ONLY if I really need it.

Spending Details

Market Basket (Thurs 3/1) $21.57: (5) Pomi tomatoes (sale! $1.50 each), California olive oil (sale! $6.99 for 24.5 oz bottle), canned salmon, organic peanut butter.

Local Farm (Thurs 3/1) $6.50: (2) jumbo eggs

Amazon Subscribe & Save – $30.61: Grade B Vermont maple syrup & 6pk Wild Planet tuna

Ocean State Job Lot (Sat 3/3) $21.62: Gardening starter pellets & pots, Bob’s Red Mill barley & bulgar, (3) Dececco pastas ($1.65 ea), (2) Bar Harbor canned clams ($2.39 ea)

Market Basket (Sun 3/4) $.33: returned/refunded shell-on pistachios, purchased bag o’ oranges, bananas & grapefruit

Whole Foods (Sun, 3/4) $67.89: Great deals! I am so proud of the deals I found this week, I had to take a photo!

(click for larger version)

Spectrum x-virgin coconut oil – bought two on sale 7.99/ea, I had two WF coupons for $1 off, stacked with one $2 manufacturer’s coupon (thanks Kait), so total price was $10 for both!
Muir Glen 28oz canned organic tomatoes – Sale $2 ea, had 4 coupons $1 off 2, bought 8. Price netted to $1.50 each
365 brand 1 lb bags of beans & rice: used (9) $1 off WF coupons, net prices = (3) organic green lentils $1.39 ea, organic cannellini beans $1.99, organic red lentils $1.79, organic pinto beans $1.29, organic red kidney beans $1.29, organic garbanzo beans $1.79, & calrose rice $1.99
(2) jars of Earth Balance Mindful Mayo – I had a raincheck for 2 at prior sale price of $2.99, less $1 WF coupons = $1.99 each
Plus: bag o’ almonds, raisins, lemon, lime, organic red kale, 5lb bag o’ organic carrots, organic celery, (2) avocados, organic pears, organic apples and olives from bar

Week of Meals

Thursday: Leftover frozen chicken with leftover tomato veggie bean soup & barley, topped with pecorino
Friday: Coconut Caraway Pancakes made with corn flour, rice flour and whole wheat flour
Saturday: Tuna/bean sandwiches
Sunday: Barley topped with pecorino & fried egg with a side of spicy creamy carrot celery soup
Monday: Tomato chili with carrots, kale & beans, using a little bit of leftover spicy carrot cream soup, topped over little shell pasta with pecorino
Tuesday: Slow cooker (whole) chicken with bulgar & frozen green beans
Wednesday: Chicken Veggie Brown Rice soup made with homemade stock from veggie scraps (freezer) and chicken bones.

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

Connecticut Farmer & Feast Book Review

I found the Connecticut Farmer & Feast: Harvesting Local Bounty book at the library, and took a few weeks to read it.

The book opens with an introduction and I was saddened & shocked to learn that Connecticut’s farmland is disappearing at an unbelievable and alarming rate of 8000 acres a year! The author, Emily Brooks, states that it is one of the fastest in the country! In less than 20 years, CT has lost 21% of their farmland; residential and commercial building is taking over.

She also states that farms require less than 50 cents in town services for every dollar they generate in local taxes while residential development costs towns more than 1 dollar for every dollar of revenue generated.

That statement puzzled and intrigued me, so I did some research. With the cost of schools/education, police/fire, road maintenance, towns that have a choice to purchase & save open space vs allow commercial/residential development, are much better off in the long run choosing to save the open space. Real estate taxes go up for everyone to recoup the cost of more children attending schools.

Here is a great link I found while searching:
http://www.greatswamp.org/Education/anjec.htm

When I think about it though, we can’t blame the farmers for selling out to developers. The local farmer is overworked and vastly under-appreciated.

That’s why this book is so important. It shines the well-deserved light onto local Connecticut farmers.

The book is divided by county. Each farm is highlighted with a few pages, including their location info and a full description/interview with several photos.

There are many different types of farms including many that grow vegetables, several that raise animals, and some even operate a fishing/shellfish business.

I was amazed that there were also a few maple syrup producers, although the book states that only tenth of % of all maple trees in Connecticut are actually tapped for their syrup.

This is not necessarily a cookbook although there are lovely recipes using some ingredients that the highlighted farm sells. It’s more like a history book with stories from each farm with photos so you can really see each farmer and the land they work.

Some stories are heart warming and some are heart breaking. For instance, the owners of Futtner’s Family Farm (3 generations) are going through financial problems due to health issues. They are drowning in medical bills. Theirs is a sad but hopeful story of family and deep love for each other and farming.

I wish we lived just a little closer to Connecticut and some of these marvelous farms.

It’s exciting that the author is currently writing a ” target=”_blank”>similar book for NYC. I really hope she considers a Massachusetts version in the future! It’s something that could be a fantastic reference for every state!

If you live nearby to Connecticut, I recommend finding a copy of the Connecticut Farmer & Feast: Harvesting Local Bounty book, even if it’s from the local library. It’s a great resource to learn more about specifically where your food comes from!

Disclaimer:
I love reading cookbooks, like some people love reading novels! I am inspired by recipes, and enjoy learning ideas from cookbooks, which means I’d rather put my own spin on a recipe than follow it exactly. Please keep in mind that my opinions might be completely different from the other home cooks.

Hamburger Helper Stuffed Bellies

Just saw a TV commercial for Hamburger Helper.

The family is together, sitting at the dinner table and the dad is stuffed so he leans back and pats his belly, full to the brim.

He looks at his young daughter, they smile at each other and she imitates him, patting her belly as well. Camera pans out to show everyone is happy and laughing as they all pat their full bellies after dinner.

Their tagline: “Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni – now even cheesier and tastier.”

So that’s the message of Big Food! Inspiring families to eat meals together, but eat until bellies are stuffed or better yet, over-stuffed!

Sigh

And THAT, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with our dysfunctional eating habits. We don’t stop eating BEFORE we get to the point of busting our bellies! Our brains are broken, not connecting with our bellies to tell us to stop eating.

The bigger problem is, overly-processed foods like Hamburger Helper are never going to satiate us, so we have to keep eating, and eating, and eating, until it’s too late and our bellies are beyond stuffed.

So, good ole Betty Crocker is taking advantage of our dysfunction by feeding us more of their processed crap, that tastes really, really good, but doesn’t do anything to really NOURISH us.

Stuffing your belly, until it hurts, with white pasta drowned in dried cheeses is not healthy, even if mom makes it at home, and all family members eat it together at the dinner table!

Just in case you were wondering, here is the list of ingredients for Hamburger Cheeseburger Macaroni. It’s funny, in comparison to their older ingredients (found online), they weren’t lying when they said it was now “cheesier” – they’ve added a lot of dried cheeses:

Enriched Macaroni, Corn Starch, Salt, Enriched flour, Sugar, Dried Ricotta cheese, Dried Tomato, MSG, Natural flavor, Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Modified Corn Starch, Paprika, Spice, Colors (Yellow Lake 5&6 and Yellow 5&6), Monoglycerides, Dried Cheddar Cheese, Dried Cheddar cheese, Dried Whey, Dried Buttermilk, Dried Blue cheese, Enzyme modified blue cheese, Silicon Dioxide, Sodium Phosphate, Enzyme modified cheddar cheese

Pink Fuel For the Cure From Connecticut’s Standard Oil

Okay, it’s bad enough that Yoplait has a pink ribbon campaign, but I was shocked to see a Connecticut oil company started promoting “Fuel For the Cure” with a pink oil truck.

Come on!

From Standard Oil’s web site:

Standard Oil has pledged $3 for every delivery The Pink Truck makes for the next 12 months. It is our plan to make somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 deliveries with The Pink Truck and make a donation of approximately $20,000

Hmm, why is it that companies can’t just make a freakin’ donation if they believe in the cause so much? No, they need to drum up sales first, then make a donation. It’s sickening.

And more importantly, how do we really know for sure that the oil refineries aren’t ultimately causing breast cancer?

Yeah, it looks like it has a hand in causing certain blood cancers, along with damaging our kidneys, liver, nervous system and causing blood pressure and blood clotting issues. And if that’s not enough, it’s poisoning our environment.

So, keep up the good work, Standard Oil.

And add one more “pink ribbon” fiasco to the Susan G. Komen organization. Maybe someday you’ll actually find a CURE for cancer with all that money that floats your way! Nah, I doubt it.

Links:
http://jezebel.com/5840564/the-breast-cancer-charity-scam

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: February – End of Month 4

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $75.82

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

February – Month Four, Week Four (End of Month)

This week, I’ve spent $75.82, for a grand monthly total of $397.43. Whoo hoo, kept it under my $400 budget. Love it!

Here’s how the whole month broke down:

Dining Out: $48.00
Entertaining: $0
Groceries: $349.43
Herbs & Spices: $0

Weekly Shopping Details

Market Basket (Sat, 2/25) $9.27: Bag of 12 navel oranges, mushrooms, (2) Pomi tomatoes

Pomi tomatoes were on sale this week at MB @1.50 each. I’ll be heading back before the sale is over to stock up! Plus Whole Foods Market is also having a sale on Muir Glen tomatoes for $2 each. I have 4 coupons for $1 off 2 so that’ll also end up as $1.50 each.

Whole Foods Market (Sat, 2/25) $63.22: Organic kale, broccoli crowns, 5 lb bag o’ organic carrots, lots of red grapefruit (sale), organic apples, organic pears, bananas, organic celery, organic celery root, (2) Dececco Orecchiette pasta (love this), large Wallaby plain yogurt, Organic Valley half/half creamer quart, 365 organic unsalted butter, bulk raisins, bulk walnuts, bulk sucanat, (2) Newman’s Own chocolate bars, Crofters organic preserves.

Coupons used for the half & half creamer. Grapefruit was on sale for .69/lb and I think I’m addicted to Newman’s Own Espresso chocolate now. sigh, the problem is, it’s not 70%, it’s like 64%…not as healthy, but I love it.

Week of Meals

Thursday: Leftover freezer bacon lentil carrot soup
Friday: Frozen leftover beef made into beef veggie soup with lentils & white rice
Saturday: Bulgar with pecorino, topped with fried egg
Sunday: Beefalo (local) burger sandwiches with roasted cabbage & carrots, with mushrooms (homemade whole-grain bread)
Monday: Loosely followed the upside down pizza recipe, but made with leftover (freezer) cubed chicken, leftover roasted cabbage & carrots, leftover mushrooms, pecorino cheese topped with pancake batter.
Tuesday: Tomato veg soup with celery, carrots, kale, pinto beans, little pasta shells, topped over crumbled leftover beefalo burgers
Wednesday: Roasted potatoes, onions, sweet potato topped with fried egg with a side of broccoli

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week: