Project: Food Budget, Week #6

That is me looking at my grocery receipts and thinking, "Hmmmm. What the ?#@* happened?" Last week turned into a blizzard and we did a lot of grazing. I also baked a lot of unexpected goodies since the temps were well below freezing. Nothing like an arctic blast to get me to fire up the oven. I cooked almost none of my meals last week so am adding them back into this week's rotation to hopefully help me stay under budget. Also, taco night leftovers ended up lasting through 3 meals. Crazy!



My 7 main meals:

• Spaghetti w/ salad
  
• Black bean tacos and guacamole (we pretty much have this every week)
  
• Gardein pizza (made w/ this crust, and I'll be trying Daiya cheese this week)
  
• Grit "chicken" salad sandwiches
  
• Tempeh stir fry
  
• Chick pea curry w/ Basmati rice
  
• Beans, cornbread and collards
  

Extras (I have all the ingredients for this stuff so don't have to buy anything new except fruit):

Breakfast:

• Banana nut bread
  
• Raisin bran
  
• Sunday pancakes
  
• Tofu scramble / tempeh + bean sausage
  
• Oat or potato bread
  Lunch:
  
• Baked potatoes
  
• Balsamic tomato couscous and veggies
  
• Fajitas
  
• Amy's Minestrone
  
• Batch of chili (freeze some)
  
• Lentil soup (freeze some)
  
• Tomato soup / zucchini rice
  Snacks:
  
• Peanut butter and jelly
  
• Dressed up ramen
  
• Zucchini Brownies
  
• Green Chile Hummus w/ pita chips
  
• Fresh fruit
  

What I bought:

Coffee                  9.99
Peas                    5.99
Tortilla Chips          3.29
Flour Tortillas         2.99
Vegetarian Chili        9.99
Veggie Patties         11.79
Sugar                   8.89
Avocados                4.99
Daiya Cheddar           3.49
Daiya Mozzarella        3.49
Fire Roasted Tomatoes   1.39
Zucchini                1.01
Potatoes                1.99
Snapea Crisps           1.69
Powdered Sugar          3.29
Ghost Pepper Salsa      2.50
Hemp Milk               2.99
Hazelnut Milk           2.99
Habanero Salsa          1.99
Sour Cream for the Men  1.66
Orzo                    1.99
Eden Shake (Furikake)   5.99
Ghirardelli Chips       2.49
Bananas                 1.10 
Napa Cabbage            2.00
Radishes                 .83
Cilantro                 .68
----------------------------------------
Total                 101.48
Minus Gift Card       -26.99
----------------------------------------
                       74.49

Splurges

Okay, I just have to say that a good deal of the $101.48 I spent was on splurgy stuff. Not just your run-of-the-mill splurges, either. I got a $50 Christmas gift card to Central Market from my kid and spent $26.99 on stuff like the Eden Shake (which I have been lusting after for years but couldn't bring myself to buy because it's $6 for some damn seaweed and sesame seeds). I also got hemp milk and hazelnut milk since I'm trying to find a coffee creamer replacement. I got the new salsa from Mrs. Renfro's (Ghost Pepper -- YOWEE!) and some more habanero salsa, etc. So, I'm going to take that off my total since those things I consider gifts and not money that comes from my grocery budget.

The real splurge that I could kick myself for on here is the vegetarian chili. It's fresh (not canned) and is quite a lot of chili, but now that I look at it -- $10??? -- what was I thinking? I guess I just wanted to try it and when I see vegan stuff that doesn't have a lot of funky, overly processed stuff in it at a mainstream store, I want to support those efforts. Still, I could have made about 10 times that amount of chili for the same money. To top it off, when boyfriend was going to put some one of the containers in the freezer, he dropped it and about half of it went on the floor. Oops.

Bottom Line

If it hadn't been for the gift card, I would have gone over my budget of $75. Although, maybe not. I don't think I would have purchased such extravagant items with my hard-earned cash. Gifts are supposed to be just that and I wanted to get some special items at this store that I love. Still, spending $74.49 is just too much when this week was just a repeat of last week's meals that I didn't even end up cooking. Next week, I've got to do better instead of just filling up all the empty space between what I really need and what I've allotted to spend.

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This entry is part of Project: Food Budget. (Join here!) Check out how the entire crew is doing:

• Emily Levenson
  
• Maria Marz
  
• Veggie Converter
  
• Low Budge Veg
  
• Dairy-Free Cooking
  
• Beauty, Fitness, and Health…Oh My!
  
• Motor City Girl In the Steel City
  
• Veggie Burgher
  
• Baked Beans and Broccoli…Vegetarian Budgeting
  
• Sweet Rehab
  
• The Happy Cactus
  
• The Vegetarian Salmon
  
• Test Kitchen Tuesday
  
• Newly Vegan
  
• Always Sick and Tired
  
• Veggie on the Cheap