Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Runaway Shopping Cart

Day 1, Living Like We're On Food Stamps
Breakfast started late, so I made a quick pad thai, Karl had coffee and I had iced mint green tea. 
Total cost: $1.75

Then we went to Costco.  The experiment was declared dead all of four minutes later. One of our staples was on sale, so we loaded up. A third of the month's food budget was gone. We celebrated by going to Burgers and Brats - I had a veggie burger with onion rings, Karl had the Road Rage Burger with fries. We both had iced teas.
Total cost: $23.46

After my nap, I had a small ramekin of greek yogurt with a bit of blueberry jam and a glass of my iced mint green tea.
Total cost: 50cents.

Dinner was chipotle honey braised chicken with cheesy rice.
Total cost: $5.50.

What I decided to do instead was to create one chart for our monthly expenditures and another for what exactly I'm buying at the grocery store. The second chart also tracked what got used up, and what got tossed. These charts are kept on the front of the refrigerator.

This system has totally worked. 12 days into the month and I have already been shamed into eating out much much less. Our household had collectively eaten out more times than days had gone by for the month. Unfortunately, Jane and Coco cannot be included in the math. If they were, I so would have had Thai food today.