Welcome back to my series about living on a food stamp budget of just $29 per week.
It is a challenge I have taken upon myself to see how my mindset towards food changes when I can only have so much.
I have learned that I now use half of things, such as half a banana. This is something I would not to if I did not limit myself to such a tight food budget. Nope, I would have just gobbled up the whole banana without a second thought.
Luckily, careful stewardship of the first week's food supply has created a large surplus. I now have much more ingredients to create a larger variety of meals.
Of course, I will try to keep them relatively healthy. It would not be much of a challenge to eat just Ramen noodles and a multivitamin.
So let's dig in!
WEEK 2 DAY 1 BREAKFAST - $0.30
Peanut butter sandwich, with half a banana, and some cold soaked oatmeal.
LUNCH - $0.75
Leftover bacon carbonara pasta with a strawberry and 3 cookies.
DINNER - $1.34
I made a nice tomato sauce pasta. It includes mushrooms, onions, diced tomatoes, garlic, and chorizo meat. It cost me $1.87, but it is two portions.
To this, I added a cup and a half of pasta, two pieces of margarine covered bread, and a strawberry.
WEEK 2 DAY 2 BREAKFAST - $0.55
When I was making the pasta last night, I also cooked some brown rice.
In the morning I cooked a slice of bacon, dropped in the rice, and cracked two eggs. I made an egg fried rice and bacon breakfast! Yum, it really filled me up for the day ahead.
LUNCH - $1.22
The other portion of the pasta dinner, plus three cookies.
DINNER - $1.88
I didn't feel like cooking much, so I made a nice spinach salad. It includes a sliced tomato, toasted bread croutons, albacore tuna, and an avocado & oil dressing.
I also sliced up three potatoes and made french fries in my T-fal Actifry! They looked, and tasted, amazing. Plus I had some sriracha ketchup to dip them into.
The actifry makes such great fries, I was so lucky to find one in the thrift store! If you like fries, think about getting one of these. It uses just a tablespoon of oil to make a whole batch of'em!
CONCLUSION
Day 1 total: $2.39
Day 2 total: $3.65
I am really happy to start off this week with so much! I think I was always worried about running out of food, so I held back. Now I know that my 'held-back' is where I should be normally. This food stamp budget challenge is really going to help me out financially going forward. Yes, after I finish the challenge, I will increase my food budget but I know it will be lower than before.
So food savings will turn into investments which will be out there working to help propel me into financial freedom.
If you know you are spending too much on food, think about trying this challenge of living off of $29 per week per person.