Part of the community’s goals and the reason for this mission are listed here for easy understanding so that everyone can get an idea of the task we have carried out here.
Goals are;
To research and become conversant with the price of daily commodities
Find out ways to reduce our daily expenses.
Teaching others how to save money on daily expenses
You can learn more about these details by following the community link and this particular blog.
Working closely with the community name and logo/theme, we are equally learning how to earn income online (part of which is via blogging on #hiveblockchain), how to live a how to live a frugal lifestyle, how to spend what is earned wisely, and most importantly, how to share with others, hence the name of the community, #earnspendgive.
The mission for the month of May entrusted to us will hence be circled around all of these collective goals. There will be some research and spending, including sharing with indigent friends from our community.
Hence, the funds for the month of May were released to be $60HBD, which was traded to our local currency here, with that commerce, the mission.
It was privileged to work with two other hivers from the community, 
In order to simplify the bulk of the task, we divided it into three separate missions.
Research on the price of a valuable commodity
Carry out a practical on how to prepare a budget-friendly yet nutritious meal with the lowest amount of finance possible as a sample to see how possible it can be for indigent people to emulate such and prepare healthy meals for their families on a low budget.
Distributing at least one square meal to privileged families
In the same manner that the mission was split, the sum of money released for the mission was equally split to meet each purpose. While all the other physical tasks for the mission are now complete, we are starting the blogs by sharing how we prepared some budget-friendly meals, which is the second part of the mission.
Every other task is completed and is awaiting to be documented here.
Myself and
It should be noted that people in this part of the world consume mainly grains and more energy-rich carbohydrates, but preparing a healthy and nutritious meal would mean that we would go beyond preparing what people need to eat to fill their bellies, but something healthy and nutritious.
If you are preparing a rice meal, what other nutrients can you purchase to make a healthy meal while all this must be done on a low budget?
We both took equal amounts of money for the task at 6k naira each and experimented with cooking some healthy meals. The task is to choose a healthy grain, prepare it with the least budget, and make it as nutritious as possible. The meal can be eaten by our friends and/or neighbors with feedback.
If I were to prepare some corn flour meals or semovita, then I would most likely be making both soups and what else I could eat with corn flour.
I chose to cook beans, which are both rich in protein, and with a few other ingredients, you can make a palatable lunch.
Yesterday was a resting day and a good time when I usually have my family gather around after church service; hence, I decided to experiment with cooking for at least 10 people with this budget.
After making a shopping list here, I went to the market to get these items. From the first list above, I had exceeded the budget of 6k naira since the initial plan was to prepare 14 milk tins of beans, which is roughly equivalent to 3kg of beans. My home is usually crowded, and even after choosing to cook for a certain number of people, I often get emergency visitors coming around who wouldn’t mind a plate of food if it was available.
In a bid to bring down the budget, I made this second list above as you can see and this is just how much I can cut down on prices. All of the ingredients written here were exhausted except for the salt and palm oil, which are 1 liter and above what we needed. This is not a waste and will be used for subsequent cooking at home.
A little challenge I had with purchasing the main ingredient, which is beans, was that it’s expensive. The prices of beans differ both online, in shopping malls, and in the local market.
The red-grain beans here are sold for 2700 naira, while the white-grain seeds are sold for 2400 naira. I know of their differences in taste, and the red grain seed tastes better, but I can’t say if the nutrients differ enough to have created this difference in prices. Although a lot of people have preference of one to the other.
Purchasing the white grain seed will cost me 4800 naira for 14 cups, while the red grain will cost as much as 5400 naira. Mostly for measurements, we often use the milk tin, but following Google guidelines, you can see the equivalent of the milk tin measurements in kg here.
From the price list, it is evident that the white beans are cheaper paradvebture they provide some quality protein.
To add a bit of carbohydrates to our meals, I did purchase some plantains here, and at this time, 7 pieces of medium-sized plantains cost 1k naira. I hope you know that plantains belong to the carbohydrate class, even though they contain other classes of food based on the type of plantain.
We wouldn’t need more protein for our food since we are making a protein meal; hence, I just got a few eggs to use as dressing for our meals.
My little niece and joy giver here wouldn’t stay off the kitchen and keep asking me when my food would be ready.
Cooking beans isn’t a complicated recipe; after boiling the beans, just add up your spices and basic ingredients, and that’s all.
One can also choose to eat their beans with soup or stew or by first frying the oil and pepper together before adding them to the boiling beans.
Cooking is complete here, and everyone gathered around a dining table (it’s a dining floor we have here and not a table) to enjoy their meals.
And like I said, I had about 12 people who fed on the cooked beans. Myself and other siblings and nephews. Even though I had worked thoroughly around the budget, I ended up spending an extra 2050 naira because of the number of people who ate the meal.
Cooking for a smaller number would mean that the price of beans would be reduced according to the number of people eating the meal. If 11 cups of beans can cook food for at least 12 people, including our little ones here, a lesser number of beans can be cooked for a lesser number of people to cut down on this relative price.
The one aspect this blog didn't cover is the calories need for individual and the calculation of what the meal prepared can cover. I am not well learned in this aspect and will leave 
Some few pics from market shopping
For an average Nigerian who earns about 30k monthly and would like to prepare some low budget meal, one might want to ignore adding plantain, eggs ,crayfish and others. Just a few cups of beans, oils and pepper. This might be helpful as beans is a tasty seed in it's own but regardless this blog isn't here to say that 30k monthly is close to been enough for family to eat healthy meals for the 30days of the month. A budget of 6k was worked on to see if it can feed at least 10people. But having exceeded that budget was able to get feed at least 10 people with the sum of 8050k naira exceeding the initial budget by 2050k naira.
This is my own part of the report from the cooking experiment.
The completed blog on price research and other activities will be coming up right after this.
All images are mine and thank you for stopping by.