2 Bucks

I mentioned a little while back that I'd be doing a post on a $2 dinner party. I was driving down Whyte Ave yesterday when I remembered a) that I hadn't done the post yet, and b) that the dinner party was this weekend and I hadn't planned anything yet! Crap.

Anyway, the $2 dinner party is essentially a cost controlled potluck where no meal component costs more than $2 a serving. The party host provides the main course, and a topic of conversation to discuss. Everyone else brings either an appetizer, salad, dessert, or something else to add onto the meal. Since the number of people attending will vary from party to party, your available funds for preparing the meal is going to vary as well.

The friend who originally came up with the idea hosted the first party in March. She prepared chicken pot pies with a biscuit topping, and rosemary focaccia bread to start. I believe she had $12 to work with, and she only went over budget slightly because she threw in a sweet potato she had on hand that wasn't actually required (there was more than enough food, trust me!). It was a tasty success.

I checked the attendee list yesterday (we organize it on Facebook), and I had 3 people attending, with 2 maybes. After asking the maybes to give me an idea if they were going to be able to make it, I had one attendee drop out, one maybe bump up to attending, and one non-response bump up to maybe. So, I'm again back to 3 attending and 2 maybes. Ah well.

I'm going to assume that 1 of the 2 maybes will actually show up, so I'll be feeding 4 people. That gives me $8 to work with for the main course. My first thought was a pasta dish, such as a carbonara, which is still my standby if need be. I can get good pasta and individual slices of bacon cheap at the Italian grocery store. However, I'm thinking more along the lines of Indian food this go around. My goal meal for the party is to do vegetarian samosas, dal (daal, dhal, dahl, etc...), and naan bread for under $8.

I'll put the price breakdown for what I end up making on here for you guys when I'm done.

If I buy something that doesn't get used in it's entirety, I'm only going to be counting that fraction of the price towards my total. I'm already planning to take the remaining tomato paste and turning it into pizza sauce for leftover naan bread pizzas anyway(Om Nom Nom). Because there are so many different spices in small quantities (does 1/4 tsp of cinnamon even register on a bulk scale?), I'm going to assume my spices/salt/pepper will cost me $0.75. That may be a little on the high side, but oh well.

So, I'm off to the grocery store this morning. Wish me luck!

Food Frustration

You know what's kind of a piss off? Having food spoil before you can use it.

Specifically, sale food.

I've been trying to make a concentrated effort of buying food sale to bring my costs down. The problem is that there is only one of me eating it. I might find bread for $1 off, but I get half the shelf life compared to the bread I buy full price. I know it was at a discount, but I don't feel like I get my money's worth when I throw half of it away. The other piss off is when you avoid giving into the urge to eat out, and make the decision to make food at home instead, and find that the stuff you needed to use is spoiled. Bloody frustrating.

You might be able to tell I'm just a little pissed off about having to throw away half a loaf of bread.

I'll admit I'm terrible at cooking (and grocery shopping) for one. Its a skill I have yet to master, despite my efforts. I come by it very honestly, my mom cooks like a typical farm wife.

For example: Thanksgiving 2009. I expected to be working (out of province) that weekend, and my sister expected to be at her boyfriend's parents for dinner. My mom planned a dinner with enough food for her and my dad. The day of, I managed to get out of work and made the drive up north to my parents. At the same time, my sister and her boyfriend changed their plans and went to my parent's house as well. The dinner for 2 now had to feed 5 adults. No one, except my mother, was concerned about this. At the end of the meal, 2/3 of the food had to be packed up as leftovers.

So, all of you single ladies and gentlemen, what tips and tricks do you have to make cooking for one easier? How do you prevent food from spoiling? When it comes to something like bread, do you buy individual buns, or put it in the freezer and thaw individual slices? I could use some advice right now. I'll be set when I have a family, but for now my food budget feels like it's being unnecessarily abused.

Small Successes

While it wasn't a cheap weekend, this past weekend was a weekend of small successes.

I went down to Holt's on payday to pick up some moisturizing lotion for my face. I have some cream left, but with the weather changing it was beginning to feel kind of heavy. My face was starting to break out, and I was hoping to kick that before it got out of hand. They have a sales "event" coming up, but it's one where they give you 10% back in gift cards, and you have to spend $350 to qualify. Not happening. I asked the lady at the counter for a bottle of lotion and she launched into a sales pitch on how I really won't see the full results unless I also use products X, Y and Z with it. Great. My skin is a gleaming beacon for sales people, screaming: sell stuff to me! *sigh* Anyway, 10 minutes later I've left the sales counter without the bottle of lotion, but with a handful of samples! I know from last time I used their samples that I'll be able to get a couple weeks worth of use out of them before I run out. So, it doesn't appear that I'll be spending money on moisturizer this month. If I get the sales pitch again next time I go in I may just order it online.

Spring is coming in a hurry right now. Where I had snow up to my hip 2 weeks ago I now have a patch of sad looking grass that is about to turn green in the coming weeks. I did a little online hunting for a weedwacker, because the $150-$250 for a gas model wasn't really an option. Success! I went on to the Canadian Tire website and found a little electric model for $40. I'll have to drag an extension cord around behind it, but I don't care about that. I have to do that with my lawnmower already anyway.

I spent probably a good hour Sunday evening making breakfasts and lunches for the week. I now have a stack of peanut butter bagels, salami and cheese sandwiches and containers of salad for this week in my fridge. I spent  a little too long in the shower this morning so I didn't have time to boil water for tea, but having my breakfast and lunch ready for today means that my spending will be limited. Extra bonus is the fact that since I've been focussing on eating my veggies again rather than reaching for easy carbs (scones, muffins, buns), I've been feeling better. I don't feel bloated, my skin feels better, and I'm not dealing with the hunger swings and crashes. Fewer crashes = less spending. Even better is that I'll probably be able to curb the recent migration of pounds to my midsection again.

I said sayonara to the dry cleaner and handwashed a couple of my dry clean only items last night. The result? Well, I'm wearing one of the items right now and it looks and feels the same as it does when it comes back from the dry cleaner's. Minus the chemical smell. You can consider me sold. Maybe now the money I set aside for clothes will actually be used on new clothes rather than on cleaning my existing ones. Score.

I FINALLY picked up an iTunes card when I went for groceries yesterday. Now I can download music without using my credit card. That only took me... oh... 2 and a half months... Oops. The important part is that I did it.

Did any one else have an small successes this weekend?

Potato Proof

There is no such thing as "can't"

There are only excuses.

I find this is particularly true with urban gardening. Unless you live in an illegal apartment with no windows, you can garden. I offer my own proof:

 

Those right there are potato plants growing in reusable shopping bags. I had some baby potatoes from the grocery store that were sprouting in my cupboard; rather than throw them in the garbage, I decided to plant them.

They grew :)

Not only did they grow, they also produced potatoes which I ended up eating in the fall.

All of my gardening last year was actually done in containers. Potatoes, herbs, asparagus, tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, you name it. You don't need to spend a lot either, as you can see above a little creativity can go a long way towards getting started. Friends of mine grew tomato plants out of the BOTTOM of their hanging baskets. You don't have to worry about staking them that way, and they don't take up any floor space :)

I will be trying to move my potatoes into the ground this year. We'll see how that goes.

I know of at least one blogger who is planning to write a whole series on urban gardening, which I am eagerly awaiting! I'll make sure to link to it when she puts it up :)

Has anyone done any creative gardening lately?

Tracking Coinage

Okay, a little legend for the calendars below:

Green = No Spend Day

Yellow = Spend Day

Red = Used Credit Card

Here's how it went for the month of February:

February - All Spending
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
		$75.00	$1.25	$0.00	$1.25	$24.00
$0.00	$2.09	$0.00	$2.85	$3.16	$117.15	$13.13
$0.00	$27.37	$199.59	$2.85	$15.24	$1.60	$0.00
$0.00	$3.57	$4.20	$0.00	$1.60	$31.66	$1.25
$0.00	$1.25

*fritter fritter*

*fritter*

*fritter fritter fritter*

You hear that? That's the sound of me frittering away money on a near daily basis buying tea and breakfast items at the university. It occurred to me about half way through the month that I was doing this, so I decided to see what my spending would look like if I took the morning treats out of there. This was the result:

February - Spending, Without Morning Snacks
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
		$75.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$24.00
$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$115.00	$13.13
$0.00	$25.27	$195.39	$0.00	$12.90	$0.00	$0.00
$0.00	$3.57	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	$31.66	$1.25
$0.00	$0.00

Considerably more no spend days!

However, when I totalled it up, my morning breakfasts out added up to about $30.79 over the course of the month. That's just over a dollar a day. I expected it to be much higher than that once I realized how often I was doing it.

Now I'm trying to decide whether this is something I want to stem for the sake of saving a little extra money, or just let slide for the sake of sanity? I know that the *right* answer is to bring my tea and scones from home and put the savings towards my emergency fund; but right now I am feeling a bit of frugal fatigue.

It sucks. Hard.

The savings grace of having this habit at the university is where I can go to get my snack attack breakfast fix. If I was getting a venti chai latte and scone at Starbucks, it would set me back about $8. Grabbing an extra large chai tea and scone at Cram Dunk? Closer to $2.50, $2 if they have day old baking. The tea itself is $1.25.

I have a month and a half until class is done. To be completely honest, I'm probably going to let myself fritter on this in the morning.

Frugal? No.

Sane? Yes.

I'm already crazy enough as it is, I don't need money driving me further down the rabbit hole.

Leftover leftovers?

Okay, so it's really freaking cold outside, and I don't really want to go out there right now.

Which kinda sucks, because I need to pick up groceries soon.

I looked over my fridge, tossed the items that needed tossing (how did 4 month expired yogurt get missed in the last clean out?), and assessed what was left. Not much. A couple eggs, a splash of milk, some mouldy cheese and a container of spinach cheese dip from going out with a friend a couple days ago. On the counter was some bread crusts leftover from having some friends over for an english tea a little while back.

My fridge is not usually this barren. I blame the weather.

I have a reasonably stocked pantry, but I was feeling the need to use up what was in the fridge before tapping that. Well, tapping that too much anyway.

I trimmed the mould off the cheese and cut into small, meltable pieces (there was too little to shred). After cooking a pot of penne and draining it, I threw the cheese pieces to melt, and added the remaining spinach cheese dip. The result was a cheesy spinach pasta, with a little kick. For whatever reason the restaurant we got the spinach dip from does theirs with a tex-mex edge. If I find the pasta is too dry when I reheat it, I can throw some salsa in quite easily to fix that.

The bread crusts (about 1/2 a loaf's worth?) were torn up into little bite sized pieces and spread out in a baking dish. My last 3 eggs and splash of milk were whipped together with a few handfuls of homemade vanilla sugar and vanilla extract. I say handfuls, because I was too lazy to get a measuring cup out of the cupboard. 3 handfuls - That's about as precise-ish as I can get on this recipe. On top of the crust pieces I liberally sprinkled nutmeg and cinnamon, as well as a few handfuls of crushed walnuts and a handful of dark chocolate chips, before pouring the egg mixture over it. I pushed the bread down to make sure it all soaked up some egg mixture, covered the dish in tinfoil, and put it in the oven at 350 Fahrenheit for about 35 minutes.

Om nom nom.

I have some Devon cream in the fridge at work to put on that bad boy.

I now have breakfast and lunch for the rest of the week :)

Then I really have to go get groceries :s

Has anyone made anything interesting out of their leftovers lately?

Avoiding Temptation

Reason #437 to bring something interesting (and filling) to work for lunch:

Avoiding the brand new shiny restaurant downstairs. Damn does it smell good.

For the last 8 months or so the restaurant on the first floor of our building had been under renovation. And I believe new ownership. What that meant for me was that my office, conveniently located directly above the bulk of the work, has been noisy as hell with them sawing, drilling and banging away to their hearts content on the kitchen ceiling and plumbing. Those pipes run up my office wall, and the sound was downright deafening at times. I actually went to the safety department, got a stash of ear plugs, and went around my corner of the office offering them to people. Everyone took a pair. I think someone may have finally taken us seriously and lodged a complaint, because towards the end the louder noise held off until 5pm on the dot. We all thought we should get coupons to the place for having to endure that, but no such luck.

But, it's over now, and what was once a fairly dated run of the mill restaurant and salad bar is now a brand spanking new Brazilian BBQ joint.

*insert drool here*

If I'm not mistaken it will be featured on the show "Opening Soon", because their camera crews were hanging around the last few days. Opening day came, so I decided to check out their website rather than tempting myself by going in to have a look.

Holy crap. It's going to be a while before I go there.

It's a fixed price meal that uses what is apparently called a "rodizio" concept. You have a little disk you flip back and forth between the red and green sides. Green signals the servers to bring over a selection of meat skewers from the BBQ, red signals them that you don't want any more meat at the moment. You pick up your side dishes from some form of salad bar off to the side. It doesn't say whether or not appetizers, drinks and dessert are included in the price, but considering they have a bar in there and the dessert pictures look plated, I'm going to say probably not.

Lunch is $22

Dinner is $45

This girl will go broke(r) in there.

I can see why they need the keep the price up, especially since it looks like an all you can eat meat bar. Very Alberta friendly. Very not Cassie's wallet friendly.

And I smell it every time I go downstairs now.

So not fair.

Staple Soup

Kelly over at Almost Frugal did a post recently on the 6 key ingredients she uses in her day to day life to make quick easy meals. It's good to have fall back stash of multi-purpose foods you can rely on in a pinch when you need to make a quick, easy and cheap meal.

Reading through her list I realized a) I don't bake as much as I should, and b) I'm running out of my staples at home and need to stock up! Haha. It got me thinking though. While initially I looked at the list and thought "Yep, those are my staples too", I realized afterwards that they really weren't anymore. My staples have shifted.

These are Kelly's 6 Staples:

1. Flour
2. Baking Powder
3. Salt
4. Oil
5. Milk
6. Eggs

These are my 6 Staples:

1. Tea
2. Milk
3. Sugar
4. Bread
5. Eggs
6. Pepper

That's not to say that I don't use the other items, because I do, it's just that these are the 6 I use most frequently and almost always have on hand. I'd be lying if I said I never skipped meals and just had a cup of tea instead because I'm busy or on the run. I almost did that tonight :s Add on some squash, onions, garlic and canned tomatoes to this list and I'm pretty content for quite a while.

I'm not going to put up a recipe for my top 6, because I'm pretty sure most of you can figure out what goes into an omelet or french toast yourself, but I will put up one I did recently with squash and garlic. Actually, I do it frequently. It's stupid simple.

Basically:

= 

You take a medium sized butternut squash, cut it into chunks that are similar in size to a golf ball, and put them in a roasting pan. Then take the papery peel off ~8 cloves of garlic, and throw them in the roasting pan with the garlic. Drizzle with olive oil, wrap top with foil or lid, and put them in the oven at 350F/175C until they're softened and toasty (about 45 minutes). Let them cool enough to handle, and take the peel off the squash (you're supposed to do it first thing, but I find it's easier this way). Put the squash and garlic into a pot, and cover with either stock, or water with bouillon cubes/powder. Simmer on medium-low for about half an hour or so, then remove from heat. Either transfer this to a blender, or use an immersion blender, and blend until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste, reheat if necessary.

It's really easy to make, and super forgiving. You can put the stuff in the oven and walk away to do something else while it's roasting. Ditto when it's simmering. It's really adaptable too, you can add all sorts of seasoning to it. I usually like mine with just salt, pepper, and a dollop of either yogurt or sour cream.

Anywho, I have homework calling my name. Have a good night everyone. Happy eating :)

Food For Thought

Mmmm lunch time.

I stumbled back across this slide show earlier today:

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/slideshows/food-health/how-much-food-can-you-get-for-a-dollar.html

I've actually seen it a couple times, but it never really loses it's impact. It's 20 pictures of how much food you can buy for $1, from a couple threads of saffron to 4 somewhat sorry looking grapefruit. The prices are from New Mexico, so they don't translate to the same amount of food here, but it's still interesting in terms of scale. What's even more interesting is when you consider that many people live on $1 or less every day. I'd be interested to see this photograph experiment performed in countries all over the world. How much would $1 buy you in Nigeria, Russia or England?

It's unfortunate that the items with the largest volume per dollar are also the ones with the lowest nutritional density. Something just seems downright wrong about the idea that the more processing an item gets the cheaper it becomes. Processing and manufacturing cost money (a lot of money actually), so one would think that the more processing went into an item, the more expensive it would be. You know, like it used to.

Thanks Henry Ford.

I'm actually quite surprised by the grapefruit comparison. I don't know about you guys, but the organic produce in my area looks more like the photo of the 4 grapefruit rather than the photo of the individual grapefruit. Not that I could get either for $1. Going to the conventional grocery store I'm more likely to see the "pretty" fruit.

"Pretty" food landed me in the hospital as a kid, but that's a story for another day.

I'm just curious, when did we decide we were too good for ugly food? I feel like it's been ingrained into me, even though I grew up eating oddly shaped, yet very tasty, veggies at home. I know a couple shops I can get "ugly" fruit and veggies from, and I go to them for different foods that they carry. Purple bell peppers anyone? My Italian market sells them, but I still hesitate at the "flawed" veggies. I'm actually mildly frustrated with myself for this, because there is a substantial cost savings. Do you find yourself hesitating when faced with blemished food?

Food for thought.

New Years Eve... One Last Hoo Rah

End of the month check in, and I'm kind of in shock.


(Forgive the formatting, I usually do this on my lunch hour at work and I'm home on my Mac right now. I'm not quite as good in Numbers as I am in Excel)

31-Mar-10 30-Nov-10 31-Dec-10 Chequing $116.66 $5.35 $1,140.22 Savings 1 $0.24 $0.26 $0.26 Savings 2 $100.00 $0.90 $0.90 Savings 3 $500.00 $120.07 $0.07 Investment $2,189.67 $931.24 $1,182.81 TFSA $0.00 $2,322.60 $2,463.64 RRSP 1 $1,525.96 $1,551.30 $1,594.74 RRSP 2 $3,868.08 $3,985.44 $4,016.84 ASSETS $8,300.61 $8,917.16 $10,399.48 Car Loan ($13,138.27) ($10,272.45) ($9,760.77) LOC ($10,000.00) ($11,745.00) ($11,100.00) Credit Card ($5,155.65) ($5,174.07) ($4,978.23) DEBTS ($28,293.92) ($27,191.52) ($25,839.00) Net Worth ($19,993.31) ($18,274.36) ($15,439.52)

It was a good month for money, as I got 3 pay checks in December, but this was surprising. I managed to finish up the Christmas season with less debt than I started December with, and made some headway in all categories. My net worth, not including my house, improved by almost $3000. That's way more than one pay check's worth. I'm very happy about that! The chequing account will drop shortly when my mortgage payment and vehicle insurance come out, but even so I'm very happy with the progress.


The other nice thing about thing about the progress on here is that it doesn't take into account of money that's outside of my accounts. Earlier in December I bought $200 worth of grocery store gift cards to be used in the upcoming months, and recently I took a bit of money out to start my budget envelopes. That money isn't accounted for up above. Additionally, many of you probably read Trent's post over at the Simple Dollar about cleaning and restocking a pantry:

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/17/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-clean-out-your-pantry-and-restock-it/

It was something I hadn't done in quite a while, and after looking at my cupboards I realized it was badly needed. Over the last 2 days I've gone to various grocers (2 ethnic grocers and my usual), restocking the things I'll need to make meals over the next few months. It's so nice having a stocked kitchen again!

After a couple very stressful months when it comes to my finances, this feels like a happy end to the year. I have a warm home, full cupboards, and a couple dollars in my pocket to look after my needs. What a great way to ring in the new year. Have a great end to 2010 every one! I look forward to spending 2011 with you all!


  

Charitable Donations

I’ve always felt very strongly about donating to good causes. It’s not something I’ve ever planned in advance or done regularly, though this year I’ll probably donate out of my gift budget. If you’re giving to those less fortunate, wouldn’t you consider it a gift?

This Christmas a friend of mine and I decided that we would donate to the local food bank. It wasn’t a direct decision, it actually was a compromise.

Confession!

He was insistent on buying me a gift (he doesn’t gift small), and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to reciprocate.

End Confession!

So rather than dealing with the awkwardness of the aforementioned situation, we agreed that we would pool a specified amount of money ($50), and make a joint Food Bank donation. This actually worked out quite well, as we were both comfortable with the donation, and it went to those less fortunate than either of us.

*cue warm fuzzy feeling*

We ended up going over budget when we bought the food, and ended up spending $60 each. Oops. But, we managed to get a ton of stuff!

We picked up:

• Peanut Butter (x10)
• Bags of Pasta (x10)
• Jars of Pasta Sauce (x10)
• Boxes of Macaroni and Cheese (x10)
• Cans of Tuna (x10)
• 10 Packs of  Instant Oatmeal (x10)
• Cans of Baked Beans (x10)

The company I work at had donation boxes set up on each floor, so we decided to donate it through my office (convenient). Instead of dumping it all in the box though, I set it all up in my office for my coworkers to see. Then I challenged them to beat us! They did. I went around collecting money from the floor to buy more food for the hamper. Afterwards, to keep the momentum going, our department donated a pair of hockey tickets to be raffled off to earn more money. Then the managers were challenged to make donations equal to the money that had been earned from the raffle. All total, between the food that was brought in, the raffle, and the donations we managed to get out of our managers, our floor in the building donated over $1000 to the Edmonton Food Bank. It was the biggest donation anyone at the company had ever seen. Not bad for $60.

I don’t know about you guys, but that feels so much better than a Christmas gift.