A dollar a day week

I found another blog about trying to spend only a dollar a day for food. Only this one is a bit more ambitious. She's trying to do this for a whole year.

Well, most of a year. She cheats once in a while. And, since it is for the whole year she isn't totally cancelling her social life either. If someone wants to make or buy her dinner, she will let them.

So I was going to do the dollar a day thing with her this week. I have the house to myself for a bit, and I should like to save some money, so this is a good time to do it.

Okay, yesterday before my husband left we went to McDonald's. I had breakfast off of the dollar menu, but still, that adds up to three dollars and tax. So yesterday doesn't count. I ate leftovers the rest of the day.

Okay, so I'll do six days instead of seven.

First thing I always do is make black bean soup. I went to the store and spent $5.13, $1.49 was for two rather sad looking onions. Onions, even at my cheap produce place, have gone up to $1.29 a pound. While I usually make twelve cups of the soup for less than three dollars, this time it cost $3.38.

Still, it isn't too bad. About a week ago I found some quinoa on sale for a dollar a pound. It is usually more like three or four a pound, so I bought ten pounds. I keep wondering if I should have bought more, but I had an image of greedy little me emptying the shelves, spending a lot of money, and then having something happen resulting in either me not cooking or the grain getting spoiled some other way, so I decided that ten pounds was enough. I don't usually eat the stuff on a regular basis. Maybe I'll get tired of it before the ten pounds are gone.

Where was I? Oh, yes, I've measured out about a pound of the quinoa, which cost me $1.03. And I bought a dozen jumbo eggs, after being surprised that the large eggs weren't on sale for Easter. The eggs were $1.89 a dozen, and I plan to eat half of them. And I plan to eat half of the soup. And I plan to eat asparagus with the quinoa. And I spent $1.10 on my special diet cola, and then thirty cents on some diet breakfast drink I got on sale quite a while ago but forgot to make.

So that's $1.69 for the soup, $1.03 for the quinoa, $0.95 for the eggs, and $1.40 for the drinks. And I'm getting the asparagus out of my garden for free, so that's $5.07. I don't know how to figure in a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese or herbs, but I should think that it would be less than the $0.93 I have left. I'll probably add something to this, like popcorn. And I'll make a note if I decide to eat more of the soup or an extra egg or something.

And, like the new blogger, I reserve the right to quit if I should win the lottery, become ill, or find some other good reason. And if someone should invite me to lunch, I will probably accept.