Pre-challenge musings

So I discovered that it was really hard to keep my weekly budget to $35 as I was trying to shop, and decided that what I need here is baby steps...this week is going to be $50, if I make it in under that great!! If not, then I will try to cut back a bit more next week.

Also I have decided that this experiment will officially begin Sept. 1. As much as I can I will stick to the guidelines (which I will outline later today). In the meantime, here is what I have learned so far...

Yesterday I ate:

1.5 chicken breasts ($1.68)
1 cup carrots (.50)
1/2 pint raspberries ($3.00)
Coffee with cream (.82)
Steak 8oz. ($2.12)
Avocado ($1.19)
Tomato (.20)
Zucchini and mushrooms (.57)
Nectarine (.45)
olive oil (0.05)
butter (0.09)

Total = $10.67

So about twice what I budgeted...and the bad news is that all of the meat was conventionally raised. I did price the grass fed and pastured meat. The chicken breasts are about $10 a pound. I can get drumsticks for less, about $4 for a package of 5 organic free range chicken legs from Trader Joe's. The steak--extremely lean sirloin was $4.49 a pound on sale. The grass fed version was $10.99 a pound.

All of the fruits and vegetables (except for the avocado and mushrooms) were from the farmer's market. The zucchini were $2.00 a pound, after I bought them, I discovered another vendor selling them for .80 a pound--it pays to walk all the way through the market before buying...

Right now, I have a mix of things I bought before the experiment and things I purchased after, so it is a bit complicated figuring out how much I actually spent on things. The raspberries were a special treat--they were $3.00 (farmer's market) for half a pint for organic, which is about $2.00 cheaper than the grocery store. (and so much better!)

The avocado and mushrooms are Costco--you can't really beat their price--especially on avocados--an avocado that size would go for about $3.00 in the grocery store. Organic ones are $4-6 each--and not very good quality. (although I haven't priced Trader Joe's yet--I'll have to do that this weekend.

So it looks like hamburger (grass fed, organic TJ's $5.99/lb.) and chicken legs are fairly cheap sources of protein, most of my veggies can be purchased at the farmer's market for another couple of months, and I can fill in the cracks by getting Costco veggies.

I am going to try to lower my costs for today by not eating as much, ie., intermittent fasting. I am just having coffee and half and half for breakfast (.82) and will have leftover steak and more avocado, tomato, zucchini, etc for dinner.
I'll probably still go over my budget for the week, but that is just a sign that you can't eat steak, raspberries and avocado everyday and expect to save money...

On the upside, the wild blackberries that are everywhere here are finally ripe, so I can go out and pick as many as I want along the Sammamish River trail for free!!