I love the holiday season. I love Christmas Carols, eggnog, and champagne. I love holiday movies, decorating the house and planning special meals. And I love love love that my anniversary is two days after Christmas! M and I just celebrated our 11th anniversary. Traditionally the gift for 11 years is steel. We took this a little differently and for our anniversary we made the steel resolution to work together harder this year in the journey toward good health. Over the past two years, I have mentioned that my health has declined somewhat due to STRESS, partly due to my job moving and partly due to money concerns. M has also had issues mostly due to the same things--he has a job (also downtown, and also sedentary). And as the new year approaches, we have been trying to find ways to incorporate better habits into our New Years plans.
We stress out a lot about money, and one of the things we are trying to do this year is save save save!! It is totally possible. Right now, we unfortunately let stress get the better of us, and often eat out because it is convenient and we want something simple and quick. While we always (well, mostly always) chose something Paleo-friendly the expense is pretty crazy--especially if we have a glass or two of wine each--eating out in Seattle adds up fast. It is so easy to drop $100 on a dinner just for the two of us. Our first step this year is to cut our "dinners out" down to once per month--and if possible once every other month! Our second step is to cut out alcohol. If we limit eating out to once per month, and have a glass of wine on those occasions, and stop buying wine to bring home, we can cut that back quite drastically as well. Our third step is to cut back on groceries. I have been buying grass fed and pastured everything, all organic veggies, and spending a huge portion of our budget to do it. I am changing our approach to allow us to save an extra chunk of money per month.
As I have mentioned before, I use several tools to save money while still focusing on healthy eating. One of those tools is intermittent fasting. Another is Costco. I also utilize the Environmental Working Group's Clean Fifteen/Dirty Dozen lists. We are attempting to save $$ to put toward a house, so I am cutting back on the money we spend on grass fed and pastured meats, and focusing on adding more fish weekly (sardines) and using grass fed ghee to cook with. The rest of our diet will be veggie-heavy with various other meats (whatever happens to be on sale.) We will have lots of stews, roasts, casseroles and salads.
This week the menu is:
Pork, sweet onion and carrot stew.
Taco salad with tomatoes and guacamole.
Roast chicken with brussels sprouts.
Chomsky salad (salad with cucumber, tomato, avocado, bacon, chicken breast, mixed greens and vinaigrette.)
Beef pot roast with carrots, onions, and green beans.
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