So folks - we’re down to $95

Well getting through day one wasn’t so bad.  I mean I probably would have spent $25 already if it weren’t for this little challenge, but that doesn’t matter because I haven’t spent a penny yet.

Lunch today was pretty basic.  We’re out of cold cuts for sandwiches going to have to get more of those.  G ended up grabbing a pack of trader joe’s burritos that have been sitting in the freezer waiting to meet up with the microwave for who knows how long.  I also had a yogurt (I am officially obsessed with raspberry lemonade yogurt, you MUST try it).  I have no idea what G packed for himself, but he packed something and that’s all I really care about.

Leaving work was where I would have slipped up.  See, I had a headache and was thirsty so when I stopped by the store I really wanted a drink, but no, I wasn’t going to waste 1/50th of my 28 day budget I could get for free when I got home in 10 minutes.  And then the headache came into play.  Tonight is one of those nights where I would have just gotten takeout.  I’m useless when I have a headache (thanks for waking me up and HOUR early this morning G) and I had no desire to cook.  G reminded me that we had some meatballs and sauce that have been chillin like a villan in the freezer for awhile from when we went to visit teach my grandmother how to use the interwebs and she repaid us with a yummy meal and leftovers.  So, I was all set to put that 10lb bag yes you read that right 10 pound BAG of angle hair pasta to use when G said he was stuck in traffic.  Well fark.  Now there was no chance I was going to be useful because I needed to lay down and wouldn’t want to do some half assed heating of pasta in an hour.

A grand total of 1hr 45 mins after leaving work G FINALLY got home.  My tummy was growling and any other month I would have had a roast beef sandwich in my hand the second he got home, but I put my monies away and sent G to the kitchen.  He is perfectly capable of using the microwave and heating up pasta … or so I thought.  Apparently he missed the memo that really thin pasta cooks really fast.  Mmm mushy pasta blech.  At least he had a good excuse.  He did some dishes and ran the dishwasher while the pasta turned to mush.

All in all a good day.  I saved myself $25 and didn’t starve or even cook woo hoo I may be a food blogger, but I hate hate hate cooking betweent the time I get home from work and 11pm.   After 11pm is totally fair game and often referred to around here as baking hour.  I’m a night owl what can I say.

I think the one thing I’ve learned so far is that my freezer is going to LOVE me after this.  I have no problem eating leftovers.  I love them, but they somehow always end up in the freezer and never get eaten.  This month the reserves I’ve been stockpiling in my freezer and forgetting about are going to be eaten.  Just going through quickly I found a few muffins of spaghetti sauce or maybe pizza sauce (I didn’t read what I wrote on the bag), some marinated chicken, some non marinated chicken, burgers and hot dogs from the farmers market and some veggies that are already cut and bagged up ready to be tossed into my favorite burritos.  I just need some tortillias (which I can make myself on the cheap thanks to buying flour in massive quantities at Costco) and a bit of that chicken that’s waiting to be used up.

So, I consider this one winner of a day.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

.5 days down - $0 spent  (I’m kicking ass and taking names so far)

Day 1 - $0 spent woo hoo I’m so going to prove everyone wrong

This should be interesting.

I honestly couldn’t even tell you what I spend on food right now, but it’s a lot as in I probably spend more on food than I do on rent, but rent is cheapity cheap cheap.  Food is one of those areas where the budget flies out the window and I tell myself it’s necessary to live so I’ll spend what I spend.  Not anymore … at least for this month.   I could easily kill $100 in one night out for dinner (including booze of course) so this is going to take some will power.

Going in to this I’m going to give myself some rules err exceptions to the rule.  I have a few things coming up that I refuse to skimp on and they’re perfectly good excuses to splurge on food.  The first thing is my second anniversary.  Dude that’s a big deal.  We don’t do gifts or vacations, we do dinner.  I’m not giving up my anniversary dinner no way no how.  The second exception will be my friends bachelorette party.  Again, it’s a one off thing that’s a big deal and I’m not going to be the only a-hole out at dinner just drinking water so I can get through the rest of the month.   And last but not least, exception #3 …. Alcohol.  Since I can’t buy it at the grocery store or the sub shop and it would kill my budget or my summer bliss (fourth of July anyone?) it’s out. Everything else that is edible or drinkable is fair game.

I figure between my overflowing freezer and my similarly overflowing pantry this shouldn’t be too hard.  I think the hardest part is going to be actually forcing myself to not take the easy way out and grab something after a long day.  G and I have actually been doing really good bringing lunches so it’s not nearly as big of a leap as it would have been a few months ago.  I’m more worried about weekends because I get supremely lazy on the weekends when I’m recharging my batteries and I never want to cook, but that just means I’ll need to bribe G to cook and he’s pretty easy to bribe so I should be good.

Wish me luck (that means you beechy aka the pesimist)

Tomorrow I’ll post pictures of the randomness I have unlike Susan I have too much to list and not enough motivation to actually list it all

I love love love undercooked cookies/brownies.  They’re my favorite, but usually there’s that whole salmonella thing that I have to worry about.  I would eat raw cookie dough all day if my husband would let me, BUT he had a run in with e-coli when he was little and well once you hear the stories of that hell you can understand why he’s over cautious.  With these cookies we both win because there aren’t any eggies in it.  W00t raw cookie heaven!  I recommend really undercooking these bad boys.  They’re so good when they’re ooey gooey and warm.  Yum!

Note:  My comp isn’t seeing my camera.  I’m sleeping and will deal with getting pics up tomorrow.  If we hadn’t eaten all the cookies I made I would just do another video.

Lucky for you crazy cats, I’m resourceful.  Let’s just ignore the fact that it took me two days to figure out a plan and think of me as uber intelligent … K?  Good

My hubby got one of those little flip video cameras for Christmas soooo, instead of pictures you get a 5 second video of my hubby eating gingerbread cake.  That’s way better right?  It’s a little foggy looking thanks to my hubs bringing his camera to paintball and getting “paintball grease” on it and not telling me that it needed a mass cleaning.  Oh well … it’s still good enough.

As far as the cake itself, it was decent.  It definitely needed the chocolate.  WIthout the chocolate it was pretty bland, but once you put the chocolate on top it was pretty damn good.

Now … without further ado, I bring you Choco Gingerbread Cake the Movie