Tuesday, May 1, 2007

First Day

I hadn't gotten around to shopping last night, so I was preparing for a very hungry day, since all I had was the cheerios that I had purchased and planned on finishing up (stale cheerios in June? No thank you!) and the house milk that we (Cait and I) decided to continue using, as it would be a silly thing to let it go to waste.

However, my office is being fumigated, so I've come home. As soon as I'm done with my work, I can run to the grocery store, and get my staples!

This morning, I felt strangely much hungrier than I usually do, so instead of the one bowl of cheerios with milk that I usually have, I ate 2 bowls! Walking to work, I realized that I was overful, leading me to think that I was pre-emptively compensating for anxiety about going hungry/deprivation.

Since being home I've had a lot of water and tea. I'm pretty ravenous, which is a lame way to go shopping- my impulse will be for the super quick to fix, high caloric things that are not going to help me stretch my budget.

I think since I am doing this for the month, or aiming to, I'll go shopping with a budget of 70.50 cents. (THat is double my weekly budget minus for weekly milk expenses and the cheerios I've already purchased and the tea bags). My goal is to get lentils, rice, whole wheat bread and pasta, spaghetti sauce, tuna fish, peanut butter, bananas, oatmeal, etc. I think frozen vegetables on sale will have to compensate for fresh vegetables. I also think that I'll want to get some frozen entrees for work.

The real challenge (as Cait and I discussed yesterday) will not be trying to get calories, but trying to get meaningful calories. As it is, I struggle to get enough of the B vitamins, Iron and protein in my diet. And mygeneral desire to avoid heavily processed foods and foods that have a high fructose/corn syrup content will really be challenged. I anticipate organic fruits and vegetables to go out the window.

I think I'll try to get those large cans of V8 juice, which are pretty high in sodium but also in lots of vegetables, minerals and vitamins.

Anyway, I also do want to save some money for this weekend- I'll need to bring something for my friend Anna's birthday and something for a Cinco De Mayo celebration- once again, the role that food and being able to spend relatively freely on it in my socialization is really being highlighted for me!

(And on that note: last dinner of non-food stamp times? Cait and I went to the B&O- we each had a lasagna and a hot cocoa- meal with tip was twenty dollars each. We went out with a bang!)

1 comment:

Cait said...

v8's a really good idea. it's also really nice that so many grains are fortified with iron and folic acid, because it makes it possible to get those nutrients with a cheap carb heavy diet.