When Bea asks to eat something different for dinner we generally give in. “Ok, eat two more bites and we’ll give you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
Friday night at the dinner table Bea used her usual phrase: “I want something else.” Our reply was not what she was expecting. “There isn’t anything else. You have to eat what you have.”
Living in budgetary poverty certainly focuses us in on the cost of our food. But cost is not the only issue we are facing. We spend about one to two hours budgeting (figuring out how much each meal costs) and preparing our meals (from steel cut oats in the morning to dry bean centered dishes at night… a can of beans is cost prohibitive). We also need to spend extra time doing legwork at the grocery store to check prices and make sure that items will fit into our budgeted meal: $1.52 per person. We cannot go to the store with a list of 20 items and leave with 30 additional impulse buys (like snacks). And the grocery store is not just a quick trip by car, since we cannot afford to use our car during these three weeks.
A little light in this picture is that for the next week or so we will not be spending any of our budget on lettuce. My gardening wife has a coldframe (like a mini-greenhouse) that is overflowing with greens. Starting tonight we will be competing with the snails for our salads until the lettuce is gone.
And we are hoping we will pluck some strawberries from our garden during the next 2 ½ weeks. Which is good, since fruit is one of the expenses we are having trouble accommodating.
Although we are disappointed that we won’t be able to purchase plants from the Wasatch Community Gardens’ annual Plant Sale on May 9th as we usually would, we feel very fortunate to have a garden at all. One of the tradeoffs of a more cost effective dwelling, such as an apartment, is not having land available for growing food for your family. The Food Stamps program does cover seeds, and if we did not have a home with a small yard, perhaps we would avail ourselves of the numerous community gardens that are thankfully sprouting up around town.
Another little light to have come out of the project is that last night Bea ate her first salad. She has never liked the texture of lettuce but tried it with some coaxing. She then wolfed through a generous serving. Although she managed to polish off the rest of my dinner, it made us happy to see her eating some greens.
I have been eating delicious food; my wife is a great cook (much of her inspiration during these past few days has come from www.101cookbooks.com). Nonetheless, while it is only the fourth day into the project, I already want something else. I want to take my family to Chanon Thai. Or go to Carlucci’s and get a treat. I already want to quit thinking about how much everything costs. I want to quit restricting my snacking.
I want something else.
Shawn
Our food and budget thus far:
May 1...
May 2...
May 3...
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