March Spending Diet!

Well, it is Leap Day, which means that my Operation Consumption Liberation (OCL) month of Snack Control is coming to an end.  If you read my last OCL post, you'll know that I was struggling a bit with the "No Eating after 8:30 p.m." part of my February challenge. Despite my resolve to get back on the wagon and stay on the wagon, I've been falling off this particular wagon left and right. 

Why can I go a month without meat or sugar without caving into my cravings, but can't make it through a shorter 29-day month without a 10 p.m. Snack Attack every few days?  I think it boils down to this: I can handle staying clear of certain kinds of foods, but I have very little willpower when it comes to not eating when I want to eat. This is probably linked to how much I dislike the feeling of denying myself that comes hand in hand with dieting. Not eating when I want to eat feels ten times more like dieting than not eating what I want to eat.  I snack pretty healthy, after all; I eat rice crackers, fruit, and low-fat string cheese, not French fries, chocolate bars, and milkshakes. 

On this note, it is clearly time for me to take a break from food-related challenges, but not from diets in the broader sense.  That's because my March monthly challenge is Curb Your Frivolous Spending Redux--a.k.a. the Spending Diet. Last year, May was my month of being a tight wad, during which I gave myself a budget of $132 to spend on unnecessary things like dining out, lattes, mascara, iTunes, haircuts, movie fares, and so on. And that was a good challenge.  This year, I'm trimming that amount by $30, for a monthly budget of $102 dollars. (That extra $2 makes all the difference.)

My homemade pizza beats Pizza Hut's any day.

Money, money, money.

Breaking news: I managed NOT to spend money in this candy shop.

My apologies for being an inconsistent blog writer.  It happens.  But holy cow, May is almost over already and I really had meant to write more this month. Recap: May has been Operation Consumption Liberation's official month of Reduced Frivolous Spending, the unessential goods and service month, and I laid out in this length post here what constitutes frivolous spending in my book, and committed to spending no more than $132 on frivolous things this month.  And as the month winds down, I can report that I've done pretty well with this whole budget thing (though not as well as I thought I had ten minutes ago--math is not my strong suit).

My frivolous spending since I checked in with $32 spent on May 6:

• $3.25--hot cocoa @ SeaTac Dilletante
• $2.87--coffee and donut @ EWR's Dunkin' Donuts 
• $40--dinner in Astoria, NY w/ JC and WR
• $2.50--coffee @ Chappaqua Station
• $7.70--pizza @ EWR
• $2--bagel @ Eltana
• $2--coffee @ Bean City
• $9--movie @ NW Film Forum w/GM
• $3--cupcake @ Cupcake Royale
• $9--3 tomato plants @ U-District Farmers Market (though is this really frivolous...
• $1.99--pint of Honey Cinnamon frozen custard
• $2--half of an elephant ear at Folklife w/CW.

*May 7-May 30 Total Frivolous Spending: $85.31

*May 1-May 30 Total Frivolous Spending: $117.31

*Remaining Frivolous Spending Budget for May 31: $14.69

Expense worthy: $2 Eltana wood-fired bagel

 

While the no-spending thing has been challenging at times, I have not suffered too much this month. Which is good, because as someone who is under-employed at present, I really NEED to have a tight budget. Which is tricky because right now, it feels like every single valuable thing I own is falling apart.

Example A: the car mechanic tells me that my car needs an est. $2774 worth of repairs and you know that auto mechanic estimations are always low, because they're sure to find two more parts that must be replaced in the process. Considering that I bought said-car two years ago for $4300...  It seems like I'm better off spending that money to get a newer car.   Wait, what money?  Do I need a car that bad?  I could live without it, but it would compromise some things, like my volunteering and where I seek employment.  Plus, I like the freedom of having my own car.  It IS a luxury though.

Car, why do you make me suffer so?

Example B: I noticed this week that the laptop which I'm typing this on now is splitting along the seam of the screen.  If I close it, it gaps open a quarter of an inch at one corner.  Note that I purchased said laptop in early 2006.  I've added RAM, updated this and that, replaced batteries, but let's face it, this thing is kind of a dinosaur.  It weighs 17 pounds.  I've been debating a replacement for a full year.  It needs to happen soon.  Frivolous spending?  Well, no, I'm a writer, I can even write it off on my taxes, I suppose.  But I do have a second laptop though it has less RAM, less stuff on it, and I bought it used--it's probably older than this one.  It does weigh less though...  I should probably dump both of them for a new, super-light, super-fast machine. 

Money-worries face.

Example C: Half of my regularly-worn long sleeved shirts have rips or holes in the arms.  Some have been mended once or twice already. As of yesterday, both of my wear-everyday-fall-thru-spring boots' zippers are broken.  My socks are holey.  I need new clothes.

And so on. 

Given these expected expenses and my under-employment, this month's practice has certainly made me think more about money and its role in my life.  I hate that making money and spending money preoccupy so much of my thoughts and energy, be it taking crap writing jobs for crap pay so I can pay for home Internet service (sadly, a must-have) or using that Internet service to search for less crappy jobs with less crappy pay.

I am taking steps to remedy my situation, but I am also trying to be patient and to take actions that honor my aspirations and values.  Yes, there are days when I think to myself, "you just need to buckle down and take any  job with benefits that will have you."  And then there are days when I think about how unhappy I used to be, and what I changed to make my life more peaceful and happier.  On those days, I know that, while taking the first full-time job with benefits I can find may settle my money worries for the time being, it likely will be at the cost of the balanced and content life I've worked so hard to have.

As this month comes to a close, I think I'm going to continue to set myself a frivolous spending budget.  I like these questions from And Then She Saved to help me determine whether or not something is frivolous or, as she puts it, "expense worthy."  I'll be applying these questions soon in my car, clothes, and computer decisions!

No expense NY fun: walk the Brooklyn Promenade on a sunny afternoon.

 

Oh yeah, recap of my efforts to add more outdoor outings this month! Though the weather has not been terribly cooperative, I've managed to squeeze some nice outings in: a park outing in NY with my sister-in-law MR, my 7-month-old twin niecews, and their dog; a Greenlake walk with CI and daughter S; strutting the Brooklyn Promenade and visiting the Astoria Sculpture Park with JC; playing corn-hole BBQ at MO & QH's; and a few runs, walks, and a 36+ mile bike ride out to Redhook with CW. If you want to go for a pedal or a walk with me, summer is just around the corner!

I'll be posting again tomorrow as NO CAFFEINE MONTH kicks off....

Adventures in (not) spending.

So.  Here I am on day 6 of my super budget May. Today, I walked past many bottles of nail polish and hand lotion in Bartell Drugs without buying any of them.  I did plunk down a small amount of money for a birthday card, and a small fortune for my prescriptions. (Though the cost of one prescription has gone down monthly from $141 to $76 so far this year--health insurance, I just don't understand ye.)  But I escaped without any foo-foo beauty crap, or chocolate.  Praises be.

I know I could have made a birthday card.  I am, in fact, halfway through the process of making some very sweet and very amateurish Mother's Day cards for my mother and the other mother-like figures in my life.  They don't look store-bought, that's for sure--but it is the thought that counts, right???

See, I made a tulip out of dried, pressed tulip petals!

Still, I think I've blown my artsy mojo on the mums' cards this week, so I decided to dip into some of my precious frivolous spending money for the birthday card.  In addition to the card, last night I met up with my book group and I bought a beer.  These two items totaled $8.00.

Then I went to get my hair done today.  The good news is that I bought a Groupon last month for my haircut and color, and it was a steal! The bad news is that Groupons don't include tip and that "Groupon customers tip on the full amount of the pre-discounted services."  Of course they do.  Good news for my colorist and stylist today: I'm a good tipper.  So that was $25.00 in tips.  Ouch.

*A pause for the Hair Report! The good news is the color looks great--my colorist is awesome!  The bad news is the cut... well, it isn't awful.

I know, it isn't that bad.  It isn't red either, as the lighting here suggests.

The stylist (not my regular gal) was nice and she was competent with the shears.  But you know how when you describe what you want (an inch shorter in the back, longer in the front, more of an angle, less poofy, lighter...), a stylist will sometimes really latch on to one or two parts of that and kind of forget the rest of that? Yeah, let's just say it's lighter and probably not so poofy, but I don't know where she heard "layering."  The lesson: you get what you pay for. End of Hair Report.*

But it DOES have a bit of a "she-mullet" feel, right? Stupid choppy layers.

Okay, back to money matters: so in six days, I've managed to blow... $32 of my 132 frivolous spending budget.  Eek!  Oh, and I'm going to New York on Wednesday.  Guess who IS NOT going to be going to any Broadway shows this time around?

This not-spending thing is not easy, yo.

In other news, I biked to my office all week.  And it was lovely, except for yesterday, when I was positive that every person or car I saw on the street was trying to make my ride more hellish.  I had some MAJOR bike rage.  Really, I was yelling the f-word like a crazy lady.  I got to thinking that maybe I need a specific outlet for my bike rage, somewhere to air it where I don't run the risk of getting hit by an angry driver. So, I have this silly twitter feed, and from here on out, that's where I'll be putting my bike rage. If you use the twitter, follow me! I will try to keep it rated PG-13, and I also use it to notify folks of new blog posts here! FYI, I have haiku aspirations for the future tweets...

In other OTHER news, I'm running a 10K this Sunday morning.  May my new biking muscles and regular running routine power my booty across the finish line faster than my race companion, CW, who has gone on a total of TWO training runs! Wish me luck!

Stop buying frivolous stuff, doofus.

Today, on top of a 6-mile bike ride and a 4-mile hike, I drove my car recreational for the first time since March!  Because it is May! 

May marks my second Reduce Frivolous Spending month, the unessential goods and services edition. (See The Eating and Drinking Out edition here.) Now, I’ve been very tempted this week to rearrange my Operation Consumption Liberation (OCL) Challenge schedule to make May my month of spending less time on the internet, due to the unhappy fact that my ISP/phone company lost the order for my new modem and I’ve been going without the internet at home since Tuesday night.

The other reason I’ve thought about swapping months around is that I intended to do more investigation into my finances and spending habits to find out how much I waste on unessential goods and services, etc.  I sort of feel like this type of challenge calls for more research than I’ve done.  However, I haven’t exactly been monitoring how much time daily I waste on Facebook and tooling around on the internet either.  So… I’m sticking with the plan and I've done a hack research job of my spending habits over the last month.  Unessential goods and services, here we go!

Due to the economic situation in the last few years, an awful lot of people have undertaken a “Spending Fast” and blogged about it.  One of the most notable examples would be Anna Newell Jones and her “And Then She Saved” blog.  Check out her spending fast and her spending diet guidelines.  Inspiring to say the least. 

Now I am not going on a total spending fast.  I’m undertaking something more like the spending diet, but I don’t like using the word diet for anything.  What I’m going to be doing is limiting my unnecessary expenses.  I am not going to put my Netflix on hold, skip yoga, or make my friends suffer another month of Absolutely No Drinks or Eats out.   But I am going to be working with a limited amount of money for nonessential expenses this month. Thus, once that money is gone, for the rest of the month, I’ll be spending my free time at home reading, playing Mah-Jongg solitaire online, and watching stuff on Netflix.  Maybe I’ll reorganize my kitchen cupboard finally.

So, the key question is: how do I define unessential goods and services?   

First, I need to define what expenses ARE essential:

-Shelter (gotta pay rent)

-Internet and phone services are essential.  Plus, I’m locked into contracts for both.

-Health insurance, auto insurance, medicine, toothpaste, and doctor visits (no one should have to go without any of these!)

-Soap for laundry, dishes, and the body

-Food and drinking water is essential (dessert, however, is not). 

-Gas for my car to go volunteer 

 Now here are some examples of nonessential things I’ve spent money on this month:

-$55 Groupon for haircut and color at my salon (Great bargain, sure, but…)

-$49.50 registration for a 10k race next week 

-$16.99 gym membership (haven’t been there in almost two months, but the cost to join was ridiculous, so I keep paying it)

-$10.94 Netflix

-$39 debit charges at restaurants

-$120 cash purchases (Although I do pay for some smaller grocery purchases with cash, most of my cash generally goes to nonessential bar tabs, restaurant tabs, movie theater tickets, and small miscellaneous trinkets and sweets)

-$68.50 of miscellaneous non-medical Bartell Drug purchases (yes, some of those purchases were for other necessities—toilet paper, laundry detergent, and toothpaste—but all those lotions, bath salts, almonds, nail polish, chocolate, As Seen On TV gadgets…  Fact: I get a little bonkers in the drugstore)

But I really need some more hand cream!

And so on...  I’ve done my best to calculate my unessential expenses last month, and it came to about $420.  That is more than half my monthly rent.  Out of control!

So do I seek to half this amount in May?  $210 is still a lot of money to be wasting on that kind of stuff every month, so let’s knock off another $50. That gives me a nonessential spending budget of $160, which is cushy, but considers expenses from my upcoming travel. From that $160, I’m subtracting my anticipated bills for Netflix and the gym (~$28, auto-paid).  That’s $132 to spend on nonessential goods and services as I choose for the month.

FYI: I will not be buying a $300 gong this month.

To help me track my $132 nonessential budget, I have a $50 American Express prepaid card for most card purchases and I am withdrawing $70 cash from my checking account.  And yesterday, I pulled out $2 from the lingering “April” cash in my wallet for May--for clean record keeping, I put the remaining April cash in my loose change jar this morning.

Two exceptions:

-If someone wants to buy me dinner or take me to, I’m not trying to curb his or her spending so that is allowed.  However, I’m not terribly comfortable freeloading, and I will not be soliciting you to purchase meals, movie tickets, or new clothes for me.

-I can spend gift cards and previously purchased Groupons as I am wont to do.  But any new prepaid/gift card or Groupon purchases will be deducted from my nonessential budget.

That's it.  I will do my best to spend my $132 wisely!  I may be taking a few hints from this here site... And of course, I will be reporting regularly here at OCL on my nonessential expenditures and my budget balance!  If you have any budget suggestions, or want to join me, I welcome both.

Oh YEAH: To counterbalance the cruel feeling of depriving myself, especially when I’m denying myself lots of nice, trivial, feel-good purchases, I would like to add more outdoor social activities to my life this month.  Free or low-cost activities, that is: park play dates, bike adventures, hikes, backyard BBQs….  This part of my month is off to a great start (65 degrees and sunny in Seattle-woo woo!). Even if the weather does not cooperate, I’m not totally adverse to rainy day adventures either. So who wants to play?

money matters

As anyone who has been paying attention knows, this month in my OCL (that's Operation Consumption Liberation, yo) is one of two months this year dedicated to curbing frivolous spending.  A quick review of my ATM-card purchases over the last year reveals that the highest percentage of those card transactions took place in restaurants and grocery stores.  In the month of October, for example, I made 48 card purchases. Eighteen of those purchases were made at the grocery store, in a restaurant, or a bar. Now, I'm not great at math, but I believe that's 37.5% of my monthly card purchases.  The category with more purchases during that month was "Miscellaneous," with 19 purchases for 39.5%.  (FYI, "Miscellaneous" purchases include iTunes, clothing, entertainment, haircuts, and non-med purchases at the drugstore--the things I'll be cutting from my spending during my second month of curbing frivolous spending, currently planned for May.)

Look, I finally got my cupcakes! Using my one No Eat-Out gimme: my soon-to-expire Groupon.

Watching my spending is pretty important to me at present.  Earlier this month, the department at Amazon that I've been writing for regularly since 2006 sent me a note saying that they would no longer be using freelance content for Home and Kitchen. Poof! There went a lot of income.  Suddenly, this whole No Eating Out thing feels kind of essential.  Reviewing my 2010 ATM purchases, I found that I spent approximately $130 a month eating out, and that's not including when I paid cash.  I don't know about you, but for me, $130 IS a substantial amount of money.  As long as I have so little income, I absolutely cannot spend that much money eating out.

Hard times requires frugal cooking: English muffin pizza

While I'm saving money from eating out, I'm curious to look at how much more money I've spent on groceries this month in comparison to a so-called regular month.  I like fancy food; I tend to gorge myself on Gorgonzola and Kalamata olives and pine nuts (Okay, not pine nuts.  Who can afford to snack on those?).  And meat.  When you host people for dinner all the time, you often want to give them meat. Where have all my vegetarian friends gone?  I'm getting a little off topic here, but I think I've made my point: my grocery bill could use a makeover too.  I'll keep you posted.

Chicken is expensive, but this chicken was AMAZING.

Anyway, I've been pretty lazy about taking pictures of the food I've made, or the food others have made for me (!!!).  I am also finding I am a lousy food photographer, though the fact that I'm using my phone camera may be half the battle.

No picture on Earth can capture how yummy that above garlic chicken was.  I made that for CI and ES a few weeks ago, and I can't wait to make it again.  Recipe here.  (Chef's note: I made this with skinless chicken breasts.  Also, if you love garlic like I love garlic, I'd use three heads of garlic instead of two.  We almost duked it out over the last few cloves, squeeze that roasted garlic directly out of the clove onto bread and smear it like butter.  True, the house will stink pleasantly of garlic, but the garlic wasn't overpowering at all to eat and I don't think we reeked of garlic for the next day.)

I have been enjoying lots of soup.  It is 30 degrees F in Seattle right now, so soup is good.  And a big batch lasts forever.  I think I still have some leftover pesto minestrone in the fridge from almost two weeks ago.  I made over three quarts of that stuff in the crock pot.  Pretty good, certainly fine for taking to the office for work.  Recipe here.  Also, my friend JM came over last week with all the ingredients for a warm and healthy miso soup, full of carrots, cabbage, turnips, onion, and ginger. I don't have the recipe, but it was good.

Pesto minestrone.

Miso Soup.

Chicken Enchiladas!

I've been treated to quite a few home-cooked meals at friends' this month, which is almost as lovely as cooking for them.  It isn't easy hosting: my friend MK invited me over for dinner last week and forgot to turn his crock pot on when he left for work, poor guy. SO he whipped up some Asian noodle dish for us instead, and then he dropped off a Tupperware container of the crock pot dish a couple days later--I'm lucky to have such good friends.  The other weekend, I got to enjoy TWO home-cooked Mexican meals: fantastic chili rellenos at CW's, courtesy of his friends I and Y on Saturday night, and then tasty chicken enchiladas at the house of SW and MH-squared on Sunday.

This week, I confess, I've been a little worn out on hosting and social activity, so I've only planned to host dinner one night.  It HAS been a fun month though!  I haven't missed eating out much.  There's only one night where I've really thought, "God, I wish I could just go out to eat" and that was last Friday when I had tickets to something on Capitol Hill that started at 7:30 and started cooking this on Queen Anne after 6. It is true, cooking at home can be time consuming.  But it doesn't need to be an all-day affair.

Oh, and remember my four-drink allowance for the month?  I haven't needed to use a single one.  Maybe I should let them roll over into next month, in which I will stop consuming alcohol....  Ack!  Stay tuned.

Adventures in Home Cooking

Perhaps this post should be entitled "Adventures in Home Eating" as moments after I typed the title, my elbow had a little mishap involving a fork and my lunch of chicken and rice, that resulted in sauce and rice in my lap and on my laptop.  Oops.

My fridge is never this full.

But given that my monthly challenge for February is consuming no restaurant meals and drinks, I have indeed been cooking at home a lot.  Also, with my parallel February goal to increase my social activity, I have indeed been hosting friends for dinner or drinks a lot.  Which, while a little exhausting with all the dishes and recipe research, has been a whole lot of fun so far.


I've always enjoyed the idea of hosting dinner parties.  For many years, I wanted to host them with a specific someone in my life.  He wasn't against the idea really, but it wasn't exactly his idea of a riotous good time either.  Especially because, back in those days, I was a bit of a control freak in the kitchen, as well as an overachiever.  Oh, and I'm not always the best with time management.  I never allowed enough time for whatever fancy-pants recipe I picked out, I hated compromising on perfectly diced tomatoes for efficiency, and I didn't like delegating cooking tasks to my partner because I didn't trust him to "do it right." Thus, we did not host very many dinner parties over the years.

NOW, that was a long time ago. That individual and I have been cooking apart for over two years now, and I've hashed out my perfectionist and time management issues with my therapist more than a few times.  I'm still not great with time, but boy, have I embraced half-ass dicing and quick 'n easy recipes!  And should you come into my kitchen, I will happy thrust a cutting board and onion at you and tell you to get a-slicing.

Besides learning to go with the flow in cooking, I had one other obstacle to my ability to host dinners: I live in a cute, but small mother-in-law apartment with a very small living room.  There's not exactly room for a permanent dinner table, not if I want to do yoga in my living room, which, as many of you know, I do a lot.  But with a little creative rearranging, I brought home on Tuesday an excellent drop-leaf table that tucks away easy as pie and extends to seat four comfortably, and six cozily.  Hooray!

And that's only half size!  Oh my!

So I thought I'd share some pictures, stories, and recipes from my first week of No Eating and Drinking Out month.

Tuesday: I am nuts about my new-to-me crock pot, and I have tried about five recipes discovered on Stephanie O'Dea's blog "A Year of Slow Cooking"--including this recipe for Sweet Potato Chili.  I made this for lunches and nights eating at home alone.  It turned out alright; certainly edible.  But for my crock pot and my sea level location, I definitely recommend cooking on low for closer to 6 hours than 8 hours.  Or perhaps the baby-food mushy sweet potato results have more to do with my "2-inch chunks of sweet potato" which were more like 1-inch chunks. Live and learn!

Can you see the marshmallow consistency of that there sweet potato?

Wednesday:  I got some pretty undesirable news around 6 PM (which I'm sure I'll elaborate on in another post soon) and almost called my friend MK to tell him dinner was off.  But sometimes, when things are going down the crapper in one department of life, it is nice to have a big distraction like throwing together dinner real quick for a guest to keep you from crying on the floor all night.  I put together this Curried Dal and Basmati-Rice Pilaf from Cooking Light's October 2008 issue, and sauteed some garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and kale in peanut oil for some vegetable love. I've made this dish before and I always forget how fast and easy it is to make.  Also, eating it feels downright nurturing in the dark night of winter--it is warm, flavorful, and it's reasonably healthy too.  MK agreed.

Do not fear the lentil.  Do not fear the kale.

Thursday: I had my friend GM over for gin and tonics.  Memo to self: I may need to invest in a jigger and a cocktail shaker.  For dinner, I had left-overs from the dinner I cooked for CW on Monday night, Moroccan Chicken, brown Basmati rice, and a side salad.  This is one of my favorite recipes to prepare for guests, because it is damn good.  I adapted Cooking Light's recipe to my crock pot this time, and it was perhaps even better than ever.

Look at that chicken glisten!  This is by far the best food picture my Droid camera will ever take.

Friday: I had a G&T hangover and leftovers.

Saturday: My dinner party hosting, put to the test!  I invited my friends MO, QH, and CW over for pizza.  CW came an hour early, as I was just beginning to make the crust.  Delegation example #1: I promptly assigned CW with the task of carmelizing an onion, something I've never even done.  The instructions I'd pulled up on the web obviously weren't written with my hot-trending stove top in mind, and perhaps cast iron isn't the way to go, but CW, the epitome of a good sport, did a great job at blackening onions--they actually tasted great (Letting go of perfectionist standards example #1).  When M and Q showed up, I'd hoped that all the toppings would be ready to go, but they weren't (ah, time, you continue to taunt me!).  So I put M and Q to work grating cheese and chopping peppers. (More delegation!  More going with the flow! My therapist would be thrilled.)

So many options for pizza goodness!

Anyway, we rolled out the dough and cooked the pictured four little pizzas, which we cut into four pieces so we all try each of them.  They were FANTASTIC.  And it was so much more fun than just meeting up at a restaurant--we worked hard together to create those little pies, and then we got to sit and feast and shoot the breeze for as long as we wanted without worrying about whether someone else was waiting for our table or needing to settle the bill.  This is what hosting a dinner party for good friends ought to be like.  M, Q, and CW, you all have my permission to put me to work at your next dinner party.


Sunday: I'd planned to throw something random together alone at home, but my friend CI called.  She's in town with her 10-month-old daughter S house hunting, and is staying at our friend ES's house.  E was out for the night watching the Super Bowl, but C and I decided to put her kitchen to good use and make dinner there.

Cooking dinner at friends' houses is definitely an adventure because you don't know where to find tools, if they have desired spices, and because you don't want to trash someone else's kitchen and stuff.  But it is also a great thing to do, especially with friends who have little ones.  S crawled around in the dining area while C and I started prepping for our vegetable saute pasta dish.  When S got hungry, C could go sit on the couch and breastfeed, while I kept prepping.  Likewise, when C put S to bed, I started cooking everything.  She returned just as things were starting to finish cooking and she whipped up a salad dressing and set the table while I drained the asparagus and mixed the veggies into the pasta.  And it was really good. We had everything cleaned up and put away except for the wine when E came home.  Relaxed, yummy, and fun.  I'm going back tomorrow to make this.

"These noodles are so good I want to take a bath with them." -CI.  Oh really??

Lots of thanks to my dining, cooking, and drinking companions this week!  You too can enjoy a dinner chez Jess. I'm taking reservations through the end of the month. Comment below or send me a note and we'll get cooking.  Next time, I want to look at my restaurant and bar spending habits in more depth, by the numbers.

Until then, Bon Appetit!

Curb Frivolous Spending, Part 1: the Eating and Drinking Out Edition

As a single woman who lives alone, I go out to eat a lot.  In fact, off the top of my head, I can think of TEN meals eaten out during January alone.  That's during my month of no sugar, mind you. Also, I can think of at least two coffee dates and two drinks dates (there must be more of those!). Looking at my debit card record online, I charged $147.41 on meals in restaurant. Now I know I paid cash at least twice, so let's add $40 to that total ($187.00). Divide 187 by 10, and we're averaging $18.70 per meal out.

 Drinking wine, in a restaurant, as usual.

Now, this is highly unscientific. But think about what one can do with $18 dollars. That's my monthly gym membership, with extra to spare!  That's almost two months of Netflix. That's half a tank of gas, well, maybe.  Until my rates went up this month, that amount covered my copay at the doctor's office. Think of the possibilities!

The W & the C's yummy oysters...

There is nothing inherently wrong with eating out or drinking out--in moderation. (Ha!  I think I said the exact same thing about sugar last month!)  That meal Dad and I ate on Thursday at The Walrus and The Carpenter--amazing.  It is an easy way to socialize with friends: it doesn't take a lot of creativity, and we've all got to eat sometime.  And it is convenient as hell for a single gal like me.  If I cook a big dish, roast a chicken or something, I better have someone coming over for dinner.  I made a huge pot of lentil soup earlier this month, and I can't tell you how sick I got of eating lentils for lunch.  It's all me or nothing.

But eating out is a LUXURY.  I may be making enough to cover my bills at present, but we're still living in a recession.  I'm not even going to start on how there are people starving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Bangladesh, or Haiti.  There are.  Perhaps I'll go into this later.

So I'm going to cease my eating and drinking out for the month of February.  At the end of the month, I'm going to do my best to calculate how much money I saved from eating in, and donate half of that amount to a world hunger relief organization TBA (nominees, anyone?). What constitutes eating out and drinking out?  How gung ho am I going to go?  Here's my rules:

1.  No meals in restaurants.

2.  No take-out meals, including the deli at Whole Foods, etc.  That includes hot prepared soups and prepared sandwiches. However, I will allow myself to eat soup from a can and frozen food entrees, though I don't generally eat much of either.  Also, if friends invite me over to watch the Super Bowl, or Oscars, or whatever, and they're serving Pizza Hut or something from the deli section, I'll eat it--they're the hosts.

Whole Foods Deli: friend to the hungry and in a hurry, foe to the paycheck. Credit: Whole Foods Market

3.  No popcorn or snacks bought at the movies (seriously, $6 for that crap??). However, if I want to buy a bag of that white cheddar popcorn at the store, I will.  I probably won't.

4.  I will only allow myself to purchase four beverages for the entire month of February.  That's one drink out a week, so I better use it wisely.  I'm bending here as a concession to my friends, and so I don't spend the entire month crying about how I suddenly have no social life.

5.  If it suits me, I can go and use my Groupon to Cupcake Royale, because it is going to expire in March and I haven't eaten any of my one dozen cupcakes.  Oops.

Finally you will be mine. Photo by Rachel from Cupcakes take the Cake.

6.  If I decide to go out of town, I have the right to put a hold on my month of not eating out for the duration of my trip rather than subjecting my hosts to my rules. If this happens, my month of not eating out will continue into March for the length of the trip and overlap with my month of not--gulp--drinking alcohol.

7.  "Eating out" does not include picnics or going over to friends' houses for dinner.  Duh.

To balance out my removal of eating/drinking out from my life, I need to add something pleasurable. For January, that thing was sleep.  For February, I want to increase my social activity!  The easiest way to do this, clearly, is to have people over for dinner more.  Thus, I'd like to invite you all over for homemade pizza. Or soup.  I'm going to make one or the other each weekend this month, calendar to be announced.  Let me know if you want an invite!  OR if you'd rather I come to your house to cook with you, I can run with that too. 

Maybe I'll make you one of these pretty drinks!