A week ago I read about a guy from Michigan who spent $30 in November on food. He didn’t do it for any particular reason other than as an experiment to see if he could in fact do it. This has inspired me to partake in a similar task. While I too have committed myself to the same $1/day limitation as he did, my quest is slightly different from his in that he ate nothing else besides what he bought, while I may from time to time be eating meals away from home at Carin’s house or company lunch at work. However, for the record, on such occasions I will not be spending any money and will only eat what is offered to me. I don’t feel like this is too stark of a deviation from the plan, because to get a free meal every once in a while from people you know I think is part of living and just human nature to help out one another.
Reasons for embarking on this quest are numerous, however contrary to popular belief this is NOT a diet. The main goal of this project is to see what its like (or at least try to) for poor people who have very little and are forced to make due with what they have. While this by no means puts me in a similar position, I’m hoping it will give me at least a glimpse of what it is like to have to eat for quantity, not quality; where food is merely a necessity for survival and not a delicacy taken for granted. Another goal is to conserve money to help payoff bills leftover from Christmas and to get that Zune I’ve been eyeballing for quite some time. However, the first thing I will do with any of the extra money I save is make a donation to a charitable organization, be it for feeding the poor or for saving the people of Darfur.
I am a bit tardy with this post as I actually began on the evening of Tuesday, January 2nd, which makes this the 2nd day of my experiment. The first thing I did was stop by Target and buy a rice cooker on sale for $19.99 (a supply not a food product so this does not count toward the $30 budget). Next, I had to get some food. I went to ShopRite in my town and picked a few items which hopefully will provide a lot of nourishment for a little buck. First, Ramon noodles, a staple for any college student on a tight budget. I grabbed two 12-packs at $0.99/each. Next I picked up some rice. Generic ShopRite brand, nothing special just plain ole rice; a 20 pound bag at $6.99. Finally, some spices to give the rice some sort of flavor, there’s no way I could make it a month living on bland rice. I grabbed some Adobo all-purpose seasoning at $1.79 and some Kikkoman soy sauce at $1.99 (I splurged to extra $0.20 to not have to settle for ShopRite brand). After tax my grand total for this trip was $12.96, which means I have $17.04 remaining to spend on food until February 2nd.
I plan to make heavy use of the rice, a 20 pound bag can feed me for a long time. I can take the rice to work everyday and have either rice or noodles for dinner, depending on how I feel. I’m going to try to hold off on buying more supplies for as long as possible, because the longer that I am able to conserve this money the better quality stuff I will be able to get with it.
Whatever the outcome it is sure to be interesting. Wish me luck!
4 Comments
I personally think the extra twenty cents you splurged on the Kikkoman brand soy sauce will be the key to getting you through this
I applaud your attempt to step into someone else’s shoes. I have had to live and eat this way several times, and not on purpose. Recently my husband and I are on a budget of $100 for the two of us. Good luck, you can do it! I do suggest that you buy a .99cent bag of frozen veggies to throw into that rice and those noodles - it’ll help.
good luck Holato! I think you’ve lost your mind.
@ Christine
true, but I sure do miss the DnDs
@ Loving
so far I can tell this will be a very humbling experience and I am already feeling more respect for those who are forced to do this out of necessity and not by choice, and I am seriously considering your vegetable idea
@ Erika
I lost it a while ago.
2 Trackbacks
[...] A few days left to go and I’ve been splurging a little bit on the excess funds so it’s probably best to start off this post with a recap of where I stand in terms of budget. If you recall my first post in this series, my trip to the grocery store, I spent $12.96 which left me with $17.04 remaining for a month. To my surprise I never touched this money; granted I did get some freebies, particularly on weekends, but I ate A LOT of rice. [...]
[...] What did I learn? First off I learned to appreciate the food that is given to me. I have never been one to go hungry during my lifetime. Even as things were rough at times when I was a child, my father always made sure we had food on the table (he is a great cook I might add). Over the course of this past month I had to eat a lot of the same thing, over and over and over, and it gave me a deeper gratitude for the plentiful and flavorful food that I am blessed with on a daily basis. There’s goal number one achieved successfully if you can remember back when I stated my goals in the first post of this series. My subsequent goal was to save money to help pay off credit card debt from Christmas and to get a Zune. Well, in light of recent events, I am no longer interested in getting a Zune and will be holding out for the iPhone. As for the credit card bill, that will have to wait for mid-month’s paycheck and this last one went toward bills. [...]