Eating Well on $50 a Week

Three writers. Three cities. One culinary experiment.

Posts Tagged commissary

Emily’s Spending: Smooth Sailing

Nov 16

Posted by emily in Uncategorized

To be honest, I can’t exactly calculate what I spent on food last week. I mean, I can, but it would involve lots of measuring and probably some weighing, and it would certainly involve math. Though I do need to practice for the GRE (Shit! I need to practice for the GRE!) I’m not much in the habit of doing math. My math is more along the lines of “another half an onion” or “more cayenne pepper.” But, I am proud to say that save for a $10 supplemental fresh-veggie run, I’ve been able to live off of my combined first Costco and second commissary trips, which cost me $200 total and included booze, pet food, alcohol and most of what I need for Thanksgiving (which I’m not including in this project). I think other than those supplemental veggie runs, I’ll be able to live off of those staples for the next few weeks.

And now that I’m working outside of my apartment, I did something I’ve never done before: last night I made a week’s worth of lunches, so I’m not stuck downtown, starving and spending.

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Emily’s Spending: Way Under, Out of Necessity

Oct 8

Posted by emily in budget analysis

We here at Eating Well on $50 each have our own reasons for participating in this project. For me, it’s a money management thing (plus, I’m up for any kind of culinary challenge). As previously noted, I’m bad with money. So when my paycheck was about three weeks later than I’d expected (still is, it’s supposed to come in the morning) and I blew through my measly savings to cover my monthly bills, I found that I had almost no money to spend on food. Luckily, I had a pantry full of non-perishables, a fridge full of perishables (thanks to my final CSA share, which I got about a week-and-a-half ago) and a friend who took me out for some spinach-artichoke dip.

Makes me think that with the goods I stockpiled during my recent (illegal, unethical) trip to the commissary I could totally live on $25 a week for a while and maybe stow away the extra $25 for the big Thanksgiving dinner I’m planning.

Anyway, I don’t know exactly how much I spent on food this week, but it wasn’t much.



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Totally Awesome and Totally Illegal: My Trip to the Commissary

Oct 5

Posted by emily in Uncategorized, rant

commissary

I have bad news and I have seemingly good news that might make you judge me a little.

The bad news is that my CSA is over for the season. Yep, I picked up my last share exactly one week ago today, meaning no more unusual produce, fantastic cuts of local, organic meat or ridiculous abundances of cheddar cheese, eggs and milk—all set to the tune of $25 a week. Nope, I’m back to paying regular grocery store prices. Or I thought I was, until a certain uniformed someone (no, I’m not dating a soldier) offered to help me do something awesome, if not totally illegal and somewhat unethical.

Recognizing my financial plague, she (yes, my uniformed friend is a she) offered to take me to the commissary, which is a grocery store on a military base. Everything is cheaper at the commissary because 1. prices are set low for members of the armed services, no matter where they are stationed and 2. this is probably because (I assume) it’s subsidized by the government. So you can imagine that it would be totally illegal for a civilian—one who has yet to file her 2008 taxes—to shop at there, but I did anyway. And it was awesome.

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