Budget experiment

[Dirtyhip]

End of The 7th day's spending.  We have spent 31% of our target budget.  Although, we have food to last the next week, and some pantry items that we stocked up on. 

Food spending was a smidge over 100. 

Still buying nice quality food.  That costs. We hope to end this week with a surplus. Someone needs a new seat post dropper.

[Airehead]

How many days in the spending Cycle

[shootingstar]

Congrats on that dirtyhip.

We've blown apart our week's food budget so far, because of upcoming thxgiving and it's just he and I. At least, we'll have a lovely dinner at home with bison, whatever veggie we get soon, Saskatoon berry pie and wine that I bought well over a year ago.  It would be a lot more in a restaurant. Have enough wine bottles for 5 special dinners for next few months...since he and I don't drink much.  

For late summer and early fall months, I tend to overspend since am buying at local farmers' markets....so buyin' lots of plums, berries to eat, prepare and to also freeze some for winter. Includes shelling peas, butternut squash, my favourite for cooking and freezing chunks.  I've gone as far as to freeze local snow peas. A huge part of resists buying "fresh" snow peas from China..to me that's abnormal.

Too bad freezer not big enough.

For certain, I buy veggies and fruits on sale/in season locally if I can. By understanding quality and pricing, ethnic food shops for various items have helped.... a local Mediterranean bakery wholesale outlet which serves 3 Canadian provinces...is where we go to get the best humuus (it should be not too thick and never too salty), large Middleastern flatbread packets, phyllo pastry trays..  Italian store for best priced sundried tomatoes, prosciutto, some cheeses, fresh basil, biscotti, etc. of course the Chinese supermarket which has lots ...and sometimes ticks me off:  bok choy is packaged for a family of 8, not for 2, etc. I can't argue when buying green curry paste which will last nearly 1 yr.  We bike all this over several trips over the weeks.

What I have learned is the world's breads is so varied yet usually it's only flour, water, yeast and abit of salt....but different techniques yield such incredible variety in texture, shapes, density, etc.  Same said for pasta --fresh (which I tend to buy Chinese fresh pasta but rarely buy Italian fresh because of its heaviness) vs. dizzying variety of dried pastas.  In a Middle Eastern shop, it's stunning to see great variety of couscous and large sacks of it, if you want.

Under normal circumstances it would be approx. $100-$120.00 of groceries for 2 /wk..  Unfortunately that excludes our coffees, juices and snacks elsewhere during the wk.  

[Airehead]

Same here, overspending now but the freezer is getting stocked.  Jelly is made, pesto is made and frozen, peas shelled and frozen, and today green beans from the fall crop.  I don't freeze fall squash.  I store it in the basement on a vented shelf--- lasts into January.