Thursday, December 4, 2008

Is My Wife Going to Bust the Grocery Budget?

Moving on... and still within budget. Although, there is a dilemna on the horizon which I'll go into later.


This weekend at the market, I bought:

1 bunch Kale (.79)2 Large Avocado (.68)
1 Mango (.50)
1 Cantaloupe (.50)
3 Packages of Sliced Mushrooms (1.00)
1.57 lb Bananas (.53)
1 Jicama (.53)
2 Red Peppers (1.38)
1 Yellow Pepper (.89)
12 oz Fresh Blackberries (.89)
2 Packages Fresh Blueberries (1.00)

Total Spent: $8.52

Which leaves us with $26.75 in the budget with 11 days left to go.


I'm going to head to Fry's later this week to get some freebies and try to work in a bit of free chicken with my $5 off $20 Fresh and Easy coupon. In case you're following along, Fry's is taking all competitor coupons including those Fresh & Easy ones, until 12/30.

Now the dilemna, my mom arrives on Friday.


We have a brunch scheduled for Sunday with some of my girlfriends.


Now based on the rules, that should come out of my $20 allowance. Or should it?


Since its a special function... votes from anyone?


Can I use my "ladies lunching" fund to pay for me and my mom's brunch, or do I need to use my allowance?And if I use my "ladies lunching" stash of cash... did I break the rules?


I say no since its not grocery money... but Troy says yes since its food.

Thoughts... input.... comments welcome.


If you like getting Free health, fitness, conditioning, strength, rehab, fat loss, and many other specific areas you need to go over to http://www.12daysoffitness.com/ and register so you can pick and choose your what free reports, downloads, videos, and other information you want for christmas at the http://www.12daysoffitness.com/


PS - Vote Yes


Troy M Anderson
Arizona Personal Trainer

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes - I'm with Troy. Actually I thought your whole experiment was bogus from the start when you're using food already in your freezer.

Troy Anderson said...

yeah guess it depends - this experiment could be done on the $70 per week but every penny including the '$20 spending money' would have to go towards food.

Of course on the flip side we are trying to eat healthy and clean and you could easily eat like crap on that amount a month, ramen, cereal etc... and that is no good either.

I would hedge tosay if we were to eat 'Average American' my couponing wife could easily pull it off without any food in the frig.

Of course that is not going to happen

I think it is a pretty fair experiment considering the guidelines

Troy

Ginny said...

Sorry Shelle, but Im with Troy. You made his BMI dish come out of the budget, so fair is fair. You could have saved some of last weeks $20. I am impressed, though, in how well you've done. Just goes to show that you can eat healthy without going over budget.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, we needed to use the beef in the freezer since it has been there awhile. After the beef is gone, we will try it again on a larger budget and include purchasing meat. Even with all the beef in the freezer, we were originally spending around $300 a month on groceries so cutting it down to $70 was a chore...

Shelle

Anonymous said...

I vote that your mom should pay for you and her...that should take care of this whole dilemma plus that is what mom's are for. I do agree with the comment left by Chris that the experiment is bogus when you have so much food/beef in the freezer. Nobody else would have a whole entire cow ready for something like this. :)

Troy Anderson said...

been think 'bogus' comments. am about to say screw all and up the ante - $50 dollar for the month still get the $20 spending.

Nothing but fresh every week.

Will live off f-ing earthworms and zucchini

Anonymous said...

I say Mom pays the bill too!

Anonymous said...

So, I'm still fired up about the bogus comments. Let's make it fair. Add up your receipts from grocery stores, convenience stores, dinners and lunches out and any other places you may have purchased food for 30 days. Subtract out any meat you may have purchased and see if your total is $75 per person in your family for the month ($70 grocery money plus $80 allowance between the 2 of us, divided by 2).

We'll add up our receipts from 11/15 - 12/14 and I'll subtract all meat I purchased too to make it fair.

I think its funny, we put the "rules" out there in the beginning. Its not like I hid the fact that we had beef in the freezer. Yes, we bought a whole cow FOURTEEN months ago. In order to do this, we haven't been out to dinner once, Troy brews his own tea at home instead of buying tea at Trader Joe's and we're eating a TON of eggs. And yet, our experiment is bogus?

Anonymous said...

Shelle and Troy -
Neither one of you can get mad at those of us who have an opinion that you have "cheated" (for lack of a better term) on your experiment by using a whole entire cow's worth of beef that you happened to not use over the past 14 months. You have chosen to do this yourselves and you have chosen to post it for all eyes to see. We could all go back and add up our grocery/food bills and it probably would be well over $70...but NONE of us are doing this experiment but you two and none of us are posting it for the whole world to see.

With the way Troy eats (significant amounts of protein and vegetables), it would be near impossible to do this without having some stored away protein so I think I can speak for all of us that we all understand why you have finally decided to use the frozen beef. However, and this is just a guess as I don't know the history of this experiment, the person you based this on probably did not have an entire cow's worth of beef to use at the beginning.

I don't think bad of either of you because what you have done is extremely difficult and not enjoyable at all (especially for those of us who prefer to go out to eat) so I personally commend you both on your achievements thus far.

Have fun at brunch with your girlfriends...hope your dilemma is fixed.

Troy Anderson said...

The challenge is what is it is and will be success per the defined pre-challenge rules.

I have a couple more challenges coming up in the next 60 days hopefully they go off as well as this one.

One of them will include not eating any food.

Troy M Anderson
http://www.atscoaching.com

Anonymous said...

I say if you can swing the brunch with the $20 allowance it's fine. Allowance is meant to spend on anything extra.
Even with the beef in the freezer the $70 budget would be tough without careful planning and shopping. You have done an awesome job in showing we can cut back when needed and still eat healthy.
I would like to see this done with the extra $50 and purchasing meat.

Danna

Margi said...

Psh ... well, so you asked for votes, and that's where the "bogus" stuff comes from. As for whether you're "cheating," it would only be cheating if it weren't part of your rules to begin with. And, really, guys, it's your experiment. It's not like this is some contest you've entered with other people where the rules were set outside of you. Do what you want with it! I'm impressed either way! Hubby and I spent almost $1,000 on food in October, between grocery shopping and eating out. And none of it was healthy.

fitness benches said...

Oooh, you’re such an inspiration. I love this blog.
Fitness bench review.