Less Might Just Be Less
After a weekend of excess, I thought I’d finally check out a website my friend Anna sent me a bit ago. Here’s her initial email:
to: gansie, 80P
from: anna
subject: $$
So I was thrilled that our CC bill this month was 1/2 to a 1/3 less than previous months. Yah us!! Looking through the items they were mostly a lot of Harris Teeters, an El Rodeo, Parker & Otis, and you get the point. Them I’m at my desk today eating leftover pasta salad topped with chopped pork from Sunday when I hear this lady on WUNC talking about eating for $1 a day.
Now although that sounds tremendously impressive she also said her “normal” cost of eating is $80/month shopping at Whole Foods. I really need to read into her blog to see how she did that. I really have no interest in eating $1 worth of food per day. I also kind of want to see what she looks like.
— — —
So I checked out her site, Less Is Enough. I enjoyed her usage of Jiffy products, but I probably didn’t need to see photographic evidence of her receipts. Her restraint is pretty remarkable. She eats almost nothing. She keeps very little food at her house and shops basically daily to have just enough to eat for that day. It’s a vastly different relationship with food. I know I’d be miserable. I love my pantry. I love buying food. I love making food with eighteen different ingredients. So don’t worry kids, it’s nothing you’ll be seeing on ES. (I do love that fried egg in twice-baked potato, though.)
Pic: Less Is Enough
No you know, I’ve reconciled myself with fried eggs recently, but that runny goo pictured above has evoked my rising gag reflex. In short, runny yoke is one think, runny white quite another, and I would not eat that slime covered baked potato to save my soul. I’ll spare you all from my assessment of what that picture reminds me of.
Anorexia is a fabulous way to cut your food budget!
People have had wildly different responses to the potato. Some people think it looks great, others think it looks completely disgusting.
Just to be clear, the dollar-a-day thing was a self-contained 30 day project to see what I could do starting with no food and only a dollar each day to work with ($2 on day 1).
As I stated repeatedly on my blog, it’s not how I nomally live, I wasn’t suggesting that anyone try to live that way, or that it is at all sustainable. I usually work with less than most people, but not as much less as I did on the project.
The receipts were because people wouldn’t have believed me otherwise. (Even with the receipts, some people didn’t believe me.)
Maids – I eat eggs in all formats (and yes, including raw) but I have to agree that I was a bit confused by the photo initially. I thought it was cheese melting but I couldn’t figure out where the white went then. Yeah…
BTW, speaking of the whole $80/mo at Whole Foods (okay, which is probably nothing)… Since I cut out meat, I was spending $20 a week on groceries (buying 1-2 lbs. of fish and then $10 worth of veggies), and now that I’ve cut out fish as well, I’m down to about $10 a week in veggies to sustain myself just in addition to what I have pantry-wise. I’m only cooking for one most days though, if that means anything.
I am a list-maker by nature, so it is no different with food shopping. But I have an issue with shopping with my eyes/nose/imagination/etc. & rarely my wallet or sense of reason. Which on good days means I get inventive and tasty meals, and other days I get a cute jar of anchovies with a special fork collecting dust in the pantry.
I have not read the original NYT article, but I do think that the total “cost” of bad food may be less than good food in that it typically has a longer shelf life, requires little to no cooking, etc. which can be crucial if one’s apt is lacking a fridge or stove (or if it’s not reliable). Although I do employ some ES banned cheating (onion dip) I also unequivocally don’t consider dried beans or jiffy mix fresh.