Day One

Today's breakfast: Quaker Oats chewy granola bar and a small glass of orange juice.  Normally, my breakfast would either be a TLC bar or Balance Bar (amazing, but pricey at $1.00 each), large glass of orange juice, or a bagel and egg sandwich.


For lunch, Jason and Jeff both made sandwiches of Oscar Mayer ham (expiration date: late March! gross.) with no cheese, on the cheapest white bread at Schnucks, and store-brand yogurt.  Normally, lunch consists of low-sodium Boar's Head deli roast beef and lacy swiss cheese on the healthiest, whole-grain, HFCS-free, best-tasting bread ever and organic pro-biotic yogurt with fresh berries. 


Dinner: This was a great success.  What we did make isn't too foreign from what we might normally cook. Key difference was mostly quality of ingredients. Did we notice a difference in taste? Not really. 

Ingredients: 
-Two chicken breasts from our giant 3-pound, $9.99 bag, cooked in a mustard and soy sauce marinade. 
-Instant white rice (not bad, but normally we cook natural brown or wild rice)
-Two corns on the cob.


We didn't really buy any snack foods at our last shopping trip, and at 10:45pm, my stomach is very much regretting this decision. Normally, I would be eating some chips and hummus right now. Getting pretty hungry. 

Proportionally, my best estimate puts today's meals at a cost of $4.25 for the each of us.  I really wanted to shoot for $3.50, but mostly for other reasons.  As February has 29 days, $127.05 per month allows us to spend $4.38 per day. 


Reflection: We ate pretty well today and essentially maxed out our daily cap. As we just went shopping yesterday, any challenging decisions we did face were encountered at the grocery store.  I imagine that as the month progresses, we will tire of the lack of culinary variety surely accompanying this challenge.  We feel fortunate that we have a small household comprised of two individuals eligible for separate benefits under current SNAP policies (see previous post for more info).  If we were a larger household size with kids, we would probably face challenging decisions both at the grocery store and more frequently in the home. If we extrapolate our first day's consumption to the rest of the month, it is unlikely that we will have enough funds for the occasional treat, let alone dining out.