100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 5...

So this is what it must feel like to be on Weight Watchers. You look at how many points you've got left, you eat, you record, you tally, and hope you have enough points left for the week that you won't be gnawing on carrot sticks and chugging sugar free vitamin water for the rest of the week...

I think I'm doing ok so far considering it's Wednesday and I still have pretty much a whole chicken, some shrimp, a few eggs, some Italian sausage, and still a mess of veg in the fridge.

If it's been a bummer dealing with financial issues from a past illness from a past life, I was a little heartened to be able to squeeze, tuck and otherwise mold my squishy bod into a few clothes from that past life that I'm not ready to discard. Where to wear them now that I am persona domestica is another ball of wax, but that's what your facebook profile pic's for, right? To make pretty every once in a while and broadcast it when you're all dolled up with no office to go...

I am itching to wear this little red silk knit number with a fabulous little slit up the left leg that I got at a consignment shop in Chicago for something ridiculous like 7 bucks, so as of the publishing of this post, the Man is on notice that this dress is getting worn to some place other than facebook sometime in the near future. :)

In the interest of full disclosure, we ate really early yesterday evening and ended up feeling snacky pretty early into the night, so while we were watching the new Kathy Griffin special (which I hate to say wasn't as funny as past ones), I fixed us a Cali Roll bowl with the roughly 1/2 cup of krab that was left from Saturday's California Roll lunch, the last half of avocado, some of that rice I made yesterday morning, a little pickled ginger, and lemon-wasabi soy sauce.

And to make Kathy a little funnier, I drank the rest of that Torrontes.

But since I nixed on the ice cream that was already counted in yesterday's budget, I figure...

SNACK: about $2.50.

Breakfast this morning was anything but cinnamon raisin bagels.

Yogurt with homemade strawberry-plum jam and honey...

A bowl of yogurt for each of us, with a heaping spoonful of some strawberry-plum jam I made about 6 weeks ago and a drizzle of honey. Two hard boiled eggs for the Man, one for me.

Hard boiled is what happens when you set a 4 minute
timer for what you think are extra large eggs but
they're only just the large ones...

BREAKFAST: $2.50 total, $1.25/serving

For lunch, the Man has leftover chili with rice from yesterday and an apple, and as my palate is fairly indifferent today, my lunch will be no different (except no apple). The rest of that chili (2 small servings' worth) is going to the back of the fridge where things seem to stay fresher, longer, until this weekend when the girlchild who likes chili with beans (unlike the boychild) will inevitably ask for snacks. (She is her mother's daughter...)

Since chili was already figured into yesterday's budget, I'm only accounting for rice and apple today.


LUNCH: $0.60.

Dinner was tangentially inspired by a Bizarre Foods episode on super spicy (as in hot) Szechuan food. As this desire to stay on top of the posts is giving me a certain sense of urgency, I got a head start on dinner today and made a super spicy, somewhat sweet, and slightly unctuous Korean style three chili braised chicken using all of the dark meat from this week's chicken breakdown. 2 drums, 2 thighs, and 2 wings makes 3 servings.

Quick pickled daikon and cukes on the side along with some steamed jasmine rice.

I think I bought that daikon about a month ago. That stuff keeps foreverrrr...

That and a tiny bit of the kimchi I made on Saturday makes...

DINNER: $4.50 total, $1.50/serving.


Including last night's snack that I carried over from yesterday, that's right about $10.00 for today.

Saturday:  $24.00
Sunday:  $13.00
Monday:  $11.00
Tuesday:  $7.00
Wednesday:  $10.00

I'm at $66.00 with two days left to go, which probably means I'll have a few food odds and ends to carry over into next week. Which is a good thing, because I can see that I'll need to buy another 10 lb. bag of jasmine rice and 5 lb. bag of sugar, which will eat into next week's budget by about $10.00.

Off to brew my afternoon coffee,

shinae

P.S. To the reader who found me by googling *kebabs that look like poo*, I hope you did not find what you were looking for.