100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 22 (Shopping Day)...

It's the last shopping day of this project, and while I'm half sad to see it end, I'm kind of excited to take on a new blogging project. I like how the overarching theme of a monthly food budget has given me focus and motivation to post every day. After taking a week or so to focus on writing recipes, I think I'll start a monthlong series on cooking basics or something like that. I think that could be an enlightening endeavor.

Having entered all 4 weeks' data into the spreadsheet, here are some findings:

- I've spent $390 total on these weekly shopping trips.

- 25% of that has gone to produce, another 25% to meat (& poultry & fish), 15% to dairy (which includes eggs), 16% to pantry items, 5% to breads and cereals, 8% to indulgences like desserts and wine, and 6% to miscellany like paper, plastic, cleaning and toiletry items.

- I'm pretty sure I've spent no more than $20 for groceries that weren't included in these 4 shopping trips.

No doubt living in a somewhat densely populated and ethnically diverse area gives us access to a great variety of ingredients at pretty reasonable prices, but I think most places have their own advantages when it comes to food supply. Some parts of the country seem to have a better deal on certain kinds of meat, we here in California certainly have it good when it comes to produce, and when I hear about some of the deals on lobster and blueberries in the Northeast, I am mildly envious.

Besides paying attention to prices, I think a big money saver is cooking around your groceries rather than buying your groceries around recipes. And undoubtedly, that approach makes you a more creative, inventive, adaptable, and all around better cook over time.

There are lots of great resources on the web for recipes and food ideas: epicurious, allrecipes, cooks.com, and my regular hangout chowhound, to name a few.

If you're on my facebook page, then you already know that I am blessed with lots of friends who have great food ideas and who inspire me all the time. You probably have friends with whom you can swap food ideas. But going through the exercise of matching your on-hand ingredients to a good food idea is such a worthwhile effort that only gets easier with practice.

$66.00 at Fresh & Easy +

$54.32 at Earthgrown
= $120 TOTAL

And on to the last breakdown...

As predicted to the Man before I left the house to go shopping, I went a little produce happy as I tend to do from time to time. But the fact that we had to restock on coffee and TP ate up 20 bucks of the budget right off the bat, and I spent $120 today to make up for the shortfall of previous weeks.

PRODUCE: For onions, carrots, Napa cabbage, a honeydew, a bunch of green onion, a cantaloupe, a tray of button mushrooms, a green bell, a red bell, a head of Romaine, 3 Russet potatoes, some ginger, 2 bunches of cilantro, 5 Roma tomatoes, 4 Habanero peppers, some daikon radish, 4 Honeycrisp apples, 2 baskets of cherry tomatoes, 7 jalapenos, 2 lemons, 6 limes, and 5 heads of garlic, I paid $27.41, about 23% of the bill.

MEAT: For a 5 lb. tray of chicken quarters (thighs and drums), 2 pounds of ground beef, 1 pound of honey turkey ham, 1 pound of bacon, and a roughly 3.5 pound pork butt, I paid $22.05, or 18% of the bill.

DAIRY: For 1 gallon of whole milk, two 32 oz. containers of yogurt, 20 jumbo eggs, and a small slab of Monterey Jack cheese, I paid $14.19 or 12% of total.

PANTRY: For a 32 oz. canister of coffee, 11 assorted packets of semi-instant noodles, a bottle of soy sauce, a bottle of Tapatio hot sauce, and some crushed red chili flakes, I paid $23.21 or 19% of total.

GRAINS: For a 4-pack of croissants, 2 boxes of Cheerios, and a small loaf of whole wheat bread, I paid $8.49, or 7% of total.

INDULGENCES: For a tray of coffee cake, 2 no longer exactly half gallon containers of Breyer's ice cream (vanilla and Neopolitan), and a bottle of cava (Spanish sparkling wine), I paid $12.47, or 10% of total.

MISC: For a 12-pack of TP and a bottle of Vitamin B caplets, I paid $12.98, or 11% of total.

I've already used up 4 packets of udon and some of that deli turkey and wheat bread. For the rest of the week, I'm planning on:

- Teriyaki chicken and salad with some Japanese resto carrot ginger dressing

- Some empanadas de picadillo with half of the ground beef

- Maybe some angel hair pasta with marinara and meatballs with the other half of the ground beef

- split pea soup using some dry split peas I bought either last week or the week before that and some bacon

- some bun thit heo nuong (Vietnamese rice noodle salad with grilled pork) and pickled carrots and daikon

- possibly some egg salad sandwiches

As usual, we'll see how the rest develops.

And on to the meals I go...

shinae