In years past I've had a number of friends do things to learn what it's like to either eat on a budget or limit their intake of food (without fasting) for specific or extended amounts of time, for both personal or spiritual reasons, but never figured I would be able to do more than what I've ever done with say the 30 Hour Famine. Recently, our house hold has had and encounter with a new fact to face that means our food budget needs to be revisited and reconfigured. Food is not cheap, no matter how you look at it. There are food pantries in almost every city, but we donate to those, we don't utilize them. It's become very difficult for me, while trying to diet and eat right, to realize that we have to cut back on the items that are most expensive when it comes to what food we buy. That means buying cheaper foods, therefore also not as healthy items. (One can only ingest a certain amount of Ramen Noodles in their lifetime!) Seriously, not cool to someone trying to change their eating habits!
So in all the mayhem that's going on in the world that is my home, I got to mulling an idea around in my head that I had talked to my husband about in the past and something an old friend of mine had done before. Randomly, this idea came up in conversation last night with a friend of mine. I told her I wanted to do this 30 Days on 30 Dollars, thing. In explaining it, I told her that you basically take thirty bucks and buy what you will use for your meals and snacks for one month (thirty days). I have tossed this back and forth a number of times in my head on doing this for different reasons. Obviously the biggest reason as of late, would be that we've recently had to seriously budget crunch in our home, and if I could cut costs for at least a month by eating certain things for said month that were purchased with a specific set aside amount of money, then that would be a bonus to saving some money. Also, budget crunches don't help those of us who diet, as I mentioned before, and this would be a challenge to find healthy, nutritious foods that can last me thirty days, again in that specific amount of money.
I'm still working on details of this. It means a lot of planning and shopping around, couponing, and ad hunting for the best deals. It means setting myself rules of not eating anything else that is in the house already, or that is purchased for the rest of my family to be eating for their meals. It is going to be a time consuming process, yes. It is going to be a challenge, yes. It is going to be discouraging as I search for the best way to spend my thirty dollars to get me through thirty days in a healthy fashion. I will also be hoping to find some amazing new recipes for things as well, because I am almost certain that I will end up just as sick of red beans and rice as I have become of Ramen Noodles!
