30°f/-1°C, clear all day but only warmed to 54°.
Another night of troublesome sleep so here I am in the wee hours writing my blog. I might as well make use of being awake!
Today was a town day for us. Larry had a load of junk metal to take to the scrap yard (and got a whopping $9.25 for it!), and I wanted to get our first load of mulch, so we took the truck. I was surprised to see a long, deep scratch down its side, and a new dent in the front bumper. Larry says he has no idea how either happened, but I cannot imagine he didn't hear that scratch being made. Poor old truck.
Anyway, I straightened up our Ripley booth while he got rid of his load of junk. Last weekend was the Spring open house at this mall, so I knew it would be untidy. Then it was lunch with friends, Walmart for mulch, feed store, and grocery store.
At the grocery store I got to thinking about a question someone asked in a cooking group on Facebook: if you had only $5 to spend for all your food for a day, what would you buy? Five dollars doesn't buy much these days, does it? Here's what I came up with, if I shopped at Kroger :
- A box of 8 packets of instant, sweetened and flavored oatmeal: $1.67
- A half dozen eggs: $1.15
- A bag of frozen chopped broccoli: $1.29
- One Roma tomato: $.25
- 2 bananas: .60
- Total: $4.94
So, oats for breakfast and snacks, mix a packet with a couple eggs and a mashed banana to make pancakes for lunch (no syrup but the sweetened oats would add enough sugar), and omelet with the rest of the eggs, tomatoes and broccoli for dinner.
My goal was a fairly healthy menu, so could I do the same at Dollar Tree?
If I shopped at Dollar Tree, I could buy:
- A bag of brown rice: $1.25
- A bag of black beans $1.25
- A bag of frozen veggies $1.25
- A box of instant oatmeal packets $1.25
- Total: $5.00 (there is no tax on food in WV)
This would allow oats for breakfast and snacks, and beans and rice with the veggies for lunch and dinner. Nothing fresh but not too bad.
Public domain photo
Both of my options assumed that the only other food items I had on hand were water, salt and pepper. The Dollar Tree menu would provide more food, since the beans and rice would make quite a lot.
Of course, most of us have lots of flexibility when cooking, using food, spices, etc that we already had on hand. There are many days that I doubt what I cook actually costs even $5, because I may use only a part of something.
If you had to do this, what would you buy? The exercise made me feel grateful that I do not have to buy all my food, and that if I did, I could afford more choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Comments are moderated so may not appear immediately, but be assured that I read and enjoy each and every word you write, and will post them as quickly as possible.