the Great Recession-Proof Food/Cooking Experiment! - Days Four and Five

Dantzel and I are starting to realize, by sheer numbers and some prodding by our friends, the futility of the experiment at its current parameters. But, to quote from a president who oversaw a serious downturn in our country (to keep with the theme), "It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."

Sunday went without a hitch. Sabbaths should be easy for Mormons, who believe fairly strictly in not spending money on Sundays (thus keeping it holy). Dantzel made a mother lode of angel food cake, and I made fried rice. Dantzel also experimented with lunch meat, provolone, corn tortillas and our brand new mini toaster oven.

Today, however, Dantzel left behind a book she needed to study for a quiz later in class that day. So I bussed up to her work (with much adventure later on getting home) and we went out to lunch. We knew we already made a goal and had gone out to eat quite a bit before, but we had also made a commitment earlier when getting married that we would take time out of every day moments to spend time together. So wasn't that ten dollars spent on lunch for the both of us worth it?

Here, our values of seeking thrift and frugality, and spontaneity in our marriage clash together. $50 obviously is not enough to do this, and as a friend dutifully pointed out, $50 isn't really enough to eat well enough to keep healthy. Just a month ago, I mentioned to a friend that we spent a lot more on food, but it was usually high quality food, since good health was an important investment. The best health insurance, after all, is good health.

But lately, our food we've been buying and eating hasn't been very high quality at all. So, how do we keep track of what we eat, be able to eat healthy and save money at the same time to pad ourselves against a global economic slowdown?

Currently, we think we do a good job keeping expenses at a minimum. Some months are better than others, but we rarely ever go out and do expensive things, like watch movies in theaters or drive to far places and burn expensive gasoline. Our biggest vice - aside from eating out - would be buying books, but we have a principle to never buy a book at retail price, only on sale. But we know we could stand for improvement; otherwise, some months wouldn't be better than others. Where do we make the cut?

Dantzel does an excellent job at keeping track of our finances as an accountant-in-training. However (and she will be ecstatic to hear me say this), our lives can be broken down and compartmentalized even further. For the remaining thirty days, we will record what we spend on food, and what. This way, a better assessment can be made on the money we spend on food. Obviously, a spontaneous lunch or dinner we go out together for on one of those rare occasions we have a noon or evening free is worth more than when we're just plain lazy and end up getting fast food because we didn't want to cook. And while it's important to spend the money to buy things such as greens and fruit, buying expensive organic arugula imported from a fair-trade farm in Brazil is most likely going a little overboard.

Food is an interesting subject in the modern-day life of America. We rarely take the time to really think about where it comes from and how much we're willing to spend for it. Once a matter of mere survival, food has expanded to an extension of who we are and interestingly, where our values stand. Hopefully, a month long exploration of where we eat, what we eat, how much it costs and the motivations behind it, as well as an on going evaluation will reveal a little bit about us as people and a couple.

With that out of the way, dinner for day three ended up being box curry with vegetables. The total for dinner ended up as $5, so along with the lunch, the total spend for the past two days has been roughly $15.

Daily total spent: Approx. $15, lunch out and curry
Cumulative total: Approx. $43