Day Zero

So I went to the grocery store to pick up the food I’ll be eating for the $21/7 days thing.

$21 is what the average a person gets in food stamps to cover 7 days.

The following list is what I bought at the Giant store I usually go to in the Towson/North Baltimore area. I often go there, even though it’s not the closest grocery store to my apartment, because the prices are lower and it only takes 15 minutes to drive to. The closest chain grocery store (Superfresh) to me is about a fifteen minute walk, but being in the city, the prices are usually higher and the stores smaller with less variety. Things that were on sale are noted in parentheses.

1Lb 4oz Super G enriched white bread $0.99
1Lb Frozen Broccoli/Cauliflower (on sale 10/$10) $1.00
1Lb Frozen Petite Peas (on sale 10/$10) $1.00
1Lb Frozen Broccoli/Corn/Red Pepper mix (on sale 10/$10) $1.00
1.75qts Turkey Hill Mint Cookie and Cream Frozen Yogurt (on sale -$3.80) $1.99
1Lb Store Brand All Natural Peanut Butter $2.79
2qts Store Brand Cran-Grape Juice $2.29
2Lb Store Brand Natural Brown Rice $0.99
1Lb 2oz Store Brand All Natural Oatmeal (one sale -$0.39) $1.00
1.30Lbs Perdue Ground Turkey $2.59
3.45lbs Bananas (at $.49/lb) $1.69

My total before savings: $24.29
My total savings: $6.96
Total after savings: 17.33
Left to spend if I so choose: $3.67


So after buying all this, what are my thoughts? That this is almost too easy. This seems like plenty of food. I bought 7 bananas. I’ll have one banana a day, though I usually have two a day. I might buy more with the remainder, later. 2lbs of rice will make a lot of grains/carbs to eat and be satisfied. Juice for a sweet drink. Mint Cookie and Cream Frozen Yogurt (my personal all-time favorite) fortuitously on sale for dessert. Plenty of frozen vegetables, also fortuitously on sale. However, I do imagine that I will tire of eating the same thing every day, though the bread and peanut butter (the all natural was a splurge, I could have gotten regular peanut butter for $1.50 for the same size) might be had instead of oatmeal or rice some days. I don’t always eat meat every day, so 1.30lbs of turkey will do me fine, though I may want more.

It’s also seems too easy because we didn’t have to buy spices either. We could use what we already had. I have lemon pepper salt, soy sauce, garlic salt, pepper, ginger, and a few Mrs. Dash flavors, among other things. And those things are expensive, because it takes so long to go through them.

I thought going into this I would be going hungry some days. As of right now, I don’t see that happening.

And I think it might be easier for me because I probably eat less than the average American. I’m 5’1” and weigh approximately 100lbs. I haven’t weighed myself lately, so I don’t know for sure, other than I can tell my body type hasn’t changed in the last . . . 7 years, at least. I still wear jeans from high school. And I was very skinny then. I tend to eat low fat foods and watch what I eat. I don’t eat full fat ice cream at all, really, for example. I do love cream in coffee, however, and carbs. I love breads and noodles and eating a lot of them. I should get more protein in my diet, ’cause it’d probably help to build muscle that I need. I love filling up with vegetables too, which is sort of like eating nothing with a lot of good nutrients. I even like eating them plain.

I never counted the amount of calories I have each day. Each day is different.

But I know what will be difficult not to pick up a morning coffee and bagel at the local café before work. No more of that for these seven days. It’s probably a good thing, because I want to wean myself off coffee and go back to tea. I also won’t be able to have my favorite blueberry banana protein smoothie that I have once or twice a week from the local juice bar.

I still aim on exercising the same, so we will see what happens in the end. Will I eat all the food before the end of the week? It’s a possibility, even though at this moment I think it’s a lot of food.