Back on the wagon $5 a day.

Three years ago when I was a completely different person, I had a blog called ysalife.blogspot.com I wrote about some of the challenges of living as a Young Single Adult. I didn't keep it up very well but there was one thing I wanted to get back on the wagon with. I challenged myself to not spend more than $5 a day on anything that wasn't a set monthly bill, namely: food, fun, and fuel. In order to develop better spending habits, I did pretty well on it even if I didn't keep up on posting about it. You can read what I did post about it Here if you want to. when I did stop I felt I had acomplish my goal of developing a habit of thinking about what I bought and if it was worth it.

   I have really let that habit go. I thought I was doing ok but I have never been very good at tracking my spending so I didn't really know how much I had been spending on food and splurges. I knew I was spending more than before because I had changed what I eat and the way I think about food. I now refuse to give money to factory farms or to Monsanto if I can avoid it. I drink local raw milk, buy  local pasture raised eggs and chickens, and local grass fed beef. I buy as much local and organic produce as I can find and afford and I avoid prepossessed food as much as possible. I felt (and still feel) the higher cost was worth it but I wasn't keeping track. Last week I added up what I spent on food in the last month and was shocked to realize I had spent $300 just on food!! ( I included eating out when I was at work but not in the evenings that was counted as entertainment.)  I couldn't believe it I went through and added it up again. How could I have spent so much on food for just myself?  I was so caught up in getting the good stuff I wasn't looking at my budget in fact I hadn't re-evaluated my budget for the new way I was buying, I just thought the higher price was worth it. but last month when my car needed a few repairs (another $300+ worth) money got tighter and I needed to add everything up to see where I could cut back.

So now that you have the back story I will lay out the rules. Many others have done challenges on eating well on a dollar a day and their rules are all pretty much the same: Start with nothing and only spend $1 a day on food for usually 30 days, One guy did it for 100 days and came out under budget by quite a lot( he used super couponing techniques). They did it as a way to prove that you can still eat nutritious food while on a very restrictive budget, that saying your low budget keeps you from eating healthy is simply not true.
While I applaud their achievements, I am not doing this to make a political point, I am doing this to develop better spending habits. So while others started with nothing in there pantry I will of course have full access to all of my food storage, Others did not allow themselves to accept food from others (samples, parties, the candy tray at work ect...) I will be free to eat whatever is offered to me (although I might decline for other reasons). I am not going to be super strict with myself  but I will have a few hard rules.

My Rules:
Every night before bed I will add one 5 dollar bill to my wallet
I will not carry debit card with me unless I am getting fuel
Any money not spent rolls over into the next day
Money in my wallet will be used for Food, Entertainment, clothing, and any non essentials 
Any money spent online will be taken out of the wallet and put back into the bank
Any additional money earned (selling stuff online ect..) will be added to my wallet total.
I must menu plan and stick to it
Try not to waste any food

Buying Exceptions:
I am allowed to buy fuel with my debit card every other week
I am allowed to buy gardening supplies with money earned while babysitting
If I see a great deal  on something important (like local meat or organic food storage items) that I don't have the money in my wallet for I can stock up if I can afford it otherwise.

The real Challenge wont be eating for $5 a day ( I feel I could do that easly ) It will be keeping up my standerds for food while still having money for entertainment and other non essentials.  I try to buy localy, organic, humanly raised and minimally prepossessed. I also buy raw grass fed milk which is $7.50 a gallon, pasture raised eggs can be $7.00 a dozen and I have seen grass fed ground beef up to $10 a pound.( I don't buy it at that price though.)


Hopefully I can get back into good spending habits with this system and get to point where I always have a good build up of roll over money to pull from. I started on February 25th and Have $10.71 in my wallet today. I did buy some things with my Debit card once because I have been suffering from constant heartburn recently and I was trying everything under the natural sun to treat it. Nothing helped for long and so reluctantly I started taking Omeprasole. I hope one 14 day course is all I have to take, I don't like taking medicine for an extended period of time. Other than that I have stuck to my rules completely. I even went to a movie last week ( I had a voucher to see Les Mis I only ended up spending $2)

the only way this will work is if I have someone to report to. Thats where you come in, I will be posting updates on how I am doing and what I am eating maybe even recipes. Its your job to keep me on track.

Wish me luck...