Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge

Hi!

I’m mapgirl! I’m about 10-15 lbs over my ideal weight. I’m too cheap to buy new clothes. I’d rather diet to fit back into what I own.

To help me track my calories and my spending, I found a Calorie-Counter Database at About.com. I use that with the online grocery shopping site for my local grocer and calculate what I ate and what I spent.

I don’t plan on doing this everyday, but I did try it out for Monday’s intake and it was mighty interesting.

For Breakfast I went with a co-worker to Au Bon Pain.
Spinach and Cheese croissant = 250 calories
Coffee with 2 Splenda packets = 10 calories
Spent ~ $5.00

For Lunch I went with co-workers for a sandwich
Turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, mustard and pickles
Used Subway equivalent with honey mustard (*yuck*) = 310 calories
Spent $2.74

Dinner on the way home
Quarter Pounder with Cheese at McDonald’s = 500 calories
Spent $3.26

Snacks after dinner (the oranges were basically dessert with dinner)
Dole Mandarin Oranges in syrup = 80 calories
Special K Vanilla Almond cereal 1.5 cups (2 servings) 220 calories
Generic Vanilla Rice Milk 1 cup = 120 calories
Spent ~$1.62

Total calories 1500
Total spent ~$12.61

Kind of dumb, but every once in a while, I like to keep track of what I ate and what it cost me so I get a grip on the cost of things. I was restrained on Monday.

I was going to eat Thai food for dinner, but I thought better of doing that since I had an appointment later in the evening and I was running some errands. Mickey D’s was fast, cheap, and easy. Yes, it’s terrible for me, but the alternative was to eat nothing since I had no food in the house.

After my appointment, I bought some groceries on the way home. I bought some breakfast food (rice milk, OJ, bread, and bagels and cream cheese) and some dinner foods that can turn into lunch food (Bertolli Frozen dinners for two in a new flavor). Nearly everything was on sale. I spent $33.45, but I could have spent $7.50 more if everything hadn’t been on sale.

I might go back today to buy more Bertolli frozen dinners and some frozen pizzas since the former is still on sale and I like the meatball and sausage varieties best. The latter is on BOGO sale for Super Bowl parties this week.

At any rate, the kids at work like going to get $2.50 6 inch sub sandwiches for lunch. Buy 15 of them and you get one free. I dislike cold sandwiches for lunch and frequently wish to add some soup to my sandwich, but I often dislike the soup selection so I will wait for Campbell’s Soup To Go in Creamy Tomato to go on sale. If I could buy it buy the case, I would, but I also like to buy it on sale for a dollar a can at Target instead of the regular grocery store which never sells it for quite that cheap. (But it does go down to $1.25 a can.)

Like I said, don’t expect me to do this sort of meal breakdown a lot. It just happened to be an easy thing to do on Monday once I decided I was going to do it. (I measured out my cereal and rice milk to exact amounts.) I think it’s worth taking a close look at your diet every once in a while and figuring out what you are eating and why. Honestly, I hadn’t had an ABP croissant in a long time. I knew it was bad and oily for me, but tasty. Now I will assuage my guilt with lower calorie bagels and cream cheese for the rest of the week.

Who knew that coffee was only 10 calories? Sure beats drinking a can of soda for my morning caffeine. (And I drank water all the rest of the day in an insulated mug vs styrofoam cup.)