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.)

I don’t usually buy groceries at Target. I figured they’re more expensive than the regular grocery store, but I never actually did a price comparison. I was pleasantly surprised last week to find out my assertion is not true. Target beats the regular supermarket for a lot of goods.

I went to buy some windshield wiper fluid at the automotive department, but they were out. I was feeling peckish and in the mood for some brownies. I got it into my head to make this a one-stop trip, so I went to buy the brownie mix, some eggs and then I noticed that they had lots of juice, and snack food. Lately I’ve realized that I love Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Treats from the vending machine at work. Because of my junk food appetite, I decided if I’m going to eat crap, I might as well buy it and keep it in my desk instead of throwing precious laundry machine quarters.

I found out that Ocean Spray juices are about $2.49 for various flavors. I usually only get that price at Harris Teeter when I use my VIC card (club card) to get the 2 for $5.00 sale price for two bottles at once.

The Rice Krispie Treats? Those were about $4.00 a box of sixteen treats. The treats are small from the grocery store vs. the .75 oz ones from the vending machine at 75 cents each. I usually at two at a time because the portions are small, but either way, it’s still a better deal than buying them from the vending machine.

Bertolli frozen dinners? Those are $7.99 at Harris Teeter, but I always get them with my VIC card for $6.99. Target price? about $6.50, *ALL* *THE* *TIME*.

I did buy crazy vegetarian cage-free eggs for a ridiculous price. ($3.50 for a dozen) I had to stop and think what the heck is a ‘vegetarian egg’? That sounds like an oxymoron, but it means the hen was fed food without animal by-products. (Mad cow anyone?) Because I only used two to make brownies, I’m not sure yet how they taste.

ps - They often have cotton terry washcloths in packs of 12 for $3.00. I love them and use them as kitchen towels because they’re so cheap.

I screwed up my WordPress migration so I don’t have any archives by month like other good bloggers do. Instead, I’ve been trying to tag my articles with categories so you can read them topically.

I’m not finished yet, but some old, but I tagged some good articles. I don’t know when I’ll get around to tagging what’s left. I have about 6 more months to tag and then I have to backfill all the other articles that weren’t easy to categorize.

Please enjoy the Books category for book reviews. (A new one will be posted soon!)
Articles I Like: for articles I have plucked from other sites and bloggers, but mostly other bloggers.
Personal Memory: if you want to get to know me better.
DIY: you are inclined to make things. Plus it’s one of my favorite categories.
Emergency Fund: if you want to see my Save-O-Meter progress and thoughts on the subject.
Emergency Preparedness: if you want to know what to do in an emergency or how to protect yourself.
Frozen Dinners: for Frozen Dinner Reviews (or search my blog for ‘FDR’, because not all were tagged yet)
Jobs or Employment: These include some of my best posts like Mapgirl, Inc.

Also remember that a category only appears if there is a post with that tag. So every single category has something. You won’t be clicking nothing if you click them.

2 Stars - **

It was watery and very soupy which I don’t expect in a lasagna. Change the name to ‘Pasta with Curly Noodles’ and I would have been happier. It tasted ok. The sauce, like many frozen dinner tomato sauces, was very sweet and sugary. There was cheese on it, but I thought there wasn’t enough pasta. I could have boiled up a handful of elbow macaroni and tossed them into the bowl to stretch the sauce.

For the buy one get one free deal I got with the Penne Marinara, it was alright, but I probably won’t get it again unless Seeds of Change is on sale and the other flavors available aren’t appealing.

Another Frozen Dinner Review!

Lean Cuisine Steak Tips Portabello
4 Stars - ****

I love this meal. It’s got no starch included for those trendy Atkins/South Beach Dieters. The meal is steak tips (which is always an optimistic marketing term at best) with mushrooms in a brown sauce, coupled with broccoli florets. It’s only 180 calories, if you care about such things.

It’s a small portion. I could probably eat 2 of them for dinner. But I love the brown savory sauce. Since the meal lacks a starch, I like to have one or two slices of bread. There’s so much sauce in the box that I can strech the meat portion by dipping the bread into the sauce. I notice the skimpy size of the steak tips less that way.

I also love broccoli, but the floret size is pretty small. It’s one of the few vegetables my mother knew I would eat as a kid, tops only. I only found an appreciation for the stalks when I got older and trimmed off the tough green ‘bark’.

The meal goes on sale at my local supermarket for $2.00-2.25, which to me is a good deal. When this meal goes on sale, I always buy it. It always tastes great to me. Sometimes when 5 meals go on sale for $10.00, it’s so good, I’ll get two out of the 5.