Frugal Food: The Weekend

I didn't have any specific goals for pursuing my frugal food program during the weekend, which was foolish, perhaps, because it's when I do the majority of my unfrugal food. But I kept the goal in mind and did relatively well nonetheless.

Saturday K cooked us a beautiful breakfast: homemade hash browns and omelets with smoked jack cheese, olives, and tomatoes. Yum. And I had some leftover pasta before we left the house for our evening plans (which were free), so that took care of dinner. We also cheaped out by bringing booze with us--not a violation of protocol in this particular situation, and we did buy something at each party we went tofor politeness's sake. We ended up spending about $5 each, which K covered for me because I was (as I so often am) without cash. We also decided to forego that ritualized activity, the after-partying snack, in favor of crashing, so the food-and-drink expenditures for Saturday were at a bare minimum. Yay!

We spent Saturday night at my parents' apartment for reasons of convenience, and because they've left for their vacation, what used to be a very frugal choice is now quite the opposite. We woke up to the prospect of going out for breakfast. I spent $23 for the two of us at a little local chain (K had also picked up the cabfare the night before, so it evened out). We picked up a pizza and drinks on our way home from IKEA because both of us were too hungry to wait to cook (and also we wanted to spend our time putting together our new aquisition rather than making dinner), for $20. So for the two of us, we spent about $53 on eating (and drinking) out over the course of the weekend. Not bad, but not great--I would have preferred to have had something in the freezer for when we got home from IKEA, so dinner could be speedy and cheap.

Because the IKEA purchase was far more expensive than planned, it's particularly important that I make the frugal-food thing work this pay period, so I'm attacking the project with renewed vigor this week.