Day One

I have four words to sum up my first day of doing the Food Stamp Challenge so far.  Harder. Than. I. Thought.  (And it is not even dinnertime yet.)

Breakfast was fairly easy, being my usual bowl of cereal.  I dusted off my long division skills after realizing we don’t have a simple calculator and figured out how much the cereal and milk I was eating had cost me.  Forty-five cents.  Not bad.  I could do this.  I poured myself an iced tea at the house before heading out to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping with my son.  Eight cents for the tea.  Still doing well. 

Things started heading south when my husband called late-morning to see if the kids and I wanted to meet up for lunch.  It was his boss’s birthday, and the plan was to meet at McClurg, the student dining hall at the University of the South.  “Great!” I said, “I’ll pick Eleanor up from preschool on the way, and we’ll see you there.”  Good fun, I thought, birthday lunch at McClurg!  I love McClurg; it’s not the typical college cafeteria.  The University of the South is a small liberal arts school (1,500 students) with what I would guess is a very large endowment because the university seems to scrimp on nothing here, so the dining hall has it all – woks with fresh stir fry, paninis, made-to-order pasta, a vegan line (I mean, a school in Tennessee has a VEGAN line – what?!), a dozen desserts, drinks galore, you name it.  And it’s an all-you-can-eat deal for $4.50 with my husband’s employee discount.  What a deal, right?  But I was gathering up my keys to go when I remembered – OH.  The Food Stamp Challenge.  I can’t spend almost 25 percent of my budget for the week on one meal.  Sigh.  I hurried back to the kitchen and threw together a peanut-butter sandwich, which I ate in McClurg amidst hundreds of feasting students, faculty and staff.  Oh how bad I wanted a bite of my son’s garlic cheese bread!  Or the chance to “clean up” my duaghter’s dripping soft serve ice cream cone while we walked home.  But there is a bit of the learning I was hoping for, I suppose: I couldn’t have what I wanted because so many others can’t either. 

I made a smoothie this afternoon – 39 cents after I split it with my kids.  As I anticipated, the figuring part is difficult and time-consuming (although I found a calculator!)  As far as the math and planning goes, it would sure be easier to do this with no one else in the house or with the whole family included.  Perhaps I should have claimed an entire loaf of bread and box of cereal as “mine” for the week so I am not constantly calculating how much food I used out of a larger whole.  I’m a real food-lover, though, and I think I’d rather do a lot of math and have a little variety than have the same things to eat over and over again all week just because it’s easy.  The latter scenario doesn’t strike me as very healthy, but I do admit it would certainly add some simplicity.  

On the menu tonight for dinner: either egg burritos or black bean burritos.  No extras like sour cream.  No beer or glass of wine to sip while I cook.  And no bites of ice cream straight out of the container after the kids are in bed.  Wow, I will really miss that ice cream.  But as I’m now beginning to accept: this will be harder than I thought . . .