$138 A Week For Groceries - On Frugality Vs. Merely Saving Money & Meals Day 11 (Tuesday)

When I kicked off this grocery budget diary with our collective ideas on how to shop frugally, we talked a lot of tactics. And tactics are necessary to achieve an end. 

But an organic truth of life is that tactics, while potentially catchy and seemingly easy to follow at the outset, quickly and easily lose steam without some sound philosophy of good purpose to motivate and sustain them. I dare say they become burdensome and possibly even begin to feel like deprivation without a larger sense of meaning to back them up.

The tactics should be an expression of some greater purpose that drives them, and that sense of purpose when truly internalized actually makes them easier to carry out. Frugality is about so much more than spending less money. At its core, it's really about thoughtful, reasonably thorough, and grateful consumption and stewardship.

So while I think all our tactics to spend less can be incredibly useful toward the end of a virtuous kind of frugality, I think the most important thing, whatever our budget and standards for the ingredients we buy, is that we use those ingredients thoughtfully, reasonably thoroughly, and gratefully. And I'm pretty sure if we all did more of that, all the other tactics aside, we'd probably all be doing better individually, collectively, and globally.

As always, I've included a meal total and per serving total on the blog. The detailed ingredient cost breakdown HERE.

Breakfast

For me, an open-faced Peanut Butter & Banana sandwich and coffee.

For the boys, steak and eggs with some of the leftover grilled ribeye from the weekend. (Joey's egg was scrambled.) Coffee for them as well.

Izz had a mishmash of grapes, goldfish crackers, and a little bit of steak.

BREAKFAST TOTAL (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 toddler): $3.56

Lunch

For Dean, me and Izz, the rest of the Easy Braised Teriyaki Chicken, some grapes and some Famous Amos cookies. We don't normally eat sweets like this so often, but I bought that bulk bag because it was on sale, and those cookies are no good when they start to go stale. (Another reason I don't normally buy bulk.)

Joey decided he doesn't really get that hungry at school and took only an apple and a juice pouch and some money just in case.

As a result, he ate a bowl of cereal as soon as he walked in the door in the afternoon, so I'll just tabulate that with lunch because I'm too lazy to create a "Snacks" heading.

LUNCH TOTAL (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 toddler): $2.45

Dinner

Carne Asada Taco Tuesday with the beef I marinated on Sunday morning.

On charred corn tortillas, of course. :)

Oh, and with a Corona each for me and Dean, of course. :) (Juice pouch for Joey.)

That meat was enough for 12 tacos or 4 servings, and we ate 9 between the three of us. Izz just had a little of the meat and watermelon. I'll slightly pad the taco total to account for 4 complete servings so you can get an idea of per serving cost.

DINNER TOTAL (2 adults, 1 teen, 1 toddler): $15.37
COST FOR 4 SERVINGS CARNE ASADA TACOS: $11.78
COST PER SERVING: $2.95

MEALS DAY 11 TOTAL: $21.38

Because I knew Dean was going to grill the carne asada and we hate wasting perfectly hot coals, I also marinated some Vietnamese Grilled Pork (minus the curry powder - I'm all out) earlier in the day so Dean could piggyback those after the carne asada, but I'll tally the pork on the day we eat them. In the meantime, some grilled meat porn. :D

Hopefully today is the day I get caught up with that extra post.

Happy Thursday. :)

shinae

This post is part of my 30 Day Grocery Budget Diary. To see all the posts of this series in reverse chron order, click HERE.

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