Tonight we had beef tips, mashed potatoes and broccoli with cheese sauce for our evening meal. We had this exact same meal on Saturday. This is a typical situation in our house. Lori will cook a large meal and we will eat the same meal two or three times until it is gone. It is done both for convenience and cost savings.
It is quicker to fix the meal once and reheat it the next time rather than cook the whole meal again. Cooking in large quantity allows us to take advantage of cost savings on bulk packaging. For us, it simply makes sense. It has for a long time. It is nothing new.
Tonight, however there was a bit of a twist. We had both eaten and were satisfied. Everything was consumed except a couple of tablespoons of cheese sauce. Even though, we don't perceive ourselves to be wasteful individuals, we would have disposed of the extra cheese sauce before embarking on this challenge. Tonight, Lori ate it.
Lori has done the heavy lifting with regard to costing each meal by serving to ensure that our daily intake stays within the $9.00* goal for which we are aiming. She now sees each meal in terms of dollars and cents. With each meal being valued down to the penny and knowing that a few tablespoons of cheese had value. She couldn't see those pennies going in the trash can.
Even though, we haven't struggled with hunger and have plenty of food on hand, she could not bring herself to throw away those few spoons of cheese. If this is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen.
For the record, our meals eaten through today total $36.19.
*We based our 30 day budget based on $4.50 per day per person, which was the national average when we started, in spite of the fact that our research indicated that for our area the benefit was larger ($6.17 per person per day). Beginning November 1, the average benefit will drop to $4.20, in our area the benefit will drop to $5.78. Since we are below even the new national average, we will strive for that for the November portion of the challenge.
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