Second Wednesday in a row I wound up at work. They requested I switch my shift because today only had three cases, and I was needed to cover Wednesday instead because Cow-orker reinjured her knee.
Today, woke feeling ill, not sick, but worn, achy, head buzzing, sinuses unhappy, hormonal and cranky. Part of me wanting to get out and dig, but the rest of me vetoing the idea strongly. Took a hot bath with epsom salts, read the Imogen Quy book D brought home from the library, hunkered. I do this, sometimes. Needing recharge. It's a known February state of mind. Not actual physical ailment, but a need to go soft and still.
We went out later to shop for groceries. Little exchange with the checker about the price of a tomato. I said I figured the price of produce was random, and since we were going to buy it anyway, why quibble? He laughed, I shrugged.
It's true, though, I don't worry much about the price of food. We get good stuff, with just the two of us, we focus on what will get eaten. We try not to buy more than we will use, try not to waste. I work with some women who have professional husbands, so two good incomes, they talk about vacations I would never consider affordable, house renovations, they have two cars, attend concerts regularly. And when I bring in a $6 meal from Trader Joe's, they are aghast I spend so much on one meal, when I could get a massive amount of food from Wincostcomart for just a little more. I nod and keep eating.
We reckon food as a price per amount-actually-eaten expense.
My mother bought cheap food. I understand where she was coming from, she didn't get milk very often as a kid, they ate bread with shortening and brown sugar on top as a treat. While not starving as a child, it was a matter of barely enough, and she clearly did not have great nutrition. So she made sure we were "filled up", usually with flour and sugar, desserts. Plain solid food, chicken, hamburger, tinned salmon patties on Friday, with potatoes and canned corn. Fresh vegetables and fruits were a rarity - too expensive. She knew to the penny what groceries cost, and disparaged (only in my hearing) how much Aunt Alma & Uncle Milton spent on food. More than she did to feed five! And don't even get her going on how much restaurants cost.
I still struggle to eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables, not wanting to waste any, I often buy less than I should, and would like to, eat. Frozen produce helps. And it's not like we are buying luxury food, no caviar nor exotic gold covered chocolate, no truffles nor huge thick steaks. Just, better raw materials. Not the cheapest, although often the simplest. I don't know if we do it particularly well, but we do it consciously.
5 comments:
Sounds like a good plan.
Know where you are about food.
and February.
((hugs))...nearly March!!
Crow,
Seems to be working, more or less.
gz,
And it's not like I'm sick of winter this year, since we didn't really get one.
Something our recent visitors just turned me on to: frozen mashed potato. Comes in bags, frozen in little cigarette shaped bits, tastes exactly like the real thing, is great for thickening soups or for toppings or for when I have a hankering for one portion of mash. The kind of thing I'd have abhorred before. Jamie Oliver, very sensible Brit tv chef, recommends frozen veg as nutritionally good and you use exactly what you want or need of it.
My thrift, like most people's, strains at gnats and swallows camels. Though I feel conflicted when I've carefully worked out the best things to get for the money and where, then Tom picks up a tiny jar of Basque peppers in the organic supermarket which cost nearly as much as the Christmas chicken did. I don't want to be stingy so say nothing, but seethe inwardly. And it's nothing really.
My mum had that inverted snobbery about eating out, how can you spend that on food etc. In her old age though she had a change of heart and discovered the joys of a good pub meal, which was nice. The eating out culture had changed by then too.
Lucy,
I love frozen veg. And a steamer to cook 'em. I don't think we have the potato-cicles here, but I'll keep an eye out.
When I've worked long, long hours, having someone bring us a good meal was worth every extra penny. Or pizza/Chinese delivered. When the alternative was not eating well, and getting hungrier and hungrier. Mom would relent for vacations, but it was McDonalds or a diner, and she complained the whole time about the cost.
D is a big part of my looking at expenses differently. Like when I went to buy a t-shirt on vacation because I'd not packed enough. Going for the cheapest, he reminded me - get something good, you'll have it then. I still have that Zion Nat'l Park shirt, after nearly 20 years.
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