A long time ago, I saw an Oprah episode that featured Maria Shriver. I don’t remember anything from that show except one brief anecdote: When Maria Shriver was young, her mother (Eunice Kennedy Shriver) would serve cereal for dinner once a week. Then, the family would use the money they would have spent on a regular meal as a donation help the hungry. During those meals, the family would discuss how much they have to be thankful for and how they could help the less fortunate.
While our family doesn’t live a particularly extravagant lifestyle, our girls will likely experience relatively privileged childhoods. I think this experiment will be a great opportunity to start teaching them about being thankful for what we have and remembering those who have less.
After some discussion (and a little arm-twisting), Mr. A and I have made a decision: We are going to save all the money we would normally have budgeted for groceries and donate it to the Mid Ohio Food Bank. I am really hopeful that we can stick this out for at least 3-4 weeks, so it should be be several hundred dollars*. It may also make the belt-tightening a bit easier if we are doing it for a good cause.
So anyway, are you curious to know what we ate today?
DAY ONE
Breakfast:
Mr. A ate cereal with milk. He made each girl one slice of toast and one egg. The girls only ate half of their eggs (!!). When I saw the waste of two precious eggs (now we are down to only 52 eggs!) on DAY ONE, I told Mr. A he is going to have to tighten things up and think ahead to 3 weeks from now when we are eggless. I drank my usual coffee with milk. In an effort to preserve coffee, I used only 1/2 the amount of grounds as usual. To really make the most out of that coffee, I kept the pot off the coffee maker until the coffee had steeped for quite a while. That way, it was just as strong as usual.
Snack: L demanded an apple for her snack. I tried to convince her to only eat a few slices, but she is two and really wanted the whole apple. I gave it to her, but not surprisingly she only ate a few bites. I saved it for later. In the afternoon, L ate dry rice crispies and Patti provided snacks at our after-school playdate.
Lunch: Mr. A took leftover noodles from two days ago. M bought her lunch at school. I made hotdog fried rice with a few frozen veggies for L and myself. I also ate L’s leftover old brown apple.
Dinner: I needed to use up some round steak that was in danger of going bad. I used two steaks to make Hungarian Goulash and dumplings. We also had leftover steamed carrots from last night and a small lettuce & spinach salad with some tomatoes that were leftover from last week. The girls and Mr. A also ate rice.
*A quick aside: I would be thrilled if our little project could grow to something bigger than just us. Maybe some readers would like to sponsor us for $0.25, $0.50 or even $1.00 a day and combine it with our donation or donate that money to your local food bank. (If we make it 30 days, $0.25 a day would only be $7.50!) Maybe you could skip just one meal a week and donate that food or the cost of that food. Little donations add up. At our local food bank $1.00 can provide TWO MEALS. If anyone is interested, I can try to figure out how to set something up to track it. No pressure, though!
What a GREAT idea!! What a great lesson in our greed. I imagine I too have many meals when I think we are down to the bottom of the bucket! I want to play along with you and finish all those cans hiding in the back of my pantry. We are going on vacation for a week-I will check back in with you when we get home and let you know when I will begin!! Good luck.
I would love to sponsor you! As you know, my picky family would not be on board with this experiment (I just have to save money by being mean to them and not, for instance, buying the eight bags of shredded cheese they would like me to buy when I go shopping). I’ll say $0.50 per day.
We eat low-cost meals once a week during Lent and donate the money we would have spent on a fancier meal to the food bank. I’m hoping to continue into the summer this year, though, and up our attempts to twice weekly. Food banks are going to struggle this summer like they haven’t had to struggle in a long time.
The coffee made me cringe. If you don’t mind drinking it like that, fine, but it’s not actually as strong. You would be better served by grinding it finer and using hotter water to brew it than by letting it “steep.” Or by brewing it strong and then diluting it with hot water which would make it weaker, but it would have more of the good flavor.
Of course, it’s all about your preferences.
I actually usually brew the coffee really, really strong (kind of like espresso) and dilute it with a lot of hot milk. This way actually tastes pretty much the same. It is only sitting in the filter for about an extra 2 minutes.
I love reading about what you are doing and I think it a great idea. Here’s a suggestion, take it or leave it, for your apple situation. Slice up some apples and drop them into a container of any watered down citrus juice or sweetened water with some lemon juice and keep covered in the fridge. Make sure to use sweetened juice or water so that it doesn’t make eating the apples sour. I keep mine this way and when we want a slice or two they’re ready to go and all I do is pat them dry. Good luck.
we’ve been meal planning and shopping week-to-week since the power outage, so i don’t have much at all stockpiled in the fridge and freezer.
but i do of things sitting in the pantry that’s been there for ages. so, my goal is to use at least one thing from the pantry stockpile for our 4 weeknight dinners for the next four weeks.
we usually spend about $150/week on groceries, so i’ll plan to donate the remainder of our usual $600 to the MOFB as well!
I know my kids would never be on this kick, but I can offer some fruit advice. My daughter both ask for apples and eat 1/2 to 3/4. I save them in the fridge. When I make dinner, I will cut off the parts that have browned and dice the remainder for salad. Or cut up the remainder for the girls for snacks. We also put their left over milk in the fridge and use it later (in the same day or next) for the girls or in our coffee/cereal.
My husband is the king of coupon shopping. We make a habit out of leftovers. (which I HATE to do!)
You go girl. I’m working similarly now, for two reasons. First, Passover is coming and I need to remove most of the food from my kitchen to make room for Kosher-for-Passover foods. Big pantry clean-out this weekend to plan better. There is very little food purchasing going on, just staples like milk. Second, my husband is unemployed (I’m this.close to selling off his new car to eliminate the car loan. Of course, he already scraped it up some. Grr.). I’ve been making lunch instead of buying, and trying to use things in the house instead of deciding to buy something because I want to try something new.
Good luck. I look forward to hearing about how this develops. We support a local food bank organization ourselves…I was on the receiving end as a child, and am determined to never be in that position again. They have donation coupons at the local grocery stores for this food bank. The coupon has a barcode and SKU, and the cashier scans it in as an additional food item. It’s not such a big deal for most people to add $1, $3 or $5 to their order. Of course if you are splurging on something, you feel less guilty if you give a little something back at the same time
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This is a great idea.
You could save a lot of money reducing the protein intake. The kids are getting a protein overload if they drink a lot of milk , eat an egg, hotdog pieces and then meat at dinner. If you have only eat one meal with animal protein per day you’ll bring your meat costs down.
…of course I said this.
I’m in for sponsoring you all! I’ll put myself on the hook for $!/day – I have a feeling you’re going to last a while, but it’s definitely going to a good cause.
Alice, that is so awesome! Do you want to donate to your local food bank or the one here? If you want to do the one here, I can set it up. Either way, I am thrilled!
Sure-I’ll donate $30 in your honor to the Rockies Food Bank in your honor-I’ll even advance it since I know you never drop a challenge ; )
Yay! That makes me so happy!
Ack-worst typos ever-lbg was reaching the after daycare meltdown as I typed hurriedly. She’s happily playing ball with Papa now.
Anyway, you got the gist ; ) I may try to participate further, but I’m heading to New Orleans on a business trip, so it may be complicated. ~lmc
I like that you like to experiment. I’m going to make a $60 donation to Foodline here in Seattle.