Eating a (Mostly) Balanced Diet on a Budget: Day Four--Spaghetti

I thought I should also add in this series that nobody in my family has any allergies or major intolerances to any food.  One son cannot have melons (specifically cantaloupe and  honey dew), but that is the only food issue.

Wednesday

Breakfast

Today's breakfast was scrambled eggs, toast and juice.  My kids are not huge fans of scrambled eggs but they will eat them when I make them.  They just don't eat a lot, so I don't use a lot of egg.  Sometimes I add cheese (which I love), but some of the kids don't like that either.  It seems the ones who don't like scrambled eggs like the cheesy ones but the ones who like the regular ones don't like the cheese.  Go figure.

Cost of breakfast:

$1 husband's sandwiches and chocolate milk
$.75 6 eggs
splash of milk, salt and pepper
$.24 four pieces of toast, cut in half
$.50 juice, apple or grape were the choices today
$2.49 Total=$.31/person

Lunch

The school kids had the same lunches--sandwiches, fruit, snack, dessert.  The three of us at home had peanut butter and honey again and we split a couple of bananas.

Cost of Lunch:

$4=kids' lunches at school (four of them)
$.36 bread
$.50 worth of peanut butter and honey
$.48 bananas
$5.34 total=$.76/person

Dinner

Spaghetti is a favorite around here.  Now I realize that everyone has their own way of doing spaghetti.  Obviously, this is mine.  I have tried it other ways and this is how I like it.  This time I tried ground turkey instead of ground beef to see if we liked it, since the ground turkey was a little cheaper and is touted to be healthier.  However, we didn't really like the flavor, so we will be sticking with beef and paying the extra $1-$2/lb.  We had a tossed salad as a side.  I also used leftover hot dog buns to make some garlic bread.  And we had the usual fruit salad.  I serve a fruit salad with every dinner meal (or canned fruit) because I know my kids will always eat the fruit and I figure that having some fruit when they won't touch anything else is better than eating nothing.  Also, the noodles are something I always have in my pantry.  When I run out, I buy a big box.  I think the box I have I bought for around $4 back in January.  We have spaghetti at least once every two weeks, sometimes once a week, so it lasts quite a while.  I always break the noodles in half when I add them to the water so it makes what seems to be more noodles and I end up using less, plus they are easier to eat being shorter.

Spaghetti by me:
1 pound ground beef/turkey
3 8-oz cans tomato sauce
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 pkg spaghetti seasoning (I get the cheap store brand, but you can do the brand name seasoning packets, like McCormick's.)
Brown ground meat, drain fat.  Add sauce, paste and seasoning.  Bring to boil then lower to simmer for a five or so minutes.
All this time you are cooking the spaghetti noodles.
I always combine the noodles and the sauce.  Growing up, my parents always served them separately.  I combine them and then I don't have leftover noodles with no sauce or leftover sauce with no noodles. 

For the hot dog bun garlic bread, just put a little butter and garlic salt on each open bun and toast in a 400 degree oven for about 5 minutes.  It's a great way to use up extra buns and not be wasteful.

Cost of dinner:

$1.98 ground turkey
$1.36 paste and sauce
$.86 seasoning packet
$.75 tossed salad
$.65 leftover hot dog buns
$.65 fruit salad (containing strawberries and bananas)
$6.25 total=$.78/person

Total meal cost for Wednesday: $14.08 or $1.76/person

Eating a (Mostly) Balanced Diet on a Budget: Day Three--Pork Chops

I have been thinking about this series and decided I needed to define my idea of what "eating healthy" is because I feel like nobody really agrees on this subject.  My idea of it is to eat a well-rounded diet that includes meats, carbs (both in the form of fruits/veggies and breads), and fats.  I remember reading or hearing that one's diet should consist of about 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat.  I don't recall exactly where or when and am too lazy to do the research this week, but that has kind of always stuck in my head.  So that is what I strive for.  I also try to serve food I know most of my family will like.

Now that I've cleared that up, I should also mention that I don't count calories, read labels, buy organic, or watch portion-size very carefully.  But since I've always been pretty healthy, I figured that how I eat must be all right.

Okay, let's move on.

Tuesday

Breakfast

This morning I wasn't feeling it, so I didn't wake up early enough to really cook breakfast.  So we had cereal again.  This time, we had some of it in the form of hot cereal, or oatmeal.  The kids then had second bowls of cold cereal if they wanted to.

I always have oatmeal in the pantry, and I can't recall when I bought it last, but I think it wasn't any more than $3 for the container.  The container probably contains at least 24 servings, which puts a serving of oatmeal at $.12.  And we also had cereal, so looking back at Sunday, it ranged from $.17-$.27 for a serving of that.

Cost of breakfast:

$.22 serving of cold cereal
$.12 serving of oatmeal
$.10 milk per person (1 cup, 2 4-oz amounts in the oatmeal/cereal)
$.54 Total per person ($3.78 for all)

Lunch

Again, the same lunch as the day before for the school kids, so that was estimated at $1/person.  Those of us at home had grilled cheese sandwiches.  Six pieces of bread ($.36 for all the bread), about 4 oz of cheese since I had an 8-oz chunk and used half of it ($.98 because I bought the chunk for $1.99), and some sliced up strawberries (about $.75 worth of a container that I bought for $1.50).

Cost of lunch:

$.36 bread
$.98 cheese
$.75 strawberries
$4 kids' lunches
$6.09 Total=$.87/person

Dinner

We had a meal called "Pork Chops and Pedros".  I don't really know what that means, only that my mother has always called it that.  It is pork chops and potatoes.
Recipe:
Scrub and pre-slice several potatoes (I did four).
Brown pork chops in oil, remove from pan.
Put potatoes in pan and cook in a little oil until done (soft).
Put pork chops back in pan, cover, reduce heat to low and cook 25-30 minutes until done, checking once in a while to make sure nothing sticks or burns.

We had steamed broccoli and fresh fruit salad for the sides.
I bought the pork chops on sale for $1.49/lb.

Cost of dinner:

$7.45 pork
$.99 potatoes
$1 fruit salad
$.49 broccoli
$9.93 total=$1.24/person

Total cost of food for Tuesday $19.08=$2.38/person

Eating a (Mostly) Balanced Diet on a Budget: Day Two--Oven-baked Chicken

Monday

I am not a food photographer.  Actually, I take terrible pictures of just about anything.  But I thought I would include pictures of the actual meals,  not just something I google.  I will try my best to make it pretty though.

Breakfast:

Breakfast this morning was eggs, toast and juice.  Some of my kids prefer hard-boiled eggs and some of them prefer fried eggs.  So, I got up early enough to make fried eggs for the ones who like fried and cook up some toast.  Those who like hard-boiled just ate some of the remaining hard-boiled eggs from Easter last weekend.  I bought the eggs for $1.25/dozen (Easter special).  The loaf of bread was $1.19 and I used about 1/4 of it.  The English muffins were free after spending $6 at the bread store.  The apple juice was $1.49/64 oz and we drank 1/3 of it.  The grape juice was $1 for concentrate, which we drank about half.

Cost of Breakfast:

$.91 eggs

$.31 toast
$1 juice
$2.22 total=$.32 per person (seven people)

My husband, when he works the day shift and leaves at 7 a.m., takes two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a blender bottle (those shake blender things) of chocolate milk.  I would estimate his breakfast costs about $1 when all is said and done.  Factor that into the equation and it's $3.22, which equals $.40/person.

Lunch:

Four of my children eat lunch at school.  My husband gets a free burger for his lunch at work.  This is really about what I feed my family, though.  My husband is a grown man and makes his own decisions about what he eats and I don't have a lot of say in it.  Make no mistake, he eats what I fix when he's home, but when he's not around, I don't have a lot of control over what he chooses to eat.  So we will ignore the fact that he has a Coke, burger and fries every day of his life for at least one of his meals.  Moving on.


The four children take a sandwich, usually consisting of lunch meat, a piece of fruit (or some fruit), a snacky side (crackers), and a dessert.  In Utah, they got milk at school (it was only $.25, here it is double that, too much for four kids every day of the week).  So they drink water for their drink.
Sandwich, per person cost=$.45 (they usually take one half a sandwich; the meat costs $2.49 and it lasts about two weeks for each of them as they each like a different kind, then the mustard and the cheese, which only two of the kids take cheese)
Piece of fruit=between $.15-$.50, depending on the fruit and the price.  Choices include a sliced up or whole apple, a banana, an orange, a bunch of grapes, some strawberries, a handful of blueberries, etc.
Snack=pretzels, animal crackers, graham crackers, leftover homemade rolls, dried fruit.  I would say about $.15
Dessert=today it was a couple pieces of Norwegian candy sent to us by our exchange student's family (whom we hosted last year).  Usually it is home-baked treats.  I would say no more than $.15.

Cost of lunch:

$.45 Sandwich
$.25 fruit
$.15 snack
$.15 dessert
$1 Total per person


At home, we each have a sandwich (peanut butter and honey, usually), a piece of fruit, and a dessert and a glass of milk. I would estimate about the same for that, $1/person, because of the milk.

Dinner:

Tonight's dinner took a little more work than I usually do.  We had oven-baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, a tossed salad and a fruit salad.


Oven-baked chicken:
bone-in, skin chicken thighs and drumsticks
Place the chicken pieces in a foil-covered cake pan.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour, covered, then remove cover and bake for 30 more minutes.
I got the chicken for $.88/lb on sale, so I spent a total of $7 on all the chicken together.  I used half of it for tonight's dinner and put the rest in the freezer.



Mashed potatoes:
The usual-peel and slice potatoes and boil until soft, then mash.  I added a bit of milk and butter.  The potatoes were $1.99 for a 5 lb bag (I could always find them cheaper in Utah, but oh well) and I used half of them.


Gravy:
1 can cream of chicken soup, chicken drippings, 1/2 cup milk with 3 tsp flour
I had the ingredients in the pantry, but cream of chicken soup is usually around $1/can.

Tossed salad:
Lettuce, $.99 for the head and I used about 1/4, so $.25
Cucumber, $.49 for one cucumber and I used 1/3=$.17
Sprinkle of grated cheese=$.20
Salad dressing=$.20 worth, would be my guess

Fruit salad:
One apple=$.25
Bunch of grapes=$.50
One banana=$.15

Cost of Dinner:

$3.50 chicken
$1 potatoes
$.82 Tossed Salad
$.90 Fruit salad
$7.22 Total=$.90/person


We had leftovers as well, which will be part of a meal I serve later this week.

Total cost for food on Monday: $17.22 or $2.18/person

Eating a (Mostly) Balanced Diet on a Budget: Day One--Minestrone Soup

Sunday

On Sundays, we have cereal for breakfast when we have early church.  This year we have early church, starting at 9 am, so it's easier to have cereal.  That's because we like to sleep until 7:30 and have to be ready to go by 8:30.  Sometimes I will do oatmeal in the place of cereal, but this day that did not happen.

Breakfast:

Cold cereal (Cheerios--$.17/serving or Frosted Mini-Spooners--$.23/serving, Lucky Charms--$.12/serving)
2% milk (4 oz for a bowl of cereal, since I bought a gallon for $1.69 this week--great deal I know--that was about $.05/serving)

I bought the Cheerios for $3.58 at Walmart, which is the cheapest I have found for that size (1 lb 2 oz).  I bought the Malt-O-Meal Mini Spooners, Super Size (43.5 oz) at Walmart for $5.98.  These cereals usually last us about three weeks.  Each child had a bowl of one or the other, then they had a "dessert cereal" as they call it.  Usually something like Lucky Charms or similar.  On this day, they all had Lucky Charms.  I had bought about four boxes of Lucky Charms last month when a store was having a cereal deal that left them costing $1.49 for an 11.5 oz box.  I only buy such name brand cereals when I can find these types of deals.  For breakfast today, Corey did not eat anything (ran out of time) but usually he would have a big bowl of Mini Spooners.  I only ate one bowl of Mini Spooners myself.

Cost of breakfast:

$1.91 for six bowls of Mini Spooners with milk (one bowl being double)
$.44 for two bowls of Cheerios
$1.02 for six bowls of Lucky Charms
$3.37 for eight breakfasts of cold cereal=$.42 per person.

Lunch:

We ate tuna sandwiches and/or macaroni and cheese for lunch.  Now, I don't buy macaroni and cheese every week, only on occasion to have once in a while, and I bought the store brand at Aldi, our cheap go-to grocery store, and it was $.89/box.  It was already in the pantry.  Corey cooked up two boxes.  The tuna was already in the pantry too.  I think it was around $.50/can when we got it and we used three cans of it, but there was half of it leftover.  Plus the bread, which was probably half a loaf.  I buy the bread for $1.19 at an outlet bread store.  We also cut up a couple of apples.  I bought a three pound bag of apples for $2.99.  About four apples is one pound, so that is $.50 for the apples.  We drank water.

Cost of Lunch:

$1.78 for Macaroni and Cheese, which all got eaten
$.59 for half a loaf of bread
$.75 for 1-1/2 cans of tuna
$.50 for apples
$3.62 for lunch of mac and cheese and/or tuna sandwiches and sliced apples=$.45 per person.

Dinner:  Minestrone Soup

I admit, dinner will be the most expensive meal of the day, possibly even for the whole week. Many of the ingredients were already in my pantry.

Here is the recipe (attributed to my sister-in-law Andrea, with changes that suit my family):

1 tube original flavored low-fat ground sausage ($2.99)
1 medium onion, diced (I leave this out as I don't tolerate onions well)
6-8 cups beef broth (I used only four) ($1.79)
1/2 large can tomato juice (I used probably 1/3) whole can was $1.58)
2 carrots, peeled and diced (I skipped these, though we did have them on hand)
2 stalks celery, diced ($.69)
1 large clove garlic, minced (I used some seasoning garlic from my pantry)
1 zucchini, diced ($.60)
1 can Italian cut green beans, drained ($.68)
1 can kidney beans, drained ($.59)
3/4-1 c shell macaroni (from my pantry)
2 15 oz cans diced tomatoes (I used petite diced tomatoes and I only used one can) ($.72--the regular diced ones were only $.59)
1 can tomato sauce ($.25)
items from my pantry, don't know how much they were when I bought them:
2 tsp sugar

1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/4 tsp marjoram
1/4 tsp ground pepper
Grand total for soup ingredients that I bought: $9.10

I baked rolls, as per my favorite roll recipe (Heather's Rolls) and already had all the ingredients, which I keep stocked up regularly.

We opened a can of fruit to have as an additional side: $.89.
We had milk to drink, so about half a gallon in the one meal for the family of eight: $.85.  I don't always find milk for so cheap, but I did this week, so I bought six gallons ($1.69 per gallon).

Cost of Dinner:

$10.84 total for dinner that I spent out-of-pocket this week=$1.36/person

On Sunday, we spent $17.83 on our meals, which was about $2.23/person.  If I were to regularly buy some of the items in the soup, which I might if we decide that soup is one we want as a food storage meal, then it would have cost less out of pocket from my grocery budget.  My food storage items I buy come from a different category in my overall monthly budget, and I make adjustments to what I buy in that category all the time.  Typical items include things I regularly keep stocked, like certain spices or ingredients like vanilla, flour, sugar, pasta, soups, and sides like canned fruits and veggies.

Eating a (Mostly) Balanced Diet on a Budget Series

Every day for one week, I will write down the recipes for the meals I feed my family and include a summary of how much everything cost me.  Now, I realize that cost varies widely across the country, but I have lived in Idaho, California, Arizona, Utah and now Texas as a parent and have had to learn to budget wisely everywhere I've lived.  I have had the same approach in each place.  I wait for the grocery store circulars to arrive in my mailbox and I plan my budget according to what is on sale.  I also have a fairly well-stocked pantry that I add to every week.  Part of it is my food storage for hard times, but the other part is the food and ingredients I use regularly in baking and cooking.  When we moved, we got rid of most of our supply, keeping mostly spices and food storage items and anything that was unopened and unused, but we had to restock the entire pantry, which we did with some of our leftover moving fund, for around $300-$400 in one shopping trip (things like baking soda, vinegar, shortening, etc.

For my meals, I don't have a plan for breakfast or lunch meals, only dinners, but the foods for those meals do come out of my weekly grocery budget, so I will include those.  See my meal-planning post from several months ago.

For this next week, the week of April 12th-April 19th, I spent $131.45 on groceries and added $16 worth of food supplies to my food storage in the form of flour, sugar, shortening, oil and canned fruits and veggies.

Some of the ingredients I will be using this week were things I already had in my pantry or fridge and freezer.  However, once you start building up a supply like that, it's not too hard to stay within a decent budget.  I will note which items came from freezer/fridge/pantry and which I bought.  Keep in mind that my "grocery" budget includes things like laundry detergent, toothpaste, cleaning supplies, and dog food, so when I spend an amount like $131.45, that actually included some of those items as well as the food.

Let's get started!

Why This is Hard

Village Baker.  Brick Oven.  BYU Creamery.  Proximity to mountains, BYU, seven temples no more than an hour away, Temple Square, Salt Lake Cemetery.  Sunrise over the mountains.  Sunset over the mountains.  Dry air. 

These are all things I miss about Utah.  Sure, I didn't go to some of those places on a regular basis, but knowing I could anytime I wanted to was nice.  I miss seeing BYU shirts and flags and license plates.  I miss the springtime in Utah, when everything is in bloom and the mountains are starting to green up.  I know I will miss the summer--hot, dry days interspersed with thunderstorms and cool, dry nights. 

I also really miss the small town feel that pretty much all of Utah, even Salt Lake City, has.  I miss watching the local news of Utah because you realize how much sense of community is in Utah by watching the news.  Here, the area is so huge and the news broadcast covers so much that things that would be big news in Utah, with people reaching out and comforting are glazed over as if they are nothing here.

And the weather!  Utah weather can be pretty crazy in the spring time, flipping back and forth between 80 degree days and 20 degree days, sometimes with snow, sometimes with thunderstorms, and almost always windy.  But you never had to worry much about things like golfball sized hail and what to do with your car that day because you can't park it in the garage.

I also miss certain friends.  People who were real friends that don't come along all that often.  I can think of four people who really fit this bill there in Utah.  I don't really know how to make friends like that; they just happen.  So far, nothing yet, nothing even promising.  People here are really nice.  They are very welcoming.  But nice people aren't the same as true friends.  The saddest thing, which has always happened when I've moved in my life, is that it's hard to maintain those friendships.  I think it's harder now with social media.  Before social media, you had to make an effort.  Now, you just follow their profile and there is no need for letters.  But there is no depth either, not without a lot more effort.


Right now, I can't find anything better about living here than about living in Utah.  It hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been anything to rave about. 


I worry constantly that my kids are missing opportunities.  Money went a lot further in Utah.  I find that ironic in a way because a lot of people here talk about how cheap it is to live here, even the others who moved from Utah.  I don't know how that is possible.  With property taxes so high, we had to buy a lot less house to afford monthly payments.  Kids' activities are really expensive and cost much more than in Utah.  And the expectation here is that if they don't start by age four, then you might as well not put them in because they will be way too far behind their peers.

The culture is different.  All day kindergarten for all and the attempt to force mandatory pre-K on all too.  I wanted to teach a preschool out of my home, but I was thinking of doing something that is three hours a day, three days a week for 4-year-olds and two-and-a-half hours a day, two days a week for 3-year-olds.  But here, the expectation is that preschool will be at least five hours and at least three days a week, which includes lunch.  I can't even fathom what you do with 3-year-olds for five hours in a "class".  These cultural differences bother me a lot and I don't really know what to do about them.  If I stick to my guns, my kids will be ostracized and so will I, but I really can't get behind putting kids in sports at age four and all day preschool that young either.

I am just having a hard time living in a place that demands my kids go to all day kindergarten and mostly all day preschool, play sports as young as four, and requires that I pay to volunteer, both at school and through church.

So I will have to be content with finding joy in the really small things...like using two ovens to cook with at the same time, like my son having the great same band director my brothers had, like so far, I don't have to go to work to help earn the income and we're managing things, even though it's stressful.  I am able to still do my sewing and grateful that, despite having been told otherwise before we moved, I'm able to find sewing materials at my favorite place to shop for them--Walmart.  I'm grateful that so far, we haven't had much of a pest problem in our house.  Okay, birds in the chimney and rabbits in the backyard and a spider here and there inside, but otherwise, no roaches or ants in the house yet.

I do love living so close to family.  Five minutes away is the closest I've ever lived as an adult to family.  When we lived in Arizona, my parents were a 45-minute drive away.  In Utah, my brother(s) in Provo were forty minutes away and the one in Sandy was twenty minutes.  We live close enough that if we are all still here in ten to fifteen years and everyone still has kids in public school, they will attend the same high school.  That's pretty fun. 

It's also fun seeing familiar faces from my youth.  This Saturday is a celebration of my old elementary school's fifty year anniversary and if I go, I'm sure I will see a few faces I recognize. 

I will try to keep looking for the good things.  That's about all I can do.

The Stifling of Creativity vs. Rules and Standards

I keep seeing articles online about how we must encourage creative thinking in our children by not expecting them to do "busy work".  I read an article by the grandmother of a five-year-old boy, complaining about the developmentally inappropriate and stifling homework he was given by his teacher.  When I first read it, I was in complete agreement. 

Then I read the comments, several of which came from seasoned kindergarten teachers who explained the reasons for such homework.   As I read the woman's article, I nodded in agreement, but then I read the comments and agreed with those as well.

It is a complicated issue.  Where is the line between practice, which can at times be tedious and even boring, and the true stifling of creativity? At what point are kids expected to hone skills, such as the fine motor skills of writing without it being considered as squashing their creative juices? Must they always have leeway to color outside the lines?

I understand the complaints about how creativity is stifled.  They interpret the routines and structures of public school as taking away the freedom to be creative.  They argue that creativity is stifled because of these rules and these standards.

But I can also understand why there are such standards and rules in place.  If there aren't standards, then how do we teach groups of children at each age level?  If there aren't rules regarding the standards and the methods, how do we assess them and determine if they are learning what we believe they should learn?  In the lower grades, kids need a foundation on which to build.  They need to develop basic skills of writing and reading so those skills become so routine, they don't even think about them later, they just do them.  Is it truly unfair to require a 5-year-old boy to develop the fine motor skills with which to write words?  Is it ridiculous to teach him what a sentence is and once that has been taught, continue to reinforce it by requiring him to use proper punctuation?

This makes education, specifically public education (which involves teaching more than one student at a time by one teacher), a difficult challenge.  While we want to encourage creativity and instill a love of learning in the students, there must be standards and rules to give structure to all of it.

I disagree with large amounts of homework for very young kids, but I also understand why some of these teachers argued in favor of this homework. It is an attempt to get families to be involved in their child's education, since many families in certain socioeconomic groups do not get involved as much as the educator wishes they would.

But that is a separate issue.  Asking a child to draw thirteen boxes might seem meaningless and time wasting, but is it really that burdensome?  Most similar homework packets are assigned on a Monday and returned on a Friday, so if the child does a little every day, they get it done without it being a burden.  Will they be punished if they turn the boxes into robots?  Not likely.  Does drawing thirteen boxes really stifle creativity?  Does practicing penmanship force creativity out the window?  I don't believe that it does.

As in all other areas of life, there is a time and place.  In my experience, there are plenty of opportunities for kids to express themselves creatively in most of today's public schools.  If most parents who complain about this would spend a few days observing, they would see that there are opportunities.  You don't always see that on a homework assignment, especially at the kindergarten level where kids are learning those basic skills of writing and reading.  That doesn't mean they aren't doing activities at school that encourage creative thought. In my experience as a classroom teacher, an aide, and a parent volunteer in four states and several different schools, I have found that most schools, while they push hard for academics and testing, they also allow time for creative outlets.

While there are probably schools and situations where creativity truly does get stifled, I don't think something like a homework assignment requiring that a young child draw a few boxes is the problem.  Kids need to learn these basic skills and practice them so they will be prepared for more difficult learning in the future.  That doesn't mean they won't have other creative outlets throughout their day.  What we need to do is make sure that they do have those opportunities but not confuse the time that is necessary for practicing basic skills as taking away from the creative play of childhood.  Both are necessary components of child development.