Let's talk about food.

If you read yesterday's post, you'll know that today included a mongo trip to the grocery store for me as I attempted to get my kitchen full of good ingredients to cook from home.  Since beginning my weightloss journey I've done a good job of keeping junk food out of the house (outside of diet soda), but haven't put anything good back in. 

I also eat out all of the time. ALL of the time. For the convenience, because I'm lazy, because of habit - all of the above. Let's do a bit of a cost analysis on this behavior.

Average cost of Breakfast out:
$4
Average cost of Lunch out:
$6
Average cost of Dinner out:
$10

Average # of Breakfasts eaten/wk:
3
Average # of Lunches eaten/wk:
5
Average # of Dinners eaten/wk:
3

Fast Food Cost/wk:
(4x3)+(6x5)+(10x3)=$72/wk -- $288/month

Add to that my other fixed food costs/month: These are just rough estimates...
Shakeology = $100 (sometimes less, sometimes more)
Eggs = $10/month
Bread = $5/month
Frozen fruit = $20/month
Milk = $5/month
OJ = $5/month
Breakfast Bars = $10/month
Pudding (for ShakeO) = $3/month
$158/month

And I'm sure there's more, but these are the constants.  That brings me to $446/month, and very little weight loss.

Do you see how depressingly sparse that fridge is with all that money spent?  And it gets worse -- when I got home today from the grocery store today I cleaned out the fridge, and found most of it was spoiled!

I can't even tell you how much money that I just itemized above was wasted, and I wish I could say this was the first time I filled two trash bags with spoiled food.  But it isn't.

Below you can see all the spoiled food I threw out today.

So I'm trying something new -- I spent $248 on groceries today that should last me TWO weeks - and possible 2.5 b/c that has me eating every meal at home and I went ahead and bought some lean cuisine and breakfast bars for quick food moments during the week.  Now at first you might be thinking, "What the heck, Heidi?  That's more/month than your current process." 

To be fair, I spent about $30 on spices that wouldn't be a regular part of my monthly expense, purchased economy size frozen chicken which will last past these two weeks for sure, and also bought two large glass canisters for my Shakeology since I'm moving past the single serve packets -- that was another $14 that wouldn't be in the bill.  

This is the Vegan Strawberry Tropical. I got an identical canister for the Chocolate ShakeO that will come next month!

 When I cleaned out all the spoiled food - this is what my fridge looked like.  I swear I've lived here for nearly a year!

And here's how it looks afterwards!

Sorry it's kind of dim - it was the angle.

Hello freezer!  I'm excited about all the ready made food - cooking at home is super daunting for me (always has been).  I'm hoping that these pre-cooked elements will help me ease into this process.

Can't forget my dry goods - or my handy ShakeO recipe calendar.  I don't stick to that religiously, but it's nice to see some options if I need some inspiration.  Also super stoked about the Pocket Thins (aka Pita bread). 

This has been an expensive day! I think you could make this change - if there's even anyone as addicted to fast food as me out there - for less.  I'm trying to stick to the recipes on BeachBody for at least the next two weeks, but I'm certain there are more affordable meal options that would reuse resources more efficiently.  I did that a bit myself - some recipes called for rye bread or different size tortillas, but I just simplified things down.  Same thing with cheeses and milk (just stuck with vanilla almond instead of splurging on the coconut milk for now).

I hope this inspiring to those of you who feel bound to eating in your car and using your kitchen to grab diet cokes in the morning!