The dinner that couldn't come fast enough: Day 3

When I left work today I was dreaming of dinner. As I biked home I talked out loud to myself about exactly what I was going to do to prepare dinner and in what order as soon as I got home.


As soon as I got in the door I put water on the stove to boil and ate a banana toute de suite (45 cents) and 1/2 of brown rice I made last night (27.5 cents). On an average day I'm constantly eating, I have a drawer at my desk that instead of holding files is filled with food. It's stressful and so unnecessary that someone in the U.S. would worry about having enough to eat when everyone else lives in such excess.


I NEED DESSERT! I'm thinking of buying some soy milk and maybe trying to make a sweet snack with brown rice. I found this recipe which is for breakfast but it looks sweet enough for a snack. Plus it's written by Bethenny from Real Housewives of New York and most recently, Bethenny Getting Married a.k.a the second love of my life. I might buy some soy milk and see if I can afford some raisins! Oh sweet luxury!

Anyway - so today's dinner: I decided to make something with the tuna I bought since I didn't want to eat another sweet potato tofu burger (I might have to freeze the rest). I ended up deciding just to make a simple pasta dish with tomato sauce, onion, garlic and tuna.

I used: 1/3 of a jar of my Ragu sauce = 50 cents
1/2 box of whole wheat pasta = 53 cents 1 can of tuna = $13 cloves of garlic =31 cents
The total cost was $2.61 so tonight's dinner was $1.31.Total for today: $3.04

Breakfast = 72 cents
Lunch = 65 cents

Snack = 72.5 cents

Dinner = $1.31

Once again I am under budget and under fed. I think I am doing this too conservatively because I'm afraid of running out of food. I keep spiting things in half when maybe I don't have to. I think the obvious comment here is that if you are food insecure you might purposefully under eat to insure having enough food stored away for the next day. 

I also think that I am making fairly healthful choices, but given this limited budget and how much planning and time this has been taking, I could easily see ordering off the dollar menu somewhere one day out of pure fatigue. All this planning and thinking and being hungry is slightly gimmicky right now for me but it will get old fast. And if this were my real life I think it would not be fun at all. I mean, 90% of the fun is keeping this blog...