Growing up, my family lived paycheck to paycheck, so I’m no stranger to restriction or feeling unsatisfied with what is in the fridge or cupboard. There are only a few items I stubbornly won’t buy the generic brand of (peanut butter comes to mind), and I am constantly aware of the tiny price per unit marking on each item I buy. I already live on a limited budget, which includes what I buy at the grocery store. Oh, you’re already thrifty!, said my ego. This won’t be so hard as it would for people who haven’t had to worry about those things the way you have.
And yes, I did manage to fill up my cart with “enough” food for the week, not to mention that I did it with $33.50 in order to have some spare change left over for this or that.
And yet, it’s day 4 of the challenge, and I am feeling the effects.
As someone who doesn’t do a lot of actual cooking, and whose appetite makes me more inclined to snack periodically throughout the day than eat 3 full meals, I had a difficult time trying to buy food for just this one week and solely for myself. While I sat in my living room trying to make a list and some sort of plan, I was frustrated. When I got to the store and started making my way through the isles, my frustration only grew. There were plenty of items on sale that I might ordinarily purchase, but not in the quantities I’d need to get the sale price. Do I need/will I realistically eat 10 packets of Knorr’s side dishes in one week? No. How about 5 boxes worth of those French bread pizzas? Again, no.
I still live at home in a household of 6, which means I typically don’t buy certain items in a Sara-only quantity, like eggs, milk, bread, etc. If we’re out of such things when I happen to go to the store, or when my parents’ are too close to payday to get them, I gladly buy those types of items for, well, a family of 6. But in this case, it seemed redundant to get them just for me, not to mention potentially wasteful. And in my house, I have to be crafty and hide food if I want to guarantee someone else won’t take it, so I’ve also been checking the fridge every morning and every evening out of paranoia. What all did I end up with? Soup, macaroni and cheese, rice, some sort of pasta side thing, 5 two- liters of Diet Pepsi for $5 (I know, I know. But it’s an addiction I can’t break!), eggs, flour, and milk — that’s pretty much everything I purchased from the store at the beginning of the week.
What’s different about my diet this week vs. any other? Because of the side effects associated with my daily medication, my appetite is fairly low until the evenings, so I need to higher concentrations of protein and fiber in the morning and early afternoon to maintain my energy level throughout the day. Which usually means I eat a lot of things like granola and/or nutrition bars, peanuts, Chex Mix, and on the weekends (because I’m never up early enough to cook myself real breakfast), scrambled eggs or breakfast sandwiches. I drink the fancy fruit juices like V8 V-Fusion in order to get servings of fruits and vegetables. My one “proper” meal is dinner, and that’s where the types of items I bought at the store come in. But I didn’t have enough money to get all of that in enough quantities, and that’s what I mean when I say I’m “feeling the effects.”
I may not be a healthy eater — in fact, probably close to the opposite — but my body sure can tell the difference in my diet this week. I feel more tired than usual, no amtter what time of day it is, and it’s even tougher to get going in the mornings. I didn’t even have the energy to make myself some mac and cheese last night, and took a nap instead. It’s noticeably harder for me to focus at work and at home. And let’s not even talk about how agitated I’ve started to feel. I don’t often feel genuinely hungry, and I never want to eat in the mornings, but on top of being irritated, this morning I also felt ravenous. But I had to settle for jam and bread. Maybe that’s why I was more on edge than usual yesterday, and woke up today 100% irritated with the world and everything in it, all for no reason?
I dunno where the people who come up with the USDA Thirfy Food Plan shop, or what they eat, but I don’t think I could have gotten enough of the right foods to have balanced nutrition this week even if I didn’t live off of Cliff Bars, Naked Juice, Uncle Ben’s wild rice, and Chex Mix. Did they even test their theory out in the real world? I’m guessing not, considering my experiences so far this week. So far, I’ve also learned that being thrifty isn’t such a great thing, at least when it comes to food.
-Sara
