Food Stamp Challenge: Day 16

I'm realizing more and more everyday that just because something is free or cheap doesn't mean it's good for me but living on limited means is driving me to make worse choices just because it's free and available.

Morning Weight: 238.5

I didn't make it to the morning boot camp but I had breakfast at my desk at work:

Orange - $0.33
Banana - $0.15

I was given a gift card to reward the team that I lead in the Active For Life program at work. So I thought about the best way to use $10 and I thought a little fruit tray would take the whole card but if I bought food, I know how to cook a meal pretty cheaply! So, I made soup and salad:
I put the soup in the crock pot that morning at work and it cooked until lunch. It was REALLY good! It has squash, carrots, onion, rice, corn, chicken stalk, and salsa. It was a big hit! All the ingredients cost $10.22 and it was for 8 of us to share so the part of it that I will cost out is $1.28, but there is a ton of leftovers so anything that I eat of the leftovers will be free since it's already charged.

I'm really proud of myself for using the most of the resources and making smart choices with the money. I definitely could not have done that if I had not been on this challenge.

I think there was a dark chocolate almond Dove candy in there somewhere ($0.04)

After work I went to the Boys and Girls Club and it was Parent's Day so we cleaned everything up and made a ton of food and welcomed the parent's in. It was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to be having a great time. The meal was free and what I was able to eat (gluten wise) was chips, salsa, queso, and chicken/cilantro, and juice. Not the best choice given the plans for the rest of the night but it was FREE!

My Pastor and I have been taking about choosing your Yeses and choosing your Nos and yesterday was a day like that for me. I had plans to go workout at a core class but once Parent's Day got started I knew that this is where I wanted to be and I didn't want to leave for another workout.

I did leave a little early and headed downtown for a flash mob! That is when a bunch of people show up in one place to do something and then leave. It's to make an impact. This was a fitness flash mob and we did a choreographed workout with glow sticks in the dark to support Japan and relief efforts there. It was really cool.

Once I find a video, I'll post it for you.

After the flash mob I had a date with some of my boot camp friends for "froyo," or frozen yogurt to the unhip. Here's the thing about froyo - you pay by the pound, usually I'd fill up and add tons of toppings but I had to make good choices for the weight vs. quality. I got a small amount of vanilla yogurt with strawberries, 1 banana (they were cut big!), a few blackberries, chocolate syrup and some peanut butter cups. So good. It cost me $2.69. Some of the boys' yogurts came out to $8.

We sat outside and enjoyed our froyo and some good CG fellowship!

It was late when I got home and I headed straight for bed so I could charge up for another crazy day!

Overall (besides the soup and salad) I didn't eat a lot of anything with nutritional value and need to work on finding a better balance.

Thursday Total: $4.49

Total spent in 16 days: $71.57 (An average of $4.47 a day)

Total remaining: $135.43

I want to encourage everyone to take a few minutes to check out the Hunger 101 interactive website that the San Francisco Food Bank created. It lets you really experience all the things you would have to do to get enough food for a week if you were living in poverty. The web page can be found at: http://www.sffoodbank.org/about_hunger/h101.html