Weighing in my favour was the fact that I hadn't spent $12 yesterday. I'm a grad student and had to go to the campus for an appointment and since I was over there I decided to enjoy a cheap campus perk, HotYam! – a hot, delicious and nutritious $4 lunch put on by a volunteer group of vegans. I arrived late and one of the food items had run out so in exchange they gave me an extra cookie and only charged me $3 for the meal. So, my total expenditure on my first day of the challenge was only that $3 plus $5.20 return transit fare for a total of $8.20. It seemed easy so far.
In addition to my studies, I work from home so I don't have daily commute costs or the added costs of eating out and coffee breaks that can add up. Having said that, I did have meetings again today but opted to bike to them and did grabbed a $2.79 'happy hour' burger on the way home. My other spending for the day was groceries ($11) which I can see will be my biggest challenge – keeping those costs down yet still having nutritious food for me and my family.
We are a car-less family, and as such, our shopping patterns are determined by how much we want to carry back from the store. We usually shop by foot or bike so make frequent smaller purchases. This can be dangerous habit. In an effort to reduce the number of trips to the store, we had already made a couple of integral food changes in our lives in the last 6 months. We started ordering a weekly "Good Food Box" from Foodshare which supplies the majority of our fruits and veggies for the week at $13/week. As well, last summer we decided to split a side of Black Angus beef from Phoenix/Arnold Grass Fed Beef, a local producer who sells at our farmers' market, with a few of our neighbours allowing all of us affordable access to high quality locally-produced meat.
Disclaimer: I am a house-owner and have all the bills and 'extras' that come with that so I have decided for the purposes of this endeavour I will not count mortgage payments or utility bills. I am working from the assumption that the majority of those relying on the 'safety net' most likely have a different housing situation than my family.
Spent: $14.00
I don't include housing costs or bills in our $12 a day either. My $12 a day budget is spending, pretty much any and all spending. I drive an excessive amount for work though so gasoline is NOT in our $12 budget.
ReplyDeleteI like your experiment. I've certainly had an interesting time attempting it for a year : )