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| Another memorable trip to Ikea! |
Things have gotten, well, interesting again now that I am back in French
classes 3 times every week. I fell like my brain is slowly turning into a
croissant. Normally, I am quite good at managing stress levels, but being back
in school while working full time is certainly elevating my stress. It’s taking
me back to the time in my life when I was a full-time student and full-time
worker. I was always strung out (which I’m now realizing probably had something
to do with why I was single most of the time while I was in school). Lately I
have gotten used to being able to do yoga whenever I wanted and when I left
work, and the part that I loved is that I was actually leaving work instead of
going to do 3 hours of even more work. Yes, yes, I know this is all for the
greater good in the long haul and one day I’ll be completely bisexual
bilingual, but I sure have my doubts about whether or not I can manage this all
the time. I suppose that as long as I continue to work hard at this, there
shouldn’t be any problem getting my French up to par and then sailing through
my career and onward toward more money. Honestly though, I think that because I
am unable to go and do yoga as much as I want, I’m truly depriving myself of
the one thing that I have been using to manage my stress levels.
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| Delicious Pad Thai by John! |
The time is quickly approaching for day 21 of my 30 day challenge and I
must say that it is going really well for the financial part, the yoga on the
other hand; well let’s just say I have cancelled my class tonight in order to
write you this blog entry. Anyone who reads my blog knows that when I put my
mind to something I can achieve anything, so why wouldn’t I be able to not buy
any food outside of the grocery store? Certainly I have had a little helping
hand along the way from my friends who will grab me a cup of coffee (which I
haven’t asked for) or share some of their Ikea meatballs (thanks Jess), but if
I really don’t want something, then I can say no. The main thing I am learning
is that I can make myself meals everyday that taste effing delicious and don’t
cost me more than $5 per serving. For example, last week I made an amazing
vegetable curry with lemon-ginger rice. It cost me about $40 for the
ingredients, but since I didn’t use all of them (i.e. the spices) it worked out
to about $20 for 8 servings! That’s right, only $2.50 per serving. A couple
nights ago I made myself a roast (to my vegetarian roommate’s horror – “is that
cooked? Do people actually eat that?”) for about $2.00 a serving and today I
made a tofu Pad Thai (to my vegetarian roommate’s delight “mmm, I love tofu”)
for about $2.25 per serving. It’s really incredible how far you can stretch
your money when you cook at home!
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| Amazing Veggie Curry! |
Really though; I know that cooking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but once
you get the hang of it, it’s really not that difficult and you do save a lot of
money. The biggest key to making it successful is to keep it interesting! If
you try a dish that you really enjoy, go home and look up the recipe and
challenge yourself to make it one night. If you don’t do it properly, or it
tastes like congealed donkey testicles, then try something different. Don’t be
afraid to ask friends for their recipes either (unless it’s Dana’s lasagna recipe)
or better yet, get together and cook with them. In no time you will accumulate
a cornucopia of deliciousness. There are other way to find good recipes other
than through friends, check out some food blogs, or buy a new cookbook full of
recipes of foods you actually enjoy eating. I just bought (with gift cards) a
book for my partner’s birthday called “Jamie’s Food Revolution” by Jamie
Oliver; it is full of recipes that are just as cheap and easy as he is.
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| Great cook book! |
Now that I’m on the topic of my partner’s birthday, I should probably
mention that my savings account has taken a little bit of a hit and it’s not
quite at $2,000 anymore, but what I loved the most about that how I was able to
use my savings instead of credit to purchase the present for him. I was a
little generous (I got him a new guitar) but it was on sale so I felt it was
justified and since we’ve been together for 3 ½ years, it seemed like an okay
thing to spend money on. The problem with spending in stores for me though, is
that I get the taste for shopping again and I have started to spend when I
shouldn’t be. I think I’ll just take the money that I have spent already out of
my “prize” at the end of the 30-day challenge. Yesterday I managed to blow
through $82.50 at Ikea on 3 new pots, a rug for the foyer, and some candles. A
little excessive, yes, but I did say no to a bunch of other stuff (a frame for
my art print, a $40 drying rack, a drawer organizer, even more pots, a giant
picture in the ‘as is’ section, and even our adorable shopping mascot, Peanut)
so that made me feel good that I was actually able to leave Ikea without
spending more than $100 (which used to be a huge challenge for me).
Ok, that’s the gist of it today. The only other thing that I want to
mention is that I have officially paid my MasterCard down to under $5,000 from
an original $14,581.45 to a mere $4,684.98! And there’s more to come this
month! MasterCard better start getting ready to say good-bye because this cash
cow is beginning to run dry!
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