Budgeting Is Hard, Part 2: Menu Planning

Yeah, so last time I posted I talked about setting up a budget--and finding out that I go through a paycheck in like a day.

That's no fun of course, so I've learned to pack my own lunch and try to stretch things out from paycheck to paycheck. Woo, go me.

This half of the month is being devoted to menu planning to stretch out my dollars and make sure that I'm making stuff that is good for me (and that I like). Genghis can come along if he wants, but otherwise?  Fuhgeddaboudit. In the morning (because I was slack and didn't do it today), I have to call my doc and reschedule for some labs to be done--because my primary care doc won't do outside labs. So the band is in a holding pattern until I get those labs done (cos the bariatric doc wants a lipid panel).

Anyway. This evening is being taken up with laundry and dishes (which I do every Wednesday, because it's easier for me to do it late at night when I don't have to work the next day), and the fridge is being cleaned out. As soon as it cools off I'm taking a walk and I'll take the trash to the dumpster while I'm on my evening meander.  For those of you who don't live here, when it's hot and humid here...you don't go out on a walkabout unless you want to fall out from heat prostration, water or no water. So it's easier and safer, ironically, to walk at night when it's cool(er) and the humidity is--in theory at least--a tad lower.

Got below 400 last week, which makes me happy (and I think an old friend of mine somewhere just fainted). I'm camped right around 398 or so, which is fine--progress is good, staying even is good. As long as I'm not headed back up...because that would just suck balls. Anyway--back to the topic at hand: menu planning.

This is something where I have to try not to go too far in favour of things I adore (pasta, fish, salads, yoghurt, and of course meat because I'm an omnivore), and try to balance everything out. That's going to be hard. Also hard is the fact that I have a paucity of utensils to cook with. I swear, I'll have popeye arms when I'm all done with this, from all the hand-mixing. I mean, I'm just sayin'!

Wonder if Genghis will be amenable to a trip to get a stand mixer...and a new knife, because the ones I have are all dulled thanks to SOMEBODY *glares in the general direction of the other human in the apartment* insists on continuing to put them in the sink after I tell him "DO NOT PUT THE KNIVES IN THE SINK".

More later.

Budgeting is hard.

I've started using mint.com to draw up a personal budget--because as my friends can all tell you, I live on the internets.

Uhh...damn. I had no idea just how much I was spending on what is really bullshit until I did that. $200 a month in the cafeteria at work?  What?  OH HELL NO, SON. Time to start taking my lunch to work and saving the cafeteria for once a week if that--and bringing my own yoghurt from home, since I seem to be buying yoghurt like umpty times a day from there. $41.95 every three months for WoW is doable. $60 a month for the cell phone is doable. I can fit in $100 worth of groceries in a month--and not any bullshit kind of processed nonsense, either. But $200 in the cafeteria at work?  Uhh...no thanks. Love the folks that work there (except the manager--I find her to be singularly annoying and, frankly, a little patronizing whenever I have to deal with her). The money I'm spending?  Not so much.

Weekly weigh-in has me at 405 now. Yay, progress!

Currently trying to save money to get a car. Wish me luck.