Finances

I've been keeping track of my grocery bill so far, and I've got the numbers for week one of the 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart.

During this past week I purchased well over one hundred items for a grand total of $182.75--a number I find to be shockingly high. Seeing as I only budget $75 a week for groceries, you can see the problem I have. There are a few reasons for this though:

1) I didn't have hardly any staples in my pantry already. I had to buy even things like spices. In fact, I spend almost $20 on spices. There were other bigger purchases as well. I bought the cheapest jug of maple syrup that I could find, and it was still $8. These things are really seldom purchases though, and will serve me for a very long time.

2) I used a wide variety of ingredients, but not very much of each. I still have most of almost everything left, including the veggies and definitely the non-perishables. I won't be needing to buy any new bread, pasta, or condiments for a few weeks as well. Really, I only ate less than half of the food that I used, and the rest is still available for future recipes.

3) I tried to follow recipes exactly, which meant including silly things like pumpkin seeds and alfalfa sprouts. This next week I think I'll skip the little luxuries if they are a little more pricey. I'm sure the recipe will be just fine without them.

So, while I was a little shocked to see the bill, I think that this upcoming week should be much cheaper. In fact, I've made it through dinner today without doing a shop yet, just using what I had left on hand. It'll all work out, I'm sure.