Temptation wins!

With only two days left, we have fallen victim to our habits. We were doing so well, too.  Yesterday we almost broke; we both wanted ice cream so badly but decided not to give in to temptation.  Today, however, was a different story.  After work I came home and ate lunch and took a nap.  Some time during my nap, Corin decided to buy an online game.  That totally counts as entertainment.  I woke up to her playing this game and was like "did you buy that game?"  The minute she answered the question, she knew what she had done.  "I didn't even realize it!"  Yeah, that's why it's called a habit, it's instinct.  Anyway, I forgave her.  We took a trip to the AT&T store because my phone was having issues and when we left we both decided that we deserved a soda.  So we gave in to temptation and went to a local drive in burger place for some cream sodas.  Let me tell you, it was the best damn soda I've ever had. 

So we didn't really make it two whole weeks but we made it pretty damn close.  We really learned to budget our money to best fit our needs and that is something that we are going to try really hard to do from now on.  Having a budget really helped us curb our spending.  We found that there is a lot to do around here for free and the best place to look for cheap groceries.  We also made up some pretty good recipes with the random food we had at the end of the two weeks.  Yesterday, I whipped up a chili bean and cornbread casserole and I found a recipe for yellow rice and peas that I want to try out.  I also made a creamy tomato sauce for pasta using canned tomato sauce, some spices, and left over cream cheese we had in the fridge.  So even though we didn't last the whole 14 days, I wouldn't say we failed because we really did do and learn a lot :)  This was an interesting adventure and I can't wait for the next one!

only three days to go...

Okay, so it's starting to get tough.  We have officially expereinced eating out withdrawl (or something like that).  We are running low on some foods, and we just want to go to the movies!  We are holding strong though.  We knew that this would be the toughest part.  We had a great fourth of July though.  We went to Delores park for a San Francisco Mime Troop performance.  I have a friend who writes the music for the show, so I have been to see them before, but Betty had never been.  Up until about five minutes before the show she thought that there would be actual mimes performing.  The name of the group is a bit misleading I admit, but they put on a good show, and we had a blast.  It was super funny because we arrived about 15 minutes before the opaning music started (45 minutes before the performance) and there weren't very many spots to sit.  There was a space on a slant of the hill that was clear, so we decided to sit there.  It was really funny because we kept sliding down the hill along with our little cooler, bags and food.  We kept laughing every time we slowly ended up at the bottom of the hill, but we would shimmy back up to our spots all the same.  It was super hot, but we brought alchol and yummy food.  We made egg salad sandwiches, hummus and homemade potatoe chips.  They were pretty good, but we longed for food from the vendors selling at the park it smelled soooo good, but we made it through the day on the food we brought with us.
     The last two days have been rather uneventful.  We are down to the last bit of our food and had to reevaluate what we wanted to purchase with our last five dollars.  We went to the store today and got a block of cheddar cheese and three romaine lettuce hearts.  We decided that we could make salad for sides and if we had to we could eat cheese, beans and tortillas.  We have some ideas for the next few days, and on Sunday we plan to go to a brunch in the morning as our first meal out!  We are excited about that.  Tomorrow night we may go to a free movie at Jack London Square.  I wish we had gotten popcorn because that would be super fun to pop and eat.  My family used to buy bulk popcorn like that.  We didn't buy the microwave bags - they were too expensive.  This is a good cheap snack.  I'm gonna put it on the grocery list for Sunday...   
 

A Full Week!!!

Yay!  We made it a week so far and it's been pretty good!  We are still okay on groceries, with five dollars to spare, and we've done some pretty fun (and free!) stuff this weekend!  Let's see... yesterday was Saturday and we spent most of the morning cleaning the apartment.  Since we've been using the kitchen more than usual, it was a mess.  We realized that dishes pile up quickly if we're not on top of them so we are trying to be better at that.  We also decided to do laundry.  Now, laundry isn't really food or entertainment, so technically we could spend money on laundry since we don't have our own washer and dryer.  We decided to scrounge for some change from our change jar and we had enough to do one load, wash and dry. The dryer in our building kinda sucks so I told Corin to put only the jeans in the dryer and everything else we can hang up around the apartment to dry.  Also we decided to hand wash delicates.  At this very moment, all of our underwear is hanging up to dry around the apartment haha.  The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing since we were going to be out the next day and Monday.

Today we spent the day at Golden Gate Park.  I found a bunch of free events for the next two days so we decided to attend the free dance party at GGP.  We packed a picnic we had prepared the night before and went on our way.  It was a really nice day out!  I even got a little sunburned.  We ate our picnic and enjoyed the house beats and of course the people watching.  There was this guy, Guy in Red Polo Shirt, now he was hilarious.  He was a tall, middle aged man, wearing (you guessed it!) a red polo shirt, jeans, and some dress shoes.  He had some sweet dance moves...not!  Oh my goodness, it was such a trip watching him dance!  I had to take a video of him dancing!  Once I get a chance to upload the video, I'll post it so you can watch haha.  The dance party at GGP was a promotional gig for this club in the city and we were able to score some VIP passes for the club!  Super cool! We were there for a couple hours then headed back to Oakland to meet up with Corin's friend.   I was super sleepy when we got home so I took a nap while Corin played some video games.  After my nap, Corin's friend texted her and asked for a raincheck on our meeting so Corin and I decided to head to the lake ourselves and watch the sunset since the day was so nice. 

After a week on this challenge we've realized we typically overspend on groceries.  Usually when we go shopping for groceries we head to the Trader Joe's or the Lucky's because it's close to where we live, but in all honesty it's not that much more difficult to go to the Grocery Outlet and get the same amount of food, if not more, for less money.  Also, it really helps to have a budget and stick with it.  Another thing is that it's fun to get out of the house to do more than just go out to eat, we just have to stop being lazy about it and just do it!  It's so easy to head to a park, even for a few hours, lay out a blanket and read a book... or people watch.  Or support local merchants by heading to an art walk... or a farmer's market.  You don't even need to spend any money! 

It's been a good week, only one more to go!

Day five

Today is Friday! It’s a three-day weekend and the weather is beautiful.  Betty and I have been investigating free events for the weekend and are excited about the possibilities.  It is first Friday, so we decided to go check out the galleries in Oakland along Telegraph.  We went around 8pm, and because it was a nice night we had trouble finding parking, but the parking gods were with us because we actually found a nice parking space close to Giant Burgers where they had all these vintage cars parked.  We walked around and checked them out.  We saw a lot of art, got some free BBQ sauce and had fun people watching.  While we were there we talked about how we should make tamales and sell them there for extra money… Betty hasn’t ever made tamales on her own though, so we decided we’d have to test them out first, but she is a really good cook, so I think that she will make super yummy tamales and then we will sell them!

Speaking of yummy food we had leftover potato pizza for lunch today, which was super good.  Potatoes are the perfect poor person’s food.  We used the food processor to cut them so that they were thin enough to cook in the oven on top of the pizza.  For dinner we made tuna sandwiches with homemade baked potato chips and hummus.  Beans are also a good staple.  We purchased a bunch of beans for only a dollar at the grocery outlet.  For desert we made coffee milk shakes!  They were really good too, but then we couldn’t sleep.  Next time I think we are going to put chocolate chips in them to make them chocolaty.  I’m super excited for the weekend!

Day Four

Good news!  Today we got paid our last paycheck for the school year.  Although this paycheck really only included one day of work, we got our regular amount!  Yay! We realized the amount of money we make is equally distributed throughout the 10 months of our contract, so no matter how many days we work, we still get the same amount paid!  Yes!  That totally changes everything!  I, for one, am not worried about making rent for the month, which is definitely exciting.  And since we aren’t spending any money right now, I’ll have some extra cash until my second job kicks in.  Corin is excited that she’ll have extra cash too, since she had missed her last car payment and had to pay twice this month.  Things are looking up :). On a different note, we’re not sure when we get paid for the summer hours we are putting in so that is another thing to we have to figure out.  Someone mentioned not getting paid those hours until August, which totally blows, but we’ll see.  Seeing that money in our bank accounts really put us in a good mood this morning.  

We’ve been doing really well not wasting food and reusing our leftovers.  For breakfast we each had an egg and some toast.  For lunch, we ate our left over bean enchilada casserole and salad and for dinner I made a potato, onion, and cheddar pizza and a greek salad.  It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself (and Corin agrees).  After dinner we took a nice long walk around the lake and enjoyed the beautiful weather. 

Since we aren’t spending any money, I’ve been looking around to see what kind of free entertainment is around the area.  I’m signed up to this website Johnny FunCheap and they send me a list of all kinds of events around the Bay Area.  So we are set for fourth of July weekend!  There are so many free firework festivals and whatnot around so we’re excited to check those out.  Also, tomorrow is Oakland’s First Friday Art Walk and we’re going to that.  It’s my first ever art walk so I’m super stoked.  On craigslist I found an ad for a Bay Area talk show looking to fill it’s seats so I signed up to get some tickets and they emailed me the next day saying that we got some J.  Geez, it’s so easy finding fun stuff to do for free.  Forget about spending almost $12 bucks for a bad movie when you can be outside enjoying all the culture around you.

Day two and three

Day 2 and 3

Day two started out on a bad note.  When I woke up I realized that I had forgotten to pay my car payment for the month.  I usually schedule the payment at the beginning of the month so that I don’t forget only somehow I had forgotten.  I noticed that I had more money in my bank account than I had thought, but I just figured it was because I had been trying to cut back and that was paying off. I was wrong.  I immediately got on line to pay the payment and included next month’s payment as well.  I started to do some calculations and realized that I was worse off than I had thought.  I was concerned about my upcoming paycheck because we get paid through the school district and technically had only worked one day in the pay period.  I wasn’t sure if summer school would be included in the paycheck or if they would even remember to pay me (sometimes this happens).  After investigating the matter further (ie asking some other clueless people) I found out that I might not be getting paid for summer school until August!

Betty and I both tend to obsess about these things and the only thing that calms us is to look on craigslist for gigs and etcetera jobs.  It just makes us both feel like we are doing something about our situation.  We both take surveys to participate in paid studies and often reply to childcare ads as we are both in the business.  In my desperation I replied to yet another ad for a paid study. While I have done this many times throughout the years, this time I received a response.  They asked me to fill out an additional survey and then called me within a few hours to tell me I had a place in the study and an appointment for the next day.

Day three was the day I was going in for the study.  They requested that I not wear eye makeup or any hair product, so I refrained from this in the morning when getting ready.  After work Betty and I ate leftovers from the night before (tacos – from taco Tuesday Betty and Corin style), and I left for my appointment.  I was a little nervous when I arrived as I didn’t know what to expect.  Betty had been there a few weeks before, and she told me what would happen, but I was still a little scared and a little freaked out.  They had me sign a consent form and then wait in the lobby.  There were a few people waiting with me who tried to make small talk.  One of the guys was like, “are you here for the focus group?” (the same question he had just asked the other woman in the waiting room).  I replied that I was here for something else but nodded politely.  He seemed a little nervous too.  After a few moments a woman came to the waiting room door and called me in – it was very doctor’s office like.  I went inside where she explained that she was going to put a cap on my head, and then some leave-in conditioner under the cap.  She also placed sensors on my forehead and nose.  Once I was all hooked up she took me to a room where she asked me to perform a number of exercises.  For the first ten minutes I was a little tense and wondered what they could see in my brain – or if they could tell if I was nervous which made me a little more nervous.  After about 20 minutes I was done.  I collected my check and practically skipped out of there.  It was super awesome that I had earned as much money as I do in one day of summer school chasing after kids for four hours in just 20 minutes sitting in an air conditioned room staring at a screen.  

Day One

Today was the first day of the two weeks.  We decided to go shopping for some much needed groceries to help us get started.  First we made a list of staples for low-income living.  We knew we needed to have the basics, so that we could make many different things with the same ingredients.  The list consisted of the following:  Fruit, beans, eggs, potatoes, tortillas, milk, rice, bread and cheese.  We began by crossing off the things that we already had such as rice and milk.  We decided that we would try to pick up some greens if we could, but that we could probably find a way to scrounge more veggies later in the week by going to the docks at whole foods.  We talked about potential places to shop from Trader Joes to Smart and Final.  We decided that most of the things we needed could be found at the grocery outlet.  After spending the weekend in Pride festivities all we had left in cash between the two of us was $34.00.  With a wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket, we headed for the store.

We were both hungry (not a good idea when going to the store with such little cash), but we stuck to our budget.  We walked down every isle keeping a close watch on our $34.00 budget.  We put things in a "maybe pile" knowing that we may need to put those back if we ran out of money after we had gone through the whole store.  The beauty of the grocery outlet is that they have the weirdest stuff for cheap and sometimes you find things that are super yummy, but so obscure that they couldn't get rid of them fast enough in a regular store so they get sent to the outlet.  Our favorite finds of the day were jalapeño sour cream and jalapeño habanero jack cheese.  We also purchased four cans of tomato sauce for a dollar, 20 cage free eggs for four dollars and fifty tortillas for a dollar fifty!  In the end we spent $35.41 for a cart load of groceries (luckily we had $1.41 in change between the two of us).

Betty said that she wanted shepherd's pie for dinner.  Neither of us had ever made it, but we figured that since we both knew how to make each component of it, we could compile them without a problem.  Betty used taco flavored textured veggie protein for the base which we layered with half a red onion, frozen peas, frozen corn, and half a bunch of fresh spinach.  I made mashed potatoes adding a few scoops of the jalapeño sour cream for a nice kick.  We scooped it on top and added some parmesan cheese to the top ($1.50 - for a grated tub!).  We put it in the oven for 20 minutes and then in the broiler (Betty's new favorite thing to do in the kitchen) for four and served it up.  It was DELICIOUS!  The spinach was a little limp from the cooking, but still had a fresh taste and the colors were so much better than any other shepherds pie I had ever had.  It was wonderful.  For dessert we had some oranges dipped in dolci frutta.  It was a good start to our two weeks.