1st Weekend of the Food Experiment

Saturday

Weekends are probably the hardest times of the week to stay within budget, especially right now since it's summertime. You're out and about and having a good time. You want to just eat, drink and be merry. I decided to check out the Irvine Farmer's Market (Saturdays only, 8am-12pm). I forgot to take pictures but I will next time I go. I have been wanting to go for a while and I read from another blogger that the best time to go is towards the end of the Farmer's Market to get the best deals. You can negotiate the prices down remarkably. I thought I did a pretty good job but I will be much better next week. Now I know which vendor stands to go to first for which produce items.

For $6.40 I got a pretty good amount of fruits and veggies.

- 2 large sweet onions

- 1 huge cucumber

- a bag of green string beans

- 1 cantaloupe

- 2 peaches

- 1 nectarine

Later on that day I went to Huntington Beach with a friend and ended up eating a late lunch at an Irish pub. We shared Irish fries and I got a beer. I'm not counting alcoholic beverages in this budget by the way. That has a budget of its own. So I spent around $7 for food there. Dinner was at my cousins house for a little get together so I didn't spend anything for that meal.

Sunday

I had cereal and milk for breakfast and cooked chicken with green string beans for a late lunch. The chicken was something I already had in the freezer and the string beans were the ones I bought yesterday from the Farmer's Market. I totally forgot to take a picture. =( I'm not in the habit of taking pictures of what I cook, but for the purposes of this project I need to. I ate the peaches and nectarine for snacks. My bf eats with me quite frequently so I have to account for his share of food in my budget. So for the two of us, our budget is $100. However, he won't be here for half of the week so we only have about $75 to spend. We went to an Angels baseball game early and I forgot to bring my water bottle that I told myself to bring to the game. Duh! I was mad at myself for forgetting it in the car. It was so hot that I ended up buying a bottle at the game. $4.25 for water! What a rip off! =(

Total for the weekend:

$6.40 - Farmer's Market

$7 - Lunch @ Huntington Beach

$4.25 - Rip off water @ Angels game

Total = $17.65

Remaining = $32.35

This week will be tough because I have scheduled lunches and dinners with a few friends throughout the week. Having a social life is tough on a budget. *sigh*