Sick again, budget update - and cookies!

Wow, third time in 3 months. I must have a lot of work stress. I haven't gotten sick this often in years. This time at least it's pretty mild. Yesterday was the worst day. I think I'm already recovering. Good thing, it's a holiday and I'm home alone with my child! We'll probably go out to see the butterflies today and have lunch with daddy. Hopefully the butterflies are still there. I've never successfully seen them in all my years here.

Well, here's the budget update. As of 2/25/11 (I know, we're not there yet, but that's when this week ends), I've spent $351.80. That's with my budget of $50 a week, at the end of 7 weeks. How did I end up going over? Simple. I have a couple of change purses full of coins. The advantage to spending cash is that I can actually USE my coins. That $1.80 is from coins. How does my pantry look? I've got a couple of pounds of pasta (whole wheat and regular), plus rice and quinoa. A pound of chickpeas, 10 lb of pinto beans, and plenty of flour for baking. I still have some frozen fruits and veggies, and lots of canned veggies (mostly because I don't like canned veggies. They are for emergencies. I get plenty of fresh at the CSA.) I still have 2.5 lbs of ground beef (local, grass fed free range!), and one large steak. Plus some salmon. We're doing just fine.

Feeling sick, and feeling sorry for myself, I wanted cookies. And my spouse, who hates chocolate, loves me enough to help me make chocolate chip cookies. These are basically off the back of the Ghirardelli bag. And are they delicious. Unfortunately, I ate 6. And then, the Girl Scouts showed up. I had exactly $9 in my wallet, and my family wasn't home. That was enough for two boxes. One of course, lemon for my spouse. The other, samoas, which are so atrociously expensive because I think you only get 10 in a box. In any event, there will be cookies going to work, and some are already in the freezer.

I also made soup for dinner. We bought these two buckets of "emergency rations" a couple of years ago (we get fires, mudslides, and earthquakes, though in 14 years, I have yet to feel an earthquake). They come in these little foil packets where you just add water. I periodically pull one out. They last 10-15 years, but I figure we should try them out once in awhile, and I bet they'd work for camping. They tend to be a bit grainy. So I took this soup one, added homemade turkey stock, a can of chicken (yes, a can, from TJ's), celery that I had blanched and frozen (I can NEVER finish a celery bunch), a couple of carrots, a package of ramen (no flavor packet), half an onion, a handful of fresh spinach, and some sage. It was pretty decent, and I served mine with some hot chili paste. My boss's trick when you have a cold - chicken soup with hot sauce.