Food Problems

I must say that like many others I have an interesting relationship with food. I eat too much of it, pay too much for it, and end up wasting half of it. Some months Alisha and I pay as much for food as we do for rent. Here's the usual scenario:

Monday: We go to the grocery store and grab a bunch of stuff that we think we need. We make a few passes through the store, spend WAY too much time there, and when we finally get to the checkout we find that we have $200 worth of groceries in our cart. Even though our car is full of food, we grab some Taco Bell on the way home.

Tuesday: Alisha decides that she wants to make butternut squash soup. We bought the squash yesterday, but don't have celery or carrots. We make another trip to the store. Not only do we pick up the veggies, but we remember that we are out of Corn Pops, buy four boxes of cereal in addition to Corn Pops, and ten other items that we forgot yesterday. The total comes to $75. We're so tired when we get home that we eat Corn Pops for dinner and forget the soup.

Wednesday: We finally make the soup, creating a HUMONGOUS mess in the kitchen. We invite some friends over for dinner and enjoy the soup in those nice square, china bowls we registered for but rarely use because we're afraid of breaking them. After the friends leave our house is a disaster and we have a week's worth of leftover soup.

Thursday: I bring some of the soup to work for lunch. It tastes even better after the flavors mix for a day. I get home from work and we're overwhelmed by the messy house, so we go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. Those leftovers go into my lunch for tomorrow.

Friday: We're both tired of leftover soup, so it gets pushed to the back of the fridge behind that half-watermelon and is forgotten, eventually spoiling. For some reason we can't think of anything to eat, so we cook bacon and eggs.

Saturday: Finally a day off! I wake up late to a stinky house and tackle the dishes from Wednesday. I discover that the fridge was set too low and most of the fruits and veggies are now frozen. I throw them out and make a new shopping list that we will forget to bring to the store on Monday. I'm a little burned out after spending the entire morning cleaning the kitchen, so we go out for Thai food.

Sunday: Alisha and I sit down and talk about how to use up the food we have and not be so wasteful. We remind ourselves that eating out is expensive and that we should limit ourselves to once a week.

Sound familiar?

Now that we're downsizing our budget we realize that we need to tackle our eating habits and figure out how to actually use the groceries we buy, eat out less, and find a way to cook healthy food that is quick and easy to clean up.