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I’ve decided to attempt a challenge this month to limit my food spending to 2.50 a day or 77.50 dollars total. I want to do this as a personal challenge, to practice adhering to a strict budget, to create a getting started guide for shopping/cooking newbies, to return to healthy diet, to continue to lose weight, and to reset the hedonic adaptation I’d developed for food.

Here’s a little background, my food spending in April was out of control.

It was really reckless. I blew a bunch of money at dinners, organic price traps at Whole Foods, and impulse buying nuts at 7–11. Recreational consumption of food is fine but it should be done sparingly and socially, like other vices. I want my food consumption to optimize for my health first and my budget second, instead of what I did in April which emphasized taste and convenience.

Here are the rules of the challenge:

What will cause me to fail the challenge:

Spend over 77.50 on food before the end of the month in any form (restaurants, grocery, farmers market, whatever) fails Violate any of the following rules

Rules

All food must be obtained at a grocery store. I could probably get my budget down even more if I dumpster dived, actively sought free food, or grew my own but I want this to be helpful to someone that finds shopping/cooking for themselves intimidating.

2. Exception: Food previously purchased or obtained for free can be consumed but it’s cost at time of purchase must be subtracted from budget. So for example I can eat a can of beans I’ve already purchased as long as I subtract 0.99 cents from my budget.

3. Tap water will not be counted against budget

4. I’m allowed to consume ghost peppers from my stock. They don’t really have any nutritional value and I eat 2 a week max for fun.

Really I’m doing this all honor system so I’m not going to abuse any loop holes I might find.

Napkin Math

I currently weigh around 170–175 which is down from my peak weight of 185 2 months ago. I bike ~100 miles a week and rock climb. I estimate I would have to eat 3,000 calories a day to maintain my current weight which would mean I need to consume 93,000 calories this month. In reality I’m going to continue to cut weight until I’m at ~160 so I’ll shoot for 2,500 calories a day or 77,500 total.

77,500 calories / $77.50 dollars = 1,000 calories per dollar. CPD (calories per dollar) will be the biggest determinant in whether or not I can consume a food.

Day 1 Purchases

20 lb of paraboiled rice — 7.99, Rice will be one of the work horses of my diet, this 20lb bag has 30,800 calories, which is about a third of the 93,000 calories I’d need to maintain my current weight. This bag of rice has an insane CPD of 3,854 which will offset my lower CPD foods quite a bit.

1 lb bag of green lentils — 0.99 beans will be the other pillar of my diet, I didn’t buy them in bulk because I’m still doing research to see if I can get them cheaper than 0.99 cents a pound. The price rite by me actually has worse bean prices than stop and shop. Walmart lists pinto beans on their website for 0.79 cents a pound so I’m going to check them out tomorrow.

1.29 lb of kale — 1.11 Leafy greens like kale and chard will be where I get the majority of my micronutrients, they’re also going to represent a large part of my budget. I think these types of greens can be had for 0.99 but kale was the cheapest thing I saw at price rite in the fresh produce isle. The next time I go to the store I’ll check out the bulk frozen vegetables, I’d prefer fresh but there might be cost savings. This has a garbage CPD of 172 but I don’t need to eat a lot of it to get the nutrients I need.

0.38 lb of banana — 0.38 I don’t normally eat banana’s, I prefer the costlier berries. I’m not actually sure I need sweet tasting fruit in my diet but the CPD is reasonable at ~1,000 so I added them in.

1.00 lb of sweet potato — 0.69 I’ll probably switch between these and regular potatoes. I like that I can keep them at work uncooked and microwave them as needed. They store for a long time in my desk

Goya Adobo seasoning — 2.19 I felt that using my existing spices would be cheating on this challenge. I want someone who doesn’t cook at all to be able to read and know what to get to start from scratch. I chose this seasoning blend because it really is the jack of all trades. I’ll keep an eye out for small blends of spices I can work in as a treat.

42 oz Quick Oats — 2.39 Oats are a good source of minerals and can be prepared easily in the microwave at work. I might be able to get them cheaper from bulk bins.

100 200mg caffeine pills — 7.65 I decided to go with caffeine pills to avoid the temptation of drinking free kcup coffee at work. Spending $3 on a takeout coffee to stave of caffeine withdrawal would represent a big percentage of my budget so I’m going to keep some pills in my wallet for emergencies. I’m hoping this will also make me more mindful about my caffeine consumption since I can’t chain drink free coffee at work.

Notable Exceptions

Oil- Oil has one of the cheapest calories per dollar of any food, it’s only beat by white flour and raw sugar. I’ve decided to try out a high carb low fat macronutrient distribution because anecdotally I noticed feeling sluggish after eating high fat foods. There’s a lot of differing opinions on what the best protein/ fat/ carbohydrate split is for your overall health so I’m just going to do with what I perceive to feel best.

Peanut Butter- Another good value that provides protein, but I’ll have to avoid it if I do low fat.

Refined Carbs like Pasta, White Bread, White Flour, Ramen- These foods have insane CPD but they’re bad in every other aspect. They’ve basically no micronutrients and are broken down too quickly. If I only cared about price I could eat white flour mush for a month but that would be terrible for my overall health. If my activity level spikes for some reason I’ll consider adding in ramen for the raw calories and as a treat.

I’ve already spent 23.39 or about 30% of my monthly budget day 1 but some of it will last me the entire month. I’m pretty confident in coming in under or at budget after seeing the numbers laid out here as long as I stay optimistic and disciplined.

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The extra 20 lb bag of rice is going in a bucket for grip strengthening exercises, I didn’t include it in the budget since I’m not eating it

I hiked from price rite to my apartment with 40 lbs of rice in my pack. I was going to try and balance them on my bike and walk them home but I didn’t want to risk falling and spilling rice everywhere. Price Rite is a 5 minute walk so it wasn’t that bad.

I cooked a small portion of rice lentils and kale. In the future I’ll cook in bulk.