Day 16 marks me having passed the half way point of this challenge. It also marks the first day where I am actually under the $1 a day maximum I have to spend on food (16 days, $15.75 spent) which bodes well for me for the rest of this challenge, especially since I have managed to put together a decent base of food this first two weeks. I still have my fingers crossed that the grocery stores will bring me some great deals in the coming week, but feel a much more comfortable knowing that I will be able to get by if there aren't many deals.

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This is part of a month long challenge to eat well while spending an average of only $1 a day on food. You can find the beginning and the rules of this challenge here

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Breakfast

I decided to go back to my cup of instant oatmeal (with banana) to begin the day even though I no longer need to do this for the medicine I was taking since that cycle has ended. I just felt that it was a good eating pattern for me, especially since I really begin to crave snacks in the late afternoon if I eat only three meals. I think this has to do a lot with the timing. My usual schedule has bee to eat my cup of oatmeal at about 7:30 and then a bigger breakfast at 10:00, lunch at 2:00 and then dinner at 7:00.

For the bigger breakfast, I had a bowl of cornflakes with banana on top, a piece of whole wheat toast with an egg on top, and a little salsa on top of that. I also had a full cup of the V8 Goji / Raspberry vegetable and fruit juice which is actually quite good:

day 16 breakfast

Lunch

I had a similar lunch as I did the day before. I had peanut butter toast with banana on top (I needed to use the last of by bananas because they were beginning to get too ripe — so now bananas are on my shopping list). I took a stalk of celery (plus a bit more that I had left over from putting it in the tuna salad the night before) and put the rest of the onion and chive cream cheese mini I had left over from yesterday's lunch and then peanut butter for the other two. I also had some chips and Fig Newtons on the side, and another full glass V8 Fusion 100% Goji / Raspberry vegetable juice for my drink:

day 16 lunch

Dinner

I took out the steamed carrots and broccoli that I had and put about half of it into a bowl. I then took one of my tomatoes and chopped it up and added it as well and added a small amount of Miracle Whip and stirred it all up. I cooked up some spaghetti pasta, cooled it off and also added that to the bow to make a pasta vegetable bowl for dinner:

day 16 dinner

I had been going through the V8 Fusion 100% Goji / Raspberry vegetable juice pretty quickly, so I decided to make those into ice cubes and use them to add flavor to my water:

frozen V8

frozen V8 glass

I also had a snack of a couple Fig Newtons and a small bowl of chips in the late evening while I was working.

This is the current list of what I have purchased:

Money Spent $15.75
Money left to spend: 15.25 ($2 must be spent at CVS)
Retail Value of everything bought: $499.81

3 packages (small) Fig Newtons
1 jar Miracle Whip
1 potato
1 mystery purchase
1/3 lb ground beef
4 tomatoes on vine
2 broccoli crowns
1 loaf of bread
2 jars of Classico pasta sauce
2 Safeway brand pasta (spaghetti and rotini)
1 celery stalk
2 bags tortilla chips
3 cans tuna
1 bottle Welch's grape & peach 100% juice
1 bottle V8 Fusion fruit / vegetable drink
1 bottle V8 spicy vegetable drink
2 boxes of Caprisun fruit drinks (10 packs)
1 jar of salsa
1 bag of black beans
2 half gallons of milk
36 boxes of cereal
2 dozen eggs
2 avocados
11 bananas
2 boxes of Quaker Instant oatmeal
55 packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Minis
1 package of Knudsen Light sour cream
10 apples
2 lbs of carrots
8 boxes (small) of Wheat Thins
2 jars of Skippy All Natural peanut butter
2 cans of pork and beans
1 bag of long grain brown rice
2 packages of Mission 100% whole wheat tortillas (10 count each)

Donated Food / other items to Food Bank that was purchased with my $1 a day

1 Stayfree pantiliner package
1 Kotex U tampon package
5 Bayer children's aspirin
2 sticks of deodorant
4 bottles Windex multi-surface cleaner
1 can of Pork & Beans
32 boxes of cereal
50 packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese Minis
4 boxes (small) of Wheat Thins
2 Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-A-Clean bathroom cleaner
2 Scrubbing Bubbles Extend-A-Clean bathroom cleaner refill

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The Beginning ::: Day 17: Different Perspectives

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