Well, last week started out all virtuous and kick-ass and then kind of took a slide towards frig-what-the-hell at the end.

Here’s how it played out:

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At Fine Fare during the week:

- gallon of milk
- jar of peanut butter

Total: $6

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At the Greenmarket (Thursday):

- about 6 lbs of pears
- gigantic celery
- mustard greens
- five bell peppers
- two jalapeño peppers
- 1.5 lbs of tomatoes
- orchard blossom honey from Nature’s Way Farm

Total: $18

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At Fairway (Friday):

- 2 limes
- a red onion
- a quart of pickles
- 2 seedless cucumbers
- a pint of sour cream
- 2 containers of mushrooms
- fresh cilantro
- fresh dill
- 3 rolls from the bakery
- sliced asiago cheese (about 0.5 lbs)
- a half-gallon of milk
- a quart of yogurt
- a pint of half-and-half

Total: $25

So far, so good… at this point, I’d spent 30% of my budget at 30% of the way into the month and I was feeling pretty self-congratulatory.

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Saturday, I was in Chinatown, so I went to Hong Kong Supermarket:

- soy sauce
- toasted sesame oil
- 8 packs of ramen
- Calbee Hot and Spicy crisps
- soba noodles
- 2 packages of fizzy Japanese candy

Total: $17

Soba noodles, soy sauce, and sesame oil: these are all much cheaper there than elsewhere. Ramen: I love ramen from Chinatown, so 8 packages is actually quite restrained for me. Candy: I usually dole out one or two into my husband’s lunches and keep a few in my purse for kid (or parent) low blood sugar crankiness. In all… okay, I didn’t buy anything I actually needed immediately, but I fell into the “well, as long as I’m here” mindset.

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On Sunday, my kid was sick. So, I went (again) to Fine Fare:

- a half-gallon of orange juice
- a box of crackers
- Yoplait Splitz (because Jell-o isn’t vegetarian and I couldn’t find pudding without high fructose corn syrup)
- Double Chocolate Milanos (okay, these were for me, too)

Total: $12

I debated whether or not to include this trip in my total. My kid gets sick once, maybe twice, a year and I usually get her the same things to make her feel better (orange juice, crackers, and either Jell-o or pudding), the same way my mom only let me eat canned fruit cocktail when I was sick. But, for the sake of complete honesty, I included it.

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What I’ve noticed so far:

I have got to stop going to Fine Fare. Fine Fare is the small supermarket nearest to me, so it’s my “ugh, I really need this RIGHT NOW” store. And nine times out of ten, I end up paying extra for it. I realize I can’t know when I might need something every single time, but damn, I need to avoid that place.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I’ve got so much less food going to waste now with the month-long menu in place. Not that I had a lot of food waste to begin with (excluding the kale-that-was-actually-not-kale I cooked and threw out), but almost everything is getting used up in its entirety.

I buy it often enough that I should probably learn to make yogurt. It seems like not a week goes by when I don’t run into another blog post from someone exclaiming how easy/cheap/good their homemade yogurt is.

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GRAND TOTAL TO DATE: $164 (36% of my $450 goal for the month).