Somewhat delayed, but I just read about a man who spent $30 for one month on food.

For the month of November, I’m only spending $30 on food. The only exception will be things that are freely available to the average person (salt taken from restaurants, sauce packets from Taco Bell, free coffee from an office). Buying in advance is fine, but at the end of the month, it all has to add up to $30 or less.

After my college and grad school days, I am somewhat critical of that idea. In undergrad, there were times that I went without food mostly out of inconvenience (aka I am a roll with this project why waste time eating) or frugality (spending $5 on a salad? no way!) And in grad school, I often survived days with just bananas and yogurt.

Regardless, now, I can’t stand going through the day without eating something every hour. Every day, I bring a small bag of food. A banana. A trail mix bar. Yogurt. An entree (usually a bowl of fried rice or potatoes). Cheese. Then when I run out toward the end of the day, I drink water. I have discovered that if I don’t do this, during meetings and the silent moments in my office, my stomach grumbles noisily. We all know it’s me and not my coworkers.

I still spend about $10/week on groceries (but more on eating out with people). But spending as little as possible to save money, yet eat unhealthy? That’s what I don’t like about the idea. Even though it almost seems contradictory, spend more money to eat healthy (organics?) and eat less. And besides, I often bring lunch to work. The glory of that is that I get a few moments to myself of the great view of San Francisco downtown from my office window.