=== 30 days on $30 ===

     February 3rd, 2018 marks the beginning of Carley's 30 days on $30 challenge. In this challenge, her goal is to spend only $30 for the month of February on food and drinks. She had asked if I was interested in doing this with her. Unfortunately my answer had to be no due to being completely aware that I would be miserable the entire time. Carley on the other hand, is mentally prepared to go through this to gain a better understanding of how to keep a food budget on the cheaper side rather than unnecessary spending. She is also using this as an opportunity to learn to be more creative with the foods she has available. Finally, she's doing this because she wants to be able to say she has completed this and can do it whether or not she really has to.

     At first, while I was accompanying Carley on her shopping trip, I had thought to myself that it couldn't be possible to buy enough food with only $30 unless most of it is spent on something really cheap like rice. As it turns out, most of the food she got is NOT rice. There are quite a few noodles and soups and things and even some juices. Amazingly, what she managed to find and buy is much more than I would have expected and definitely more options than I would have thought possible. Here's a picture of everything she got for herself throughout the day.

     I know every time I go shopping I always think I'm not getting all that much... until I get to the checkout. At that point, things start to add up and then I realize just how expensive it is to eat anything other than noodles and rice. Just in case some of you don't believe this is actually $30 worth of food, here's the receipts as proof.

     Now, for all of you who can do math, yes, these receipts do go over the $30 value. There's a bit of a story to that as an explanation: See, we were looking at frozen vegetables thinking she'll need some sort of veggies to eat for the month. At first we were thinking of a couple different kinds of vegetables, but then we saw a price tag for a larger bag of peas for only about $2. Who could pass that up, right? It's not every day that you find a price tag that is probably printed wrong! Unfortunately the cashier we went to was her first day on the job and the manager on duty started yelling at her when he came over. It was in a different language, so we couldn't tell what he was saying, but it was clear that the girl was being yelled at. We felt so bad because she started crying that we just decided to pay what the price came up as and leave. Here's the tag we found for the peas.

     So, yes, the price tags aren't completely accurate as a result of the error, but keeping this price tag in mind, Carley did in fact stay under her price limit. She's keeping her food separate from the rest of the household so she can keep track of it all. My job? I'll be here to tell you all about her experience with this challenge and keep track of whether or not she's sticking to the rules. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to comment and I'll be sure to get the answers for your as soon as I can. Just for attempting something like this, I'm very proud of my Carley whether or not she succeeds.

~ Kyle Welykholowa