LBTL 2014: Day 4

More garbanzo and cabbage salad, no complaints

My partner had a gig last night so I was up late, forgot to set an alarm, and had to rush out the door to work. No time for breakfast, but I some how managed to pack up a lunch: the same garbanzo/cabbage salad as the day before, and the last of the soup I had for lunch on Monday and Tuesday. Not bad. All that food came to $0.86.

The last of the soup - finally!

Dinner. I had seconds.

For dinner, I made mashed potatoes and navy beans and tomato. The potatoes weren't half bad. While boiling the potatoes, I sauteed some diced onions in two tablespoons of oil to mix in. I had also saved the water I cooked the garbanzo beans in, and mixed some of that in too. The mashed potatoes were fluffy and mildly flavorful. I warmed up the beans and fried up the tomatoes. $0.27 for the mashed potatoes, $0.13 for the tomato, and $0.15 for the beans brought dinner to $0.55.

Today's total: $1.41

I took stock of the food I have left for tomorrow, and I have more than enough: 6 potatoes, 4 onions, 1/4 of the cabbage, 1 tomato, a serving of navy beans, and 2 servings of garbanzos. The only reason I've made it this far without going hungry was that lucky buy of 5lbs of potatoes for $1.00. I've eaten about 1lb of potatoes each day during the challenge. What if those potatoes hadn't been there? What if I had been shopping a week earlier, when the largest bag of potatoes for $1.00 was 2lbs? Instead of 25 potatoes, I would have had only 10. And they would have cost me $0.10 a piece, instead of $0.04. This was nearly a miserable week. But fortune smiled upon me.

There's some weird irony in eating this way. My diet this week has been vegan (well, it's always vegan), gluten-free, with no refined sugar. Isn't this the diet celebrities pay tons of money to go on? I've been on it for four days, and it's only cost me $5.37. They must be doing something wrong.

I'm looking forward to saturday morning breakfast. I'll have a nice cup of earl grey with soy milk, a grapefruit, maybe a piece of toast. Begin the count down.