The Diet

We are not bums. We just recycle.

Just got back from Wegman’s where we recycled approximately six months’ worth of cans. All told, $41.25 back.

I spent less than that on my food for the entire week when I went to Wegman’s just a few days earlier.

I never realized how many cans—Blue, Blue Light, Genny, Natural, Natural Light, Stroh's (“shorts” backwards), Milwaukee’s Best/Light/Ice, and the occasional Pepsi can that was in there—have a cool, soothing metallic blue color to them until I went through an entire shopping cart worth of those cans.

So yeah, I eat a lot of pasta.

Thankfully we only heard one college joke/reference the entire time we were unloading the cans and returning them.

But I ate a lot of pasta even before I was coming close to having no money left whatsoever. It’s easy to make and can be dressed up in all sorts of ways. So every week I usually buy a couple of tomatoes, a pepper and an onion and use them for pasta and/or tacos.

Tacos. Definitely tacos twice a week. Sometimes my late night replacement for Steak Out.

My breakfast has been a mix of the basic breakfasts: corn flakes, eggs and potatoes, toast, bagels or frozen waffles (the only frozen food I eat) with either coffee, tea or water.

And yeah, I eat quite a few potatoes too.

My lunches consist mostly of sandwiches. I usually buy a half pound of two different cold cuts and they last me for a week. I’ll use a tomato, onion and lettuce on most sandwiches, unless I’m making fried bologna (the best of all “oni’s”) which I’ll load up with peppers and onions and smother in mustard.

Taste of Buffalo in my own home.

And a lot of bread. Usually with garlic on it if it’s not holding a sandwich.

Then for dinner I usually go back and forth between a pasta and bread, some form of tacos, and a larger meal like chicken, potatoes and broccoli or green beans.

Rice and beans are always options too.

Or are they burritos?

It’s somewhat funny to me when I think about how much more healthy I’m eating now that I have to watch the spending. Suddenly the $2.99 (or 2/$5) bag of chips becomes a bit pricey and in figuring that the $.99 on the king size candy bar at the check out counter is equal to 2 lbs of pasta one begins to gain a sense of the wastefulness of those products.

Crackers and peanut butter are as close as I get to snacks.

It also makes me think about all the money spent on diet books and pills and gym fees and exercise videos (etc, et al) in this country. One could simply burn the money until they can only afford to buy the right foods and be just as well off.

Nothing makes one quite so healthy as being unable to afford junk food.

And a few pieces of fruit to hold me over in between.

I am as utilitarian when it comes to eating as I am when it comes to living. So this isn’t a simplified life of eating for me, just another way I don’t spend money.

Need to find beer money somewhere.

Or they could just work less rather than burning the money.

All in all, it is still a wider variety of food than when I had the money to go out and grab a burger and beer after a day of work.

I didn’t really have a true sense of how much people go out to eat until I delivered to such restaurants for the past year. Going out to eat is one of the most obvious and easiest ways to cut back on spending and, to me, too much of a convenient waste of money. That said, and even though I hate being served and I hate creating work for other people, I can’t say that I don’t miss eating out at least a few places nearby such as the occasional Jim’s Steak Out, Avenue sub or, most of all, breakfast at Nick’s Place. Perhaps it’s only fitting that the very first $8 I spent after I began counting my spending was spent on the most consistently rewarding breakfast skillet and coffee in the city. Goddamn that’s good eating. And one of the places I missed most while gone.

Still, even on such a limited budget, I probably eat better than our armed forces.

Right now, I don't know who that's saying what about.