Day 6, No Witty Title, I'm Running Ragged

So, just to be up front, there are no pictures again. Things have been a little harried.

Last night I felt so on it. My partner was exhausted from working 10 and 11 hours days all this week so I cooked us all dinner then put him to bed at 7:30, got my son down at 8:30, and then cooked a lovely lentil stew from cheap and nutritious ingredients for today’s lunch. So on it. I ate my usual fabulous oatmeal breakfast, got my son and I packed and out the door 10 minutes ahead of schedule and the day was off to a great start. Oh yeah, sooooo on it. I was feeling great. Until I started getting hungry around 10:30 am and realized I had, once again, left my lunch at home and that I had solid meetings ahead of me except from 11:45 to noon when I had planned to scarf my lunch. While I live close to the co-op, I don’t live close enough to run home eat and run back in 15 minutes by a long shot.

And so, I led meetings while others scarfed their lunch and became more and more jealous and cranky. Finally, I gave in and spent $1.05 of my $4.50 a day budget on a vegan protein bar. That helped, but made me cranky with myself for screwing up my budget for the day because it would mean a small dinner at best. That would be annoying most days, but I started work at 8 today and other than a few little breaks, was scheduled to be at work until between 8 and 10pm to oversee the quarterly inventory at the co-op and the instillation of our third register lane. That’s the thing with hunger, it never lets up. Today was just to chaotic and stressful to contemplate rationing every bite of food and counting each penny, I’d have rather just turned off my need/desire to eat entirely. If only it were so easy.

So far today, I’ve eaten:
The usual oatmeal goodness with a few extra chocolate chips (it was going to be a loooong day, I felt I needed the pick-me-up): $0.70
The protein bar: $1.05
The lentil stew: $0.87
I had thought that was going to be all I could afford today when I was running around and trying to keep track of my eating in my head, but when I wrote this out I realized, hey, I’ve only spent $2.64! So, on a short break home I defrosted a bunch of black beans, tossed them in a pan with a diced up raw tomato from my garden and some spices and then ate it with half an avocado with a few Brazil nuts for good measure and got to:
TOTAL: $4.32
So I’m going to treat myself to a $0.15 mini fair trade chocolate to get me through the rest of this inventory night. Thank the gods.
What’s coming back to me today is the cumulative toll that eating on such a tight budget takes on you when you are balancing a full life. When you’ve got one (or more) demanding job, kids, bills hanging over your head, the stress of having to find time to eat is bad enough. Then try eating well enough that you don’t feel like hell and compromise your health while being on a tiny food budget. This is the reality so many people are living with, day in and day out.