This is why I pack my lunch.

One hour break =

One iced pumpkin spice latte: $5.06

One trip to the health food store: $10.46

(tempeh walnut salad, vegan egg salad, tofu noodles, one expensive chocolate bar)

Some days I need to leave me wallet at home!

Farmers Market recap 6

Hi friends!

Wow, what a crazy week! After nearly 6 days of being extremely sick, I think I’m starting to feel better! It was so weird, I felt like everyday was a new illness because it was all so random! First the flu, then a cold, then what felt like strep throat or tonsilitis, then back to the flu… it was insane. Not mention my loss of appetite, that’s always a strange one for me. I ❤ food.

Recap

Raw nut butters for sale! Only sold 2 mini. 😦

Granola

Samples

Look at all of the cans!

No, you’re a jerk. This is Scott’s jerk marinade. Oh my goodness, IT’S HOT! I actually tried it though and it was good.

Banjo band playing behind our stand. Nice music but having to scream the ingredients to our customers was not joyful.

 

The Jar Head Salsa guys are our good friends. Scott helps them with marketing and I eat the salsa.

This booth belongs to another good friend of ours. She is super talented and friendly!

I didn’t realize this at the time I took this picture but I totally know this family!

Our first attempt at making mustard. It was a hit! Although this is what broke my Vitamix (more on that later).

I love how I never have to buy soap again, I simply trade for it.

Lots of plants!

beautiful day at the market 🙂

Taking Risks

I don’t like being a negative nancy on my blog (or in real life) but things just aren’t going “great”. I’m definitely not saying things are going bad, but honestly, Scott and I are starting to worry. I guess I really wouldn’t say “worry” but more “over thinking” if you will. We spend all of our money on food to prepare for the market, it’s actually extremely risky business because we never know what to expect! But people love us. & I know in my heart that God is always good. People like what we’re doing, they love seeing our new recipes we come up with and they love getting the chance to try new food. But we’re not really making money at the Market. What do we tell customers, “hey, buy our stuff so we can pay rent and not be homeless”. That will really make them want to come back. There is no doubt in our minds that we will continue to grow each week but, can we really keep up with buying new blenders and fancy jars to make the products the customer’s want to see? We really don’t know what to do! Except pray. Pray that we will get a few catering jobs just to help us grow a little more. Give thanks that we are extremely blessed to be living in such a great country in which we are able to do things like this. Be thankful for how much we have grown. And always stay hopeful because God is always good.

& With that said, we may have a new business opportunity coming up. Fingers crossed that they call back today.

Questions of the Day: Tell me about a time that you took a risk.

Broke as a Joke

Long time no post, huh? It seems like with all of this free-time off work I would be posting everyday! I usually go on here and then get caught up in everybody else’s blogs that I no longer have the time to post on my own blog! How funny.

Food and random event recap:

Wednesday’s Lunch:

My lovely boyfriend made me the best sweet and sour tofu!

Thursday’s Breakfast:

Raspberry almond oats sprinkled with dark chocolate

Then I made… Trail Mix!!!

&Holycraplookatthisapple:

It’s huge! All the honey crisp apples with this big! Yes, this is apparently organic.

Yesterday, I went to Border’s…TWICE.

I went during my break at school with no money. I saw this workout journal I really wanted so I went back later with my friend to get it.

This journal is so cool. I hope that it will motivate me to work out more plus, it’s fun keeping track of things; that’s like my #1 hobby. Do you have anything you like to keep a journal of?

Broke as a joke:

Lately I have been doing a lot of bargain grocery shopping because well…. I’m freakin broke. My hours got cut at work (by like… an entire week) but I don’t feel like focusing on that right now. The point is, vegan food can be cheap. I’m sure you remember the whole $21 challenge, right? I’m not going that extreme this time but I need to start budgeting my food somehow. What better way to do it then to search for coupons? Seriously, google coupons for *enter your favorite vegan brand here* and see what comes up. Or even better, go to their website and they usually will have a coupon somewhere on the site. So forget giving up veggie burgers or vegan ice-cream for good (Or if not it’s usually a lot cheaper when you make your own veggies burgers, just sayin’…)

Ex: My new favorite; Gardein.

Gardein’s site offers a $1 dollar off coupon that you can print off twice then take that shit to Kroger.

originally $4.99 a bag, on sale at Kroger for $3.99, Kroger doubles coupons up to $1… one bag of crispy tenders for .99 cents!

 

What do you do to save money on groceries?

$21 Challenge (days 1 & 2)

$21 Challenge: Day one.

Today I got off to a good start on my challenge. This meal cost me 34 cents.

At least it does they way I count it. I count per servings for my meals so the instant oatmeal cost 2.69 for 30 servings. One serving of oats cost 9 cents. The bananas were 44 cents a pound so I figured one small one would be around 15 cents. The amount of brown sugar I used cost pretty much nothing but we’ll go with 5 cents. And that’s breakfast!

After I went shopping with my mom for two hours I needed something quick so I grabbed a carrot cake Clif bar $1. My favorite flavor btw! I left one of these in my hot car the other day and it was all warm and gooey, so delicious! I never noticed the little packets of frosting they have in them until it was warm.

For lunch, scott made me some falafel and I ate half a box because I was starving. Hummus + Falafel =2.22. Does this really count if somebody makes you a meal? 🙂

After running around all day again, I needed something fast. Like I said, I don’t do this often but I made a quick taco bell run. Bean burrito $0.89.

Sunday’s Grand Total…$4.40

Today was really not a good day for this! I felt like I spent a lot but I did not eat enough. But hey, what do you do when you’re not home all day? I think I am going to do the challenge differently for the next few weeks, the way I intended to do it this week. That is to not spend more than $21 a week. You can use all the food you already have but just be very creative with it! You have no idea how much rice I have in my house right now, it’s ridiculous. Although this is a good idea for a challenge, I feel it would get quite annoying trying to remember how much you paid for all the food. If you are a coupon cutter like my mom, sometimes the food is pretty much free! Today she ended up paying about a quarter for each box of cereal.

Day Two:

Breakfast- Cheerios and almond milk (both on sale!) like I said, Mom bought Cheerios for about a quarter each so one serving is 5 cents. I had a coupon for one dollar off almond milk so one tiny cereal serving is 25 cents.

Lunch and dinner- okay so I cheated. I went out to eat, it was another busy day but I got a lot of food (two meals) for 6.99. Say hello to my Mongolian bbq one vegetarian bowl feast:

Mmm. This was amazing! One of my favorite places to go out to eat is Mongolian Barbecue. Incase you are not familiar with this restaurant, let me explain. You can either order a vegetarian bowl or a meat bowl (for once vegan eating is cheaper at a restaurant) you then go fill your bowl up with whatever you want in your little stir fry, they even offer tofu! I like to get every single veggie they have available. Next, you make your own sauce. Today I mixed peanut, lemon, soy sauce, and fresh garlic. Last, you bring your bowl up to they big grill and they grill your food. Be sure to tell them you are vegetarian so they clean your grill area really well and use separate tools that haven’t touched meat. Pretty cool!

Monday’s Total: $7.29

I can’t believe I already spent half of my week’s money in two days. Will I be able to finish the challenge? You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Money Talks

TGIF

(Not really because I hate Saturdays…)

Today felt good. I got all my college stuff straightened around (kind of) and  I am taking one class this semester because that’s all I can afford right now. People ask me why I don’t get student loans. The answer to that question is because I don’t want to be in debt, I’m 18. I know it sounds stupid and it’s really not in “debt” I just have a little problem with spending money I don’t have. Is that too hard to understand? Excuse me for being responible!

Speaking of money, I stumbled upon a blog the other day that gave me an idea. This blogger is doing a $21 a week challenge. You can only spend $21 a week on food at the most. That’s $3 a day or $1 a meal! I’ve been wanting to do something like this but I have been pushing it off. I think it’s a neat idea because some people say to me, “I couldn’t be vegan it’s too expensive…” or “You must have to spend a lot of money on food…” This is not true! I certainly don’t have to spend as much as I do on food (which isn’t a whole lot) because a vegan diet can be ridiculously cheap. Sometimes I talk myself into buying unnessesary food items and I say to myself, “Hey, I can spend money on nice food because I’m not one of those girls who buys $1000 purses!”

Lets compare steak and tofu. Steak per pound:  around $10 Tofu per pound: less than $3. 

Dairy and meat are luxuries

I will start the challenge Sunday (pay day!) and I will try it out for about 5 weeks or so. This should be interesting because late summer is my favorite food season because of all the produce but on the other hand will this make it easier because my favorite produce will be in-season and cheap? We will have to wait to see what the future holds. Good thing I did my major grociery shopping last tuesday!

Some meals I plan on making:

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal with either fresh fruit, dried fruit, PB, nuts or the conbination of them all.
• Cereal with the Greastest Granola
• Yogurt with granola
• Smoothies (frozen fruit!)

Lunch

• Pastapasta&morepasta
• PB&J’s
• Hummus wraps

Dinner

• Loads of ideas

I still do plan on making sushi sometime, maybe Sunday night? Good thing I already bought Nori (wait is that cheating…?) and rice.

Now, whose up for some bean and rice burrito’s???