Isn't "I got mine, everyone else fuck off" the American way?
It does feel like things are worse then the last generation, more and less. I wonder if the last generation felt the same thing. maybe quizzical has the answer.
Poor people can have kids for free. It is those of us in the middle that get screwed. I've considered divorcing my husband and going on welfare so I can have his child. I know someone who did this. They got remarried afterwards. I'm pretty sure I can't do that, being the highly moral being that I am. So birth in a bathtub is looking like an option.
Elinor, if $480 buys groceries for two months I have to wonder how high your dining out bill is...
i think we just don't eat very much...i'm a cheapskate in odd ways...i always buy food that's on sale and like to make my own clothes, but i insist on a vacation to europe every year, and the occasional pair of good designer shoes. i'm sure that will change with the kids though...the grocery bills will triple, the kids will be too embarrassed to wear mom's homemade 'designs', and i'll start wearing nothing but keds...
I dont know what our deductible is. Our copay is 25 a visit.
Our grocery bill is an average of 60 bucks a week. We eat a lot of beans. Weeks when I buy meat, were up to 80 and when I don't it's down to 45.
yeah, that's true...we don't eat much meat. or processed/packaged stuff. we're not hardcore against junk food or anything...just prefer plain food and stuff made from scratch. i guess it keeps things cheap.
One thing I've learned is that fresh food is not as cheap or as fresh as frozen food especially when it comes to fruits and veggies. There are somethings you just can't replace like tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers and a few others.
At the same time, some frozen things are more expensive than produce that's about to expire. And it's not particularly difficult to prep and freeze all of that stuff. I've given up trying to eat certain kinds of foods solely because of either the expense or hassle in preparing or storing them. All foods I eat now either come in milkshake or pasta dish form. For things like milkshakes, frozen mushy fruit is actually preferable.
For pasta dishes, anything that doesn't freeze well gets boiled in broth along with other ingredients and gets the old puree treatment.
Also, two things I've learned is that it is almost never cheaper to make your own bread items— loaves of bread and tortillas are always much more expensive homemade than store bought.
Pasta on the other hand... If you've got a pasta machine and $3, you can feed a family of 8 for a week.
i dunno if from scratch is cheaper or not. i was thinking as i wrote above why our grocery bill is so high and i think its because we DO make everything from scratch. no junkfood in our house either and a treat is a bottle of wine once a week. i guess to put things in perspective a litre of milk is about $2 and a bag with 8 ( 8 ! ! ! ) slices of bread is about the same.
$60 a week is amazing. that is like a single bag of groceries here. man i must be out of touch with life back home cuz that sounds amazingly inexpensive. very jealous.
the one nice thing here is that kids are free for hospital, dentist and optometrist up til junior high. medicine too. we don't pay a thing for them directly. Japan is trying to encourage larger families apparently and that is supposed to be an incentive.
$60 a week?!?! For a family of 3??? How is that even possible? That is definitely approx. 1 bag of groceries here. I drop $60 just for MYSELF whenever I go (probably 2x per month), to get things like granola, eggs, and milk. The rest of the time I am eating out which is absurdly expensive. But so is buying fresh ingredients for 1 (or 2) people. We made stuffed peppers last weekend: ground beef on sale, tomato sauce, herbs for free from our own herb garden, parmesan, cream, and the peppers of course. The cost of the ingredients somehow ended up around $40. For 2 people! We may as well have eaten out. This happens a lot. Often I realize we are basically breaking even on eating out vs. cooking at home. The only way to eat cheaply in our city is to eat nothing but fast food & frozen shit from the supermarket. And then I would weigh 300lbs.
SH, I'm honestly curious about this. Do you shop at Aldi, or the Texas equivalent? How on earth do you feed 3 people on $60/week? What kinds of things do you buy? I would love to do that.
jjr- baking your own bread etc is at least 1/3rd the price of storebought even when counting the price to heat the oven. 5lbs of flour $4-$6 = 5 loaves, the yeast can be free (sourdough) or just pennies a loaf, a few more cents for oil & salt. supermarket bread is rarely less then $3 unless you buy the cardboard stuff with tons of chemicals. I'd rather bake any day that the kitchen isn't already 80 degrees - it tastes much better too
here's my plan for saving money--buy whichever canned tomatoes are on sale, whichever dry pasta is on sale, whichever fruit (gala apples, red grapes) are on sale, whichever seafood is on sale at the fish counter, and whichever fresh vegetables (plum tomatoes, broccoli) are cheapest..then, splurge on some pretty nice cheese, some good crackers or bread, and a decent, mid-priced bottle of wine....
yes unicorn/rockandhill/supposedly-dead-person/jjr you are on crack. pretty much one of the cheapest things you can possibly bake is bread. it doesn't even require butter which is the most expensive part of baking.
yeah elinor that's also what I do... not sure how I am going wrong. Perhaps it is because I shop while I am hungry. Oh well. I will say that groceries are pretty astoundingly expensive here in Chicago b/c when I recently took a trip further into the more rural midwest I was shocked to find things that were literally 1/2 the price I pay in the city. (And I shop at Trader Joe's!!!)
that's exactly how it is for us too manta. a proper meal with fresh veggies is much more expensive than frozen food or supper from a box. we have a bread maker that is totally awesome too and definitely cheaper than buying from the baker. Even with flour here coming in wee little 1kg bags it is still cheaper, and we can make wholewheat and other lovely things as well that are not possible to buy in Japanese bakery normally.
i buy groceries from nearby mexican-arab market. all staples and vegetables that are used in mediterranean cuisine are stocked high, fresh and since they sell in high volumes and daily, 1/3 of the price of grocery stores. foods from middle eastern countries, india, mexico, turkey and elsewhere are plenty. great variety of olive oils, olives, cheeses, spices, all kinds of yogurts, lentils, beans, bulghurs, rice, pastas, pickles, cured meats, teas, coffees, jams, honey, canned goods, all kinds of tomato pastes and many other things. of course, great butcher with hand cut meats and real butchers behind the counter, fish, poultry, grill ready marinated meats...
there is really no reason to go to any chain grocery store for food.
there is also nearby thai, japanese, chinese, korean, armenian, russian, central american, brazilian markets with the similar stories and varieties. if you know what to do with the raw material and how to cook, you can eat really well and pay very little.
2 1/2 cups water (105-115 F) = $0.00
1 tablespoon active dry yeast = 0.3 oz. of Red Star dry yeast at $2.50 per oz = $0.75
1 tablespoon sugar = 0.43 oz of Domino white sugar at $3.99 per 5 lbs = $0.02
7 cups bread flour or 7 cups all-purpose flour = 890 grams (31 oz) of Gold Medal flour at $1.99 per 5 lbs = $0.77
1 tablespoon salt = $0.01
1/4-1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened = 110 (~4.oz) grams of butter at $1.99 per lb = $0.49
2400-watt oven operating for approximately 1 hour = ~$0.25
2.5 ton air-conditioner removing approximately 8300 BTUs (1/3 hour operation) = $1.36
Grand Total = $3.64
Price per loaf = $1.82
But wait, there's more. Depreciate the cost of using each item as called in the recipe.
Stand mixer (KitchenAid @ $499) = $0.011392694
Bowl (3 Qt Pyrex bowl @ $9) = $0.000456621
Calphalon non-stick loaf pan ($14 x 2) = $0.000639269
1 single wall-mount oven ($450) = $0.010273973 Total = $0.02
And don't forget storage:
5.6 linear feet of aluminum foil = $0.22
Cost per loaf including equipment usage and storage=$1.94 Cost per loaf including equipment usage and storage with egg wash = $2.08
Cost of white bread (Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. city average) including 7.0% tax = $1.57
wish it were like that here. there is almost nothing in the way of foreign staples even in tokyo. hamburger remains a luxury and steak is astronomical even if you stay away from the beer fed stuff. farmers are all still family size operations, like an acre or two each kinda thing. makes everything really expensive. We buy from farmers market and still have old-timey vegetable seller and fish seller in the open air market just blocks from home, right beside two massive grocery stores oddly enough (something like 600,000 people live in my "village" in tokyo so the competition is fine being side by side - and get this, there is no parking, zero nada zilch. if you wanna buy groceries you walk or ride the bike).
anyway it's cheaper than city centre prices but nothing like is normal in the usa where labor is extraordinarily cheap and agribusiness has brought costs so far down.
manta--i find trader joe's to be pretty expensive, actually...i really have no idea why they have a reputation for low prices--i gues they are a cheaper alternative to whole foods...here in NY we have Fairway, which is pretty cheap for the quality, but if you really want to save money, your best bet is to go to the un-glamorous local chains--key food and the like, for the staples. these days some even have a nice selection of organic products--and the tab comes out 20 or 30 dollars less than at trader joe's
also, go to the ethnic stores. a Greek place near here sells excellent feta for 2.99/lb. they also sell these locally made spinach pies that you just put in the oven--6 for $3. that's a meal right there. and chinatown can't be beat for produce...
actually frozen veggies and fruits may be fresher than the unfrozen equivalents since the frozen produce is done quickly while the fresh may sit and sit and sit. i have begun cooking like crazy from scratch although i'm not a baker yet. there are so few decent restaurants here that its more satisfying to do it myself. also, i enjoy the immediate gratification if something turns out well and like the ego stroke of having people tell me the food is good.
Steven Ward, an architect from Louisville, Ky., and architecture instructor, Donna Sink, reviewed students building models during a critique. Kentucky Center Governor's School for the Arts students prepared for their final performances at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. July 8, 2011
Hmm, grocery store habits: I buy clearance meats and bakery items. :) I bake my own bread often too, it is cheaper because I buy the flour and yeast in bulk. Yeast is significantly cheaper in bulk, those little packets are a rip off. The asian food stores here are out in the suburbs, but I go there sometimes because the produce is so inexpensive! I admit I eat from the McDonald's $1 breakfast menu too. Got to eat. My garden should be kicking out more now that it is July, but I never feel my grocery bill goes down when the garden is in full swing, not sure why.
Wow. Who knew this conversation would get so long.
I get all my groceries at Wal-mart's neighborhood market. Sorry. They're cheapest, and they will price match if they aren't. And I always buy the cheapest option, most often Great Value brand, with a few exceptions
Lets see, last week I bought...
two cans of black, pinto, red, and navy beans.
2 cans of chicken
1 large thing of iodized salt
1 large jug of GV picante sauce (for Husband's eggs, and he likes how it tastes)
GV isntant oatmeal
Hormel real bacon bits — cheaper than the GV ones
package of strawberries
2 cans of chili
GV bacon (It's a nice thick cut, but if you like your bacon meaty, then you have to inspect every package)
Frozen tilapia fillets
GV cottage cheese
2.5 dozen eggs (I've done the math, and there is no difference in cost per egg across the spectrum of carton sizes)
Grand total of $42.77
I always make my own flour tortillas, but buy the corn ones. When I do buy cheese and meat, the bill goes up to around 80. I also use coupons for things like razors and hellman's mayo cause that nothing else tastes as good. I've never actually been into aldi, though I hear it's thrifty.
Oh, and I haven't had to buy many veggies because my dad planted a bumper crop this year.
WOW, SH, that is EXTRAORDINARILY cheap!!! omg. That is insane that all that cost $42.77. Bacon here is around $5 ($3.50 on sale, for the highly-processed mostly-fat brand), eggs are about $4 unless you get the really crappy ones from the 7/11 for $2.50, those frozen tilapia filets are... shoot, I haven't bought them in awhile... I think they were $7 or so. Bread is between $3 and $4...
Here, Trader Joes is by far the cheapest option with the exception of Aldi (its parent company). I dislike Aldi however because it has extremely limited options and they are all knockoffs of crap namebrand foods; for example, knockoff Oreo's. I don't want Oreo's at all, much less knockoff ones, so I like the fact that at TJ's I can get a little tea biscuit package or somesuch for $2. That's just an example, but you get the gist. Aldi's seems to be for people who want knock-off name-brand bad-for-you foods - like a lot of canned stuff, stuff with lots of salt and sugar, that kind of thing. TJ's is the cheapest healthy option. It is next door to Whole Foods (approx 1.5x the cost) and down the street from our local chain (Jewel) which is approx. 1.25x the cost.
I like the ethnic markets, and in fact I live the quadrant of the city that has them all (well, Korean, Halal, Indian, Mexican) but apart from the mex place I go to for produce, they all take forever to get to because they are more towards the outskirts of town. So it's a trade-off on time v. money for me...
Yeah jump we don't have parking at most of our joints either, or a tiny token lot at most. The farmer's market in my neighborhood actually is held IN the only parking lot thus necessitating all guests to arrive bipedally. I live in a big city though. Most of America is def. not like this...
There's a halal place not far from here where they will slaughter a chicken in front of you. Been dying to check that out. I wish I had more free time in life.
Also, I got up and rode 17 miles this morning before my partner even got out of bed. ha ha ha ha. My ass was on the seat at 7am. I am proud of myself! But my butt kinda hurts.
I DID mean canned chicken, but definitely not like spam, more like canned tuna, but it's chicken. Great for chicken salads, ect. Husband has us experimenting with the 4 Hour Body diet. The experiment has been interesting.
Yeah, my 2.5 dozen eggs cost me $4.27. Don't ask why I remember that from the receipt.
Yeah, the picture is cool, but! you can see the taped together back/inside of the model in the foreground. The photographer caught us with our butts hanging out.
I go home tomorrow! I love GSA but I miss my boys, my bed, and my dog.
wow sarah i never heard of that. when i was a sous chef i used to make turkey rolls that were actually quite yummy. i am imagining something like that now, but my first thought was definitely spam-ish.
will you do the slaughtering yourself donna? i can cut up a chicken no worries but not sure how i feel about the de-feathering and the rest. must take a bit of getting used to. sort of goulish thought but are there regulations about how to slaughter farm animals in the city?
wow, having never seen a photo of you guys before, thats not how i would have imagined two hard-working, sometimes overworked architects with several kids (and chickens!) between the two of you! great photo...
I'm back!! Cleveland, to Niagara Falls, to Rochester, to Brooklyn, to Long Island, to New Jersey, to Delaware, to Richmond, to Greensboro, to Atlanta, to Tallahassee, and finally making that midnight run (like DeNiro) to Miami. It was a fantastic road trip... apologies to those I was trying to meet up with. Timing went screwy with the 4th July weekend - NYC was nuts!!
I've got a question for all the parents out there, and especially parents of Boys.
Are they supposed aggressive and angry all the time? And can you think why a 3.5 year old would suddenly start pooping in his pants when he's been patty trained for nearly 2 years?!
Manta - that's awesome to hear about the 17 mile ride. Woo-hoo!!! You go girl!
SH - I seriously applaud you for being able to keep your grocery bills so low. I too can't seem to get my grocery bill lower than $70-$80 every week or two, no matter how hard I try.
David - glad to see you made back safely from your trip.
Donna - I would just like to say your arms look great. You still doing yoga.
Vado - when are gonna cook for me?
In any case, It's 9:45pm and it's still 90 degrees outside. The air is so thick it's hard to breathe. UGH!!!
hey David! What were you doing in Tallahassee seeing friends? How is everyone else? I had some great Phở tonight, after my run. Not home made i'll admit.
on masterchef australia they weent to nyc. each contestant was sent to a certain part of town to get inspired etc. this one chick was in the lower east side and decided to make a cake based on sanaa's new museum. did not turn out too good.
I still haven't caught up with Masterchef America. The last one I saw, they made deserts; the next one will have bikers in it.
I can't decide if I should cheer for the architect, because she's an architect, or not, because she annoys me. That Max kid cracks me up; he and Suzy are so going to make babies by the end of the show.
the american is not worth watching. i've tried. i jsut don't like the vibe of that show. everyone is snarky and the show has a lot of ill will. the australian version is much more generous and has better cooks. i can't believe that the people on mc america are the best amateur cooks they could find.
Oh but Vado, you have to love the crazy travel writer with the hats. He's goofy, and a bit overly emotional. Plus he's from Texas — not that that means anything to you.
How are you watching the Aussie version, anyway? Does it have Joe? He's such a hardass. I wonder how many times a day he makes his wife and children cry.
right so I've read through the back pages of TC. I must admit I was a little fearful of all the reading but having the pages broken into 50 posts is a stroke of genius. My kudos to you gang of giant green heads.
a few things
@manatary - I'm going to email you re: your project. I'm nowhere near Chi but I'm interested nonetheless. I've found I have a talent in helping people especially if they are in problems I often find myself.
@barry - congrats on the Cal Poly position. The way things are looking the missus and I are seriously considering a move there next year. But alot of things have to come in place before that can happen... I'd better bet on 2013.
@beccabec - is this new business an architectural design business or is it a further venture outside of architecture??
@donna/steven all - why was Steven mentioned as an architect whilst you were not. What's up with that bullsh*t?
Thread Central
Isn't "I got mine, everyone else fuck off" the American way? It does feel like things are worse then the last generation, more and less. I wonder if the last generation felt the same thing. maybe quizzical has the answer.
Morning all, I thought I would make the image a more architectural one. It is of 876 Park Avenue At the Southwest corner of 78th Street
Poor people can have kids for free. It is those of us in the middle that get screwed. I've considered divorcing my husband and going on welfare so I can have his child. I know someone who did this. They got remarried afterwards. I'm pretty sure I can't do that, being the highly moral being that I am. So birth in a bathtub is looking like an option. Elinor, if $480 buys groceries for two months I have to wonder how high your dining out bill is...
i think we just don't eat very much...i'm a cheapskate in odd ways...i always buy food that's on sale and like to make my own clothes, but i insist on a vacation to europe every year, and the occasional pair of good designer shoes. i'm sure that will change with the kids though...the grocery bills will triple, the kids will be too embarrassed to wear mom's homemade 'designs', and i'll start wearing nothing but keds...
disclaimer--both our families live in europe, and the pair of ferragamo heels that i wear to every meeting was purchased in '05....
where's that picture thread of 'nectors shoes?
I dont know what our deductible is. Our copay is 25 a visit. Our grocery bill is an average of 60 bucks a week. We eat a lot of beans. Weeks when I buy meat, were up to 80 and when I don't it's down to 45.
yeah, that's true...we don't eat much meat. or processed/packaged stuff. we're not hardcore against junk food or anything...just prefer plain food and stuff made from scratch. i guess it keeps things cheap.
One thing I've learned is that fresh food is not as cheap or as fresh as frozen food especially when it comes to fruits and veggies. There are somethings you just can't replace like tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers and a few others.
At the same time, some frozen things are more expensive than produce that's about to expire. And it's not particularly difficult to prep and freeze all of that stuff. I've given up trying to eat certain kinds of foods solely because of either the expense or hassle in preparing or storing them. All foods I eat now either come in milkshake or pasta dish form. For things like milkshakes, frozen mushy fruit is actually preferable.
For pasta dishes, anything that doesn't freeze well gets boiled in broth along with other ingredients and gets the old puree treatment.
Also, two things I've learned is that it is almost never cheaper to make your own bread items— loaves of bread and tortillas are always much more expensive homemade than store bought.
Pasta on the other hand... If you've got a pasta machine and $3, you can feed a family of 8 for a week.
i dunno if from scratch is cheaper or not. i was thinking as i wrote above why our grocery bill is so high and i think its because we DO make everything from scratch. no junkfood in our house either and a treat is a bottle of wine once a week. i guess to put things in perspective a litre of milk is about $2 and a bag with 8 ( 8 ! ! ! ) slices of bread is about the same.
$60 a week is amazing. that is like a single bag of groceries here. man i must be out of touch with life back home cuz that sounds amazingly inexpensive. very jealous.
the one nice thing here is that kids are free for hospital, dentist and optometrist up til junior high. medicine too. we don't pay a thing for them directly. Japan is trying to encourage larger families apparently and that is supposed to be an incentive.
$60 a week?!?! For a family of 3??? How is that even possible? That is definitely approx. 1 bag of groceries here. I drop $60 just for MYSELF whenever I go (probably 2x per month), to get things like granola, eggs, and milk. The rest of the time I am eating out which is absurdly expensive. But so is buying fresh ingredients for 1 (or 2) people. We made stuffed peppers last weekend: ground beef on sale, tomato sauce, herbs for free from our own herb garden, parmesan, cream, and the peppers of course. The cost of the ingredients somehow ended up around $40. For 2 people! We may as well have eaten out. This happens a lot. Often I realize we are basically breaking even on eating out vs. cooking at home. The only way to eat cheaply in our city is to eat nothing but fast food & frozen shit from the supermarket. And then I would weigh 300lbs.
SH, I'm honestly curious about this. Do you shop at Aldi, or the Texas equivalent? How on earth do you feed 3 people on $60/week? What kinds of things do you buy? I would love to do that.
jjr- baking your own bread etc is at least 1/3rd the price of storebought even when counting the price to heat the oven. 5lbs of flour $4-$6 = 5 loaves, the yeast can be free (sourdough) or just pennies a loaf, a few more cents for oil & salt. supermarket bread is rarely less then $3 unless you buy the cardboard stuff with tons of chemicals. I'd rather bake any day that the kitchen isn't already 80 degrees - it tastes much better too
here's my plan for saving money--buy whichever canned tomatoes are on sale, whichever dry pasta is on sale, whichever fruit (gala apples, red grapes) are on sale, whichever seafood is on sale at the fish counter, and whichever fresh vegetables (plum tomatoes, broccoli) are cheapest..then, splurge on some pretty nice cheese, some good crackers or bread, and a decent, mid-priced bottle of wine....
yes unicorn/rockandhill/supposedly-dead-person/jjr you are on crack. pretty much one of the cheapest things you can possibly bake is bread. it doesn't even require butter which is the most expensive part of baking.
yeah elinor that's also what I do... not sure how I am going wrong. Perhaps it is because I shop while I am hungry. Oh well. I will say that groceries are pretty astoundingly expensive here in Chicago b/c when I recently took a trip further into the more rural midwest I was shocked to find things that were literally 1/2 the price I pay in the city. (And I shop at Trader Joe's!!!)
that's exactly how it is for us too manta. a proper meal with fresh veggies is much more expensive than frozen food or supper from a box. we have a bread maker that is totally awesome too and definitely cheaper than buying from the baker. Even with flour here coming in wee little 1kg bags it is still cheaper, and we can make wholewheat and other lovely things as well that are not possible to buy in Japanese bakery normally.
i buy groceries from nearby mexican-arab market. all staples and vegetables that are used in mediterranean cuisine are stocked high, fresh and since they sell in high volumes and daily, 1/3 of the price of grocery stores. foods from middle eastern countries, india, mexico, turkey and elsewhere are plenty. great variety of olive oils, olives, cheeses, spices, all kinds of yogurts, lentils, beans, bulghurs, rice, pastas, pickles, cured meats, teas, coffees, jams, honey, canned goods, all kinds of tomato pastes and many other things. of course, great butcher with hand cut meats and real butchers behind the counter, fish, poultry, grill ready marinated meats...
there is really no reason to go to any chain grocery store for food.
there is also nearby thai, japanese, chinese, korean, armenian, russian, central american, brazilian markets with the similar stories and varieties. if you know what to do with the raw material and how to cook, you can eat really well and pay very little.
Julia Child's White Bread Recipe
2 1/2 cups water (105-115 F) = $0.00
1 tablespoon active dry yeast = 0.3 oz. of Red Star dry yeast at $2.50 per oz = $0.75
1 tablespoon sugar = 0.43 oz of Domino white sugar at $3.99 per 5 lbs = $0.02
7 cups bread flour or 7 cups all-purpose flour = 890 grams (31 oz) of Gold Medal flour at $1.99 per 5 lbs = $0.77
1 tablespoon salt = $0.01
1/4-1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened = 110 (~4.oz) grams of butter at $1.99 per lb = $0.49
2400-watt oven operating for approximately 1 hour = ~$0.25
2.5 ton air-conditioner removing approximately 8300 BTUs (1/3 hour operation) = $1.36
Grand Total = $3.64
Price per loaf = $1.82
But wait, there's more. Depreciate the cost of using each item as called in the recipe.
Stand mixer (KitchenAid @ $499) = $0.011392694
Bowl (3 Qt Pyrex bowl @ $9) = $0.000456621
Calphalon non-stick loaf pan ($14 x 2) = $0.000639269
1 single wall-mount oven ($450) = $0.010273973
Total = $0.02
And don't forget storage:
5.6 linear feet of aluminum foil = $0.22
Cost per loaf including equipment usage and storage= $1.94
Cost per loaf including equipment usage and storage with egg wash = $2.08
Cost of white bread (Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. city average) including 7.0% tax = $1.57
Here is a good blog that I think Donna, SH, and other mothers (and likely fathers, too!) will enjoy: http://www.suburbansnapshots.com/
It's very well written!
jjr you a nut.
thas kool orhan.
wish it were like that here. there is almost nothing in the way of foreign staples even in tokyo. hamburger remains a luxury and steak is astronomical even if you stay away from the beer fed stuff. farmers are all still family size operations, like an acre or two each kinda thing. makes everything really expensive. We buy from farmers market and still have old-timey vegetable seller and fish seller in the open air market just blocks from home, right beside two massive grocery stores oddly enough (something like 600,000 people live in my "village" in tokyo so the competition is fine being side by side - and get this, there is no parking, zero nada zilch. if you wanna buy groceries you walk or ride the bike).
anyway it's cheaper than city centre prices but nothing like is normal in the usa where labor is extraordinarily cheap and agribusiness has brought costs so far down.
.
manta--i find trader joe's to be pretty expensive, actually...i really have no idea why they have a reputation for low prices--i gues they are a cheaper alternative to whole foods...here in NY we have Fairway, which is pretty cheap for the quality, but if you really want to save money, your best bet is to go to the un-glamorous local chains--key food and the like, for the staples. these days some even have a nice selection of organic products--and the tab comes out 20 or 30 dollars less than at trader joe's
also, go to the ethnic stores. a Greek place near here sells excellent feta for 2.99/lb. they also sell these locally made spinach pies that you just put in the oven--6 for $3. that's a meal right there. and chinatown can't be beat for produce...
actually frozen veggies and fruits may be fresher than the unfrozen equivalents since the frozen produce is done quickly while the fresh may sit and sit and sit. i have begun cooking like crazy from scratch although i'm not a baker yet. there are so few decent restaurants here that its more satisfying to do it myself. also, i enjoy the immediate gratification if something turns out well and like the ego stroke of having people tell me the food is good.
Steven and me teaching in Kentucky yesterday!
http://www.kentucky.com/2011/07/08/1805219/2011-governors-school-for-the.html
Steven Ward, an architect from Louisville, Ky., and architecture instructor, Donna Sink, reviewed students building models during a critique. Kentucky Center Governor's School for the Arts students prepared for their final performances at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky. July 8, 2011
Hmm, grocery store habits: I buy clearance meats and bakery items. :) I bake my own bread often too, it is cheaper because I buy the flour and yeast in bulk. Yeast is significantly cheaper in bulk, those little packets are a rip off. The asian food stores here are out in the suburbs, but I go there sometimes because the produce is so inexpensive! I admit I eat from the McDonald's $1 breakfast menu too. Got to eat. My garden should be kicking out more now that it is July, but I never feel my grocery bill goes down when the garden is in full swing, not sure why.
Cool pic.
Wow. Who knew this conversation would get so long.
I get all my groceries at Wal-mart's neighborhood market. Sorry. They're cheapest, and they will price match if they aren't. And I always buy the cheapest option, most often Great Value brand, with a few exceptions
Lets see, last week I bought...
Grand total of $42.77
I always make my own flour tortillas, but buy the corn ones. When I do buy cheese and meat, the bill goes up to around 80. I also use coupons for things like razors and hellman's mayo cause that nothing else tastes as good. I've never actually been into aldi, though I hear it's thrifty.
Oh, and I haven't had to buy many veggies because my dad planted a bumper crop this year.
And I totally read that recipe in Julia Child's voice.
WOW, SH, that is EXTRAORDINARILY cheap!!! omg. That is insane that all that cost $42.77. Bacon here is around $5 ($3.50 on sale, for the highly-processed mostly-fat brand), eggs are about $4 unless you get the really crappy ones from the 7/11 for $2.50, those frozen tilapia filets are... shoot, I haven't bought them in awhile... I think they were $7 or so. Bread is between $3 and $4...
Here, Trader Joes is by far the cheapest option with the exception of Aldi (its parent company). I dislike Aldi however because it has extremely limited options and they are all knockoffs of crap namebrand foods; for example, knockoff Oreo's. I don't want Oreo's at all, much less knockoff ones, so I like the fact that at TJ's I can get a little tea biscuit package or somesuch for $2. That's just an example, but you get the gist. Aldi's seems to be for people who want knock-off name-brand bad-for-you foods - like a lot of canned stuff, stuff with lots of salt and sugar, that kind of thing. TJ's is the cheapest healthy option. It is next door to Whole Foods (approx 1.5x the cost) and down the street from our local chain (Jewel) which is approx. 1.25x the cost.
I like the ethnic markets, and in fact I live the quadrant of the city that has them all (well, Korean, Halal, Indian, Mexican) but apart from the mex place I go to for produce, they all take forever to get to because they are more towards the outskirts of town. So it's a trade-off on time v. money for me...
Yeah jump we don't have parking at most of our joints either, or a tiny token lot at most. The farmer's market in my neighborhood actually is held IN the only parking lot thus necessitating all guests to arrive bipedally. I live in a big city though. Most of America is def. not like this...
There's a halal place not far from here where they will slaughter a chicken in front of you. Been dying to check that out. I wish I had more free time in life.
Also, I got up and rode 17 miles this morning before my partner even got out of bed. ha ha ha ha. My ass was on the seat at 7am. I am proud of myself! But my butt kinda hurts.
very coolio steven and donna!
sh did you mean a can of chicken soup? or can you actually buy a can of chicken? like chicken spam?
sounds a lot like tokyo manta. urban life is def waaaay more expensive than rural or even suburban.
the only thing we save on is parking and gasoline.
I DID mean canned chicken, but definitely not like spam, more like canned tuna, but it's chicken. Great for chicken salads, ect. Husband has us experimenting with the 4 Hour Body diet. The experiment has been interesting.
Yeah, my 2.5 dozen eggs cost me $4.27. Don't ask why I remember that from the receipt.
Yeah, the picture is cool, but! you can see the taped together back/inside of the model in the foreground. The photographer caught us with our butts hanging out.
I go home tomorrow! I love GSA but I miss my boys, my bed, and my dog.
Donna, at what part of the year do you usually can your chickens?
Can?!? I'll turn them into stock and freeze them. But only if I have to.
wow sarah i never heard of that. when i was a sous chef i used to make turkey rolls that were actually quite yummy. i am imagining something like that now, but my first thought was definitely spam-ish.
will you do the slaughtering yourself donna? i can cut up a chicken no worries but not sure how i feel about the de-feathering and the rest. must take a bit of getting used to. sort of goulish thought but are there regulations about how to slaughter farm animals in the city?
wow, having never seen a photo of you guys before, thats not how i would have imagined two hard-working, sometimes overworked architects with several kids (and chickens!) between the two of you! great photo...
So I'm pretty sure I picked up a computer virus from one of archinect sponsor banners.
If you see a big green play button banner on here, don't accidentally click it. The virus randomly opens tabs on your browser and loads up spam.
I'm back!! Cleveland, to Niagara Falls, to Rochester, to Brooklyn, to Long Island, to New Jersey, to Delaware, to Richmond, to Greensboro, to Atlanta, to Tallahassee, and finally making that midnight run (like DeNiro) to Miami. It was a fantastic road trip... apologies to those I was trying to meet up with. Timing went screwy with the 4th July weekend - NYC was nuts!!
I'm trying to catch up... hope you all are well
Glad you're back, David.
Rusty, that sucks.
I've got a question for all the parents out there, and especially parents of Boys.
Are they supposed aggressive and angry all the time? And can you think why a 3.5 year old would suddenly start pooping in his pants when he's been patty trained for nearly 2 years?!
help!
Manta - that's awesome to hear about the 17 mile ride. Woo-hoo!!! You go girl!
SH - I seriously applaud you for being able to keep your grocery bills so low. I too can't seem to get my grocery bill lower than $70-$80 every week or two, no matter how hard I try.
David - glad to see you made back safely from your trip.
Donna - I would just like to say your arms look great. You still doing yoga.
Vado - when are gonna cook for me?
In any case, It's 9:45pm and it's still 90 degrees outside. The air is so thick it's hard to breathe. UGH!!!
hey David! What were you doing in Tallahassee seeing friends? How is everyone else? I had some great Phở tonight, after my run. Not home made i'll admit.
Night all.
on masterchef australia they weent to nyc. each contestant was sent to a certain part of town to get inspired etc. this one chick was in the lower east side and decided to make a cake based on sanaa's new museum. did not turn out too good.
I still haven't caught up with Masterchef America. The last one I saw, they made deserts; the next one will have bikers in it.
I can't decide if I should cheer for the architect, because she's an architect, or not, because she annoys me. That Max kid cracks me up; he and Suzy are so going to make babies by the end of the show.
Morning!
the american is not worth watching. i've tried. i jsut don't like the vibe of that show. everyone is snarky and the show has a lot of ill will. the australian version is much more generous and has better cooks. i can't believe that the people on mc america are the best amateur cooks they could find.
Oh but Vado, you have to love the crazy travel writer with the hats. He's goofy, and a bit overly emotional. Plus he's from Texas — not that that means anything to you.
How are you watching the Aussie version, anyway? Does it have Joe? He's such a hardass. I wonder how many times a day he makes his wife and children cry.
right so I've read through the back pages of TC. I must admit I was a little fearful of all the reading but having the pages broken into 50 posts is a stroke of genius. My kudos to you gang of giant green heads.
a few things
@manatary - I'm going to email you re: your project. I'm nowhere near Chi but I'm interested nonetheless. I've found I have a talent in helping people especially if they are in problems I often find myself.
@barry - congrats on the Cal Poly position. The way things are looking the missus and I are seriously considering a move there next year. But alot of things have to come in place before that can happen... I'd better bet on 2013.
@beccabec - is this new business an architectural design business or is it a further venture outside of architecture??
@donna/steven all - why was Steven mentioned as an architect whilst you were not. What's up with that bullsh*t?
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