Recently, though, my credit card is at a limit I am unhappy with. See, Sherrie and I had to pay for our cruise and our flights and our excursions withing a couple of weeks of each other. That added an amount to the card that didn't allow me to pay it off by the end of the month.
Now, my credit card balance is small in comparison to the average US citizens credit card balance. The average household carries around $7-$8 thousand in debt. I'm not near there, could easily get there, but my plan is to not get there.
Naturally, I start to look at my budget and find areas I can pull in the financial belt a little. The first thing that YELLED at me was my monthly grocery bill.
See, I like cooking. And I like cooking new recipes all the time. I tend to have a goal every year of how many new recipes I can try. It's great fun and I've made some really great meals. I've made as many equally gross meals too, but that's not what's important here. The point is, cooking new recipes every night of the week costs $$. And as a single person, it's harder because when you need one ingredient, maybe a tablespoon of it, you have to buy the whole jar/can/package. AND, since I don't particularly like leftovers, it feels like a lot of $$ going to waste.
I started thinking about where I could cut there and came to a couple conclusions:
1. There's no need to cook a BRAND new recipe each night. I could cook some old recipes and possibly some favorite recipes.
2. I need to use what I have. I inventoried the freezer and pantry and will focus on recipes that use up those items.
3. Consider a service, like Hello Fresh.
I did Home Chef back in 2017 and I loved it! Mostly. It was still new and I think they were still figuring out quality. I had some terrible tasting beef a couple of times, which limited me to just getting chicken/pork/fish. And frankly, I got bored with their options. There wasn't a ton compared to now.
So I figured I would give Hello Fresh a try.
Here's the thing, my grocery bill was anywhere from $200-$250 per week. That's insane for a single person who doesn't like leftovers. So my goal was to drop my grocery bill to be no more than $150 per week. To do that, I felt I had to get creative.
I was surfing the Interwebs and an offer for Hello Fresh came up. I took a gander and for three meals, for 2 people per week it's around $70. So I figured, why not give that try and supplement the other three meals by using what's in my pantry/freezer and seeing if I can get my grocery bill less than $150.
I was not as successful as I thought I'd be today, but I can say my total bill (including hello fresh) was less than $200. That's progress to me.
Tomorrow starts the first Hello Fresh meal. I'm excited to do this. It makes so much sense as a single person to have this type of set up. The ingredients you need are already measured out for you so I'm not buying an entire jar for just one tsp for a recipe.
The recipes will all be shared over on my cooking blog, but I may check in here to let you know how it's going.
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