The Downshift: $4/Day Food Budget Shopping List (Week 4)

This is part of an ongoing series that chronicles our challenges and (hopefully) successes living on a $4/person daily food budget. For the what and why of this series, please read our first post HERE.

I am in the middle of a serious case of writer’s block. I’m stuck. Not just on my Downshift posts, but over on The Local Traveler, too. This summer, I was writing all the time. On the road, in hotels, on the beach. I was right in the middle of a summer-long non-stop adventure with Drew, feeling the best I’ve felt in a very long time. Feeling endlessly inspired.

But the return of days spent in front of my computer aren’t the only thing killing my creativity. Part of that blockage is also this challenge. Coffee is a major part of my work routine. I start my days at 4 am – those quiet hours of the morning with a cup of hot coffee in hand are my magic hours.  Coffee has been off the menu for four weeks now.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time in the kitchen these days. In fact, I’m starting to feel like I live there. At first it was exciting, but now it’s just become annoying. The counters are never clean for more than 10 minutes and with the lovely sunny days we’ve been having, it’s been uncomfortable to have the oven, stove and bread machine on.

On the plus side, all the kitchen hours I’ve been logging have turned me into a great gluten free baker. Living on a budget has been the best thing that has ever happened to my somewhat limited cooking skills. And while my first gluten free loaf, pizza, and wraps took forever (with a taste and texture that left something to be desired), I’m now whipping up dough like a pro. I woke up this morning and just threw on a loaf of bread at 5 am.

photo (2)

There is another reason I’ve been struggling with this post. I lost my shopping list. Losing my shopping list makes my weekly shopping list post hard to write. The only place I spend more time in than my kitchen these days is in farmers markets and grocery stores. It’s been a chore to fit it in because for many items I am measuring things right down to the nickel. And in all the hustle and bustle of my marathon shopping trips and kitchen time, my list has gone missing. So, while I know what I bought, I no longer have the breakdown of each item or where each item was purchased.

What I can tell you is that we met our local goal this week and we overspent by $0.40. And now that my long list of excuses are out of the way, I’ll get on with the list.

We tried out a brand new community farm market in New Glasgow this week. Like our beloved Withrows, almost everything was local and everything was budget friendly. Our non-local bananas were $0.29 per pound! 2 LBS of local carrots were $0.99. It. Was. Awesome.

Bananas (5 lb – because they were really cheap)
2 green Pepper
2 lb Onion
1 Turnip
5 LBS Apples
Cheese
Foxhill Farm Parmesan
Red Tomato (1 lb)
5 ears of Corn
2L Milk
Peanut Butter (small jar)
Pasta
Gluten Free Pasta
Cream
Garlic
Lemon Juice
Ginger Root
Cucumber
Gluten Free Flour Mix
Yeast
Sugar (just a little – bulk barn)
Eggs
Canned Tomato
Popcorn
Canola Oil

We also ended up with some delicious bonus items this week. On Saturday, we offered to drive a few friends to a meeting we were all attending in Chester. They each surprised us with something delicious in exchange for the lift – two mugs of fresh brewed coffee, a jar of trail mix, and a bottle of home made wine. We didn’t expect anything in return, but were very, very happy to accept.

Spirit Spa Halifax

We also got a second hit of caffeine this week at Spirit Spa. With all the running we’ve been doing, plus the return of our health benefits, we’ve been keeping a monthly (sometimes twice monthly) date with the steam showers and massage tables at Spirit Spa. They just so happen to serve coffee in the lobby, so we each brought our respective Margaret Atwood books along with us and arrived thirty minutes early to indulge.

Look for our week four recipes later this week – writer’s block dependent.

Read Our Past Posts in This Series Here:
Post 1: The what and why of our $4/day food budget
Post 2: Preparing to eat on $4/day (and our week 1 shopping list)
Post 3: Week 1 meals and recipes and how it went
Post 4: Week 2 Shopping List and Prep
Post 5: The Nacho Debacle
Post 6: Week 2 Results and Week Three Shopping List

About the author

Gillian Wesley

Since getting together six years ago, we have given away our television, begun weekly DIY nights, experimented with urban homesteading, challenged ourselves to drive less (100 days car-free in 2013), and have learned more about food security. We have experimented with a range of budgeting strategies, all of which involve consuming less stuff. We buy food with reducing packaging in mind. We got a dog. We have been doing these things for a variety of reasons: financial, social, environmental, to achieve a better work-life balance. It has resulted in us enjoying an increasingly simple and satisfying lifestyle. We’ve been influenced by a lot of people we’ve encountered and things we’ve read about along the way, notably the Transition Movement, the Antigonish Movement, and, more recently, traditional Acadien living. And we’ve learned that we are by no means alone. There are many, many people who are taking steps to downshift their lives. Sign up for our eNewsletter, and we’ll send you a round-up of our new and upcoming projects once a month.