And the Candle Burns Another Night

Well well well, another week of almost zero spending. Several of the crunchy/minimalist/frugal Instagram accounts I follow have said lately that they see not spending as a form of protesting this administration. For me, I wouldn’t say it’s the main catalyst behind my non-spending, since I’ve done it to different degrees for a long time. But does it help, does it put a little fire into my efforts? Hell yeah. Also, everything seems so backwards right now that I just find myself turning inward, and when you retreat like that, when you find yourself thinking about the future less, making no plans… it seems to lead to spending less. I’m not depressed, exactly, just extraordinarily skeptical, right now.

I think the only technically unneeded item I have bought this year so far has been some expensive moisturizer that my son asked for. The other night, Tom knocked our Brita pitcher onto the floor and broke it, so I’m trying to think of a way to rig up the filter so we can still filter water without buying a new pitcher.

This past week’s meals:

Sunday (NFC championship game): a medley of nachos plus taquitos and some other easy things from the freezer.

Monday: chicken farfalle Alfredo (homemade Alfredo sauce using real parmigiano-reggiano). Yum, I ate the leftovers all week.

Tuesday: scrambled eggs, pancakes and bacon.

Wednesday: pot roast with potatoes and carrots in the slow cooker (Instant Pot), supplemented with some pierogies.

Thursday: grilled chicken, marinated in a garlic/herb mix, mashed potatoes and canned green beans

Friday: Only Tom and I were around. I had tuna and crackers and he didn’t feel good.

Unlike a real homesteader, I can’t actually live off my pantry for a month. I did food shop on Sunday before the game, but tried to keep it limited: chicken, the chuck roast, sour cream, milk, butter, carrots, potatoes. Not much in the way of processed food besides some cereal that was on sale and some frozen bagel dogs my daughter begged for.  I also snagged four big chocolate muffins for $2 (gotta love bakery clearance). And since my daughter had her Eagles shirt on, we got 5% off (at Acme). I got my fancy cheese at Haddon Culinary (and nothing else). I spent $206 at Acme. Tom ran out midweek and got a few more things along the same lines, spending another $95. So, it was another week of using up the coffee, pasta, canned goods, convenience sides, condiments and random stuff we already had on hand. And the frozen stuff. Yesterday morning, Fiona and I had French toast with white bread from the freezer. It definitely had a touch of that freezer burn taste, so the rest of that bread might have to get tossed.

I was only in the office twice this week, but I brought leftovers both times.

Yesterday I took inventory and started a tentative grocery list and wrote down a few meal ideas. Tom basically begged for us to order pizza for dinner, so we did, from Stella Pizza, which gave me time to bake banana bread afterwards.

I rigged up some more candles midweek: just inserting some old almost-done tapers into the remains of the candles I made last weekend. Is this a parable, a Hanukkah celebration, or just a metaphor for my life: each day trying to make the candle light last one more day. I could make some vanilla mint candles from that jar of scraps, and after that I’m truly out of wax. But wait! I just found a big jar candle I had forgotten about in a cubby. That will burn a while.

Tom and I signed up for PBS Passport ($5 a month) and have been watching Ken Burns’s Baseball every night. We could spend months in the KB oeuvre alone, so this is a good deal for us.

I have made little progress in the book I’m supposed to be reading, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Part of it is that I read all day for work, so I don’t want to read afterwards. But I think part of it is that I have a hard time committing to fiction anymore unless I am immediately drawn in by the opening or the premise. I read the prologue to this book, and it didn’t grab me.

Today, Sunday: grocery shopping and dinner with Grandmom. Also the boys are finishing up a painting project at my parents’ house. Maybe I will have time to bake bread.

Here are my scallions. This happens every year: I buy scallions for wintertime soup. I stick the remainder in water and they function as a houseplant, a bit of wild green in the winter kitchen, but rarely do I end up using them again. I should try to work them into the menu this week.