Food Haul!

Like just about every other human being on the planet, I watch YouTube videos.  I like to know what other folks are up to generally.  I'm interested in some of the Tiny House stuff (even though my house is merely Small and Not Tiny).  I like to catch up on what some of the Homesteaders are up to.  And, yeah, okay, I admit it:  I love to watch cat videos like Maru and ShiroNekoShiro but my very favorite is Takashi Furuya because he uses the money he earns from his beautiful videos to provide food and medical care for feral cats.  Here, watch one and earn a few Yen for the kitties:

Anyway, this has nothing to do with food, does it?  Okay, so I'm chasing squirrels again but the thing I was gonna say before I got distracted was that one of the Homesteaders I watch does some Food Haul videos.  I find those interesting because, let's get really real, I'm nosy.   And also because my own shopping habits are very different.

I'll see her make a Food Haul that she believes to be excellent value.  But I'm sitting there shaking my head because she's bought potato chips in bulk, for pete's sake, and a ton of processed sausage and other kinds of meat.  Not my idea of value but, hey, I'm an old vegetarian, what do I know?  Kudos for her for paying careful attention to what she's doing; more people should do that.

Since I've been on Zero Food Budget for weeks I've had to get a little more creative that I'd prefer.  That includes sampling some very old MREs (I wrote a post about that but it sounded kinda whiny so it's still sitting in my draft file) and almost completely emptying the freezer.  Today, I figured that I had just about had it with being abstemious.  I don't do well with processed foods, so the stuff from the MREs kinda got to me (especially considering that my feet have swelled up like rising loaves of bread).  I had to have some fresh food pronto!

After doing some "tall figuring" (as my grandmother used to say), I decided that I could spend $6 at the grocery.  Woo-hoo.  Doesn't sound like much does it?  Well, the result kinda depends on what my local grocery has on offer.....Without further ado, here's MY Food Haul:

.....and here's my receipt:

$6 plus tax.  So what I've got here is half a dozen apples, ten bananas, 8 tomatoes, an eggplant, a squash, a pepper, half a dozen white sweet potatoes, three russet potatoes, and about 9 or 10 red potatoes. 

You've got it:  I buy clearance sale veggies (and I've written a bunch of posts about it before).  It's what I can afford and I am tremendously grateful for it.  Is stuff bruised or blemished or slightly old?  Yes.  Am I bothered by that?  No. 

What I see there in those packages is what it can become:  banana bread and apple muffins and baked apples and tomato soup and potato-veggie soup and baked eggplant and a stuffed pepper and baked sweet potatoes and squash biscuits, not to mention that I can enjoy eating fresh bananas.  Enough food for a feast!  Seriously.  All I've gotta do is go to the kitchen and get cooking.  Thank goodness I've got eggs and flour.  There's no milk and no cheese but there's margarine so I'll make it all work.

Now, tell me, what would you do with $6?  Get Starbucks?  Maybe a large order of fries at McD's?  It will be gone in five minutes and what will you have left?

I'm not cheap.  I'm poor.  There I said it.  It can be embarrassing but I'm not ashamed.  I'm doing the best I can, and I try hard.  There's not a lot I can do about everything but I can still do something!  And now I'm gonna go cook.

I am deeply and richly blessed.
Life is absolutely good.