Keep on keepin on sista!

For example, gardening costs money. While vegetables are less costly than those purchased in a store, they are in fact not at all free (e.g. seedlings and plants, nutrients for garden soil, garden tools, time and energy expended in gardening, water, etc.) If you don’t want to account for such costs in your food budget, you still have to account for it somewhere. But honestly, the food budget seems the most fitting place to budget it. So why not do that?

Likewise, a two-for-one coupon does not render the second item free. It renders it half-price because the second s0-called free item could not be obtained without having spent the money on the first not-free item.

I’m all for being economically savvy and am constantly intrigued by those undertaking a challenge to mind their money in innovative ways, but it puzzles me when I find people presenting their stories in such a way to make them appear better than they really are. ObjectI’m a big fan of objectivity.

Tacos cost me about $7.50 – $10.00. That’s $3.00 for ground beef or veggie crumbles, about $.50 for 1/4 a jar of salsa (I love the generic brand my grocery carries, so that makes it nice), $2.00 for cheese (we like a lot of cheese), about $.25 for 1/4 a container of sour cream, $.50 for 1/3 a head of romaine (which is far more nutritious than iceberg), $.50 for one tomato, $.75 for seasoning mix, $1.50 for shells, and $1 for a can of black beans (for added nutrition.) I give the range of $7.50 to $10.00 to account for the possibility of having a coupon(s). This feeds 3-4 people for $1.88 to $3.33 per person. And hey: that’s pretty damn thrifty. And really, really yummy.

Just sayin’.

Anyway, aside from the troubling references to “free” things, I find this website pretty cool. I love the mushroom barley soup. (But it costs me more like $7, for the record.)