Blowing The Grocery and Entertainment Bugdet

Well...it's our first real excursion, and this is a nice area.  I should have expected it when I completely incinerated my grocery budget and 'other' budget in the first 9 days.

I gave myself a healthy $300 entertainment budget, and a healthy $600 grocery budget.  Usually I only give myself $150 for entertainment, and usually that's fine.  I also try to keep groceries to under $500 and usually fail.  Keep in mind I was living in the middle of the desert in Pahrump, NV.  Groceries were exorbitant.

Here on the road there's so much to see and do that I'm going out a lot and when you get hungry it's all too easy to eat out when there's so many nice restaurants.  Give me a break about this!  I was culture starved in Pahrump.  We didn't have shit for restaurants.

So yesterday I took stock of my situation.  I had only $230 left for groceries.  Ugh!!  And I still had a 23 days left!  Even worse...I only had $57 left for entertainment!  (Now it's down to $27).  Wow, seriously?!

I have to do a boondock for seven days May 15-23rd.  I'm going to remote BLM land.  There's not going to be any grocery stores for miles.

After this I'm going to the Thousand Trails campground in Acton.  Also a remote town.  Many of the campground reviews are saying stock up before you come out.

Well, it seems to me that I need to take advantage of the convenient grocery store next to me.  I need to stop going out and splurging.  Frankly, I need to get my ding-darn writing done!!  And getting back into the diet and exercise bandwagon would be a good idea also.  Excursions need to end!

I created a meal plan to cover lunches and dinners for the rest of the month.  This will be our food for the rest of our time in Palm Desert, food for our boondock, and food for our next campground.  For breakfast we have cereal or oatmeal for my mom, and bread and peanut butter for me.  Here's my meal plan for lunches and dinner.  (We generally eat the same lunch and same dinner):

Sunday 10th	Hamburgers	Lettuce, Tomato
Monday 11th	Pork Picnic Roast	Spinach	Yellow Rice
Tuesday 12th	Pork Picnic Roast (Leftovers)	Salad	Yellow Rice
Wednesday 13th	Whole Chicken	Salad	Yellow Rice
Thursday 14th	Chicken Thighs	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Friday 15th	Omelets	Bamboo, Mushrooms
Saturday 16th	Shrimp Fried Rice
Sunday 17th	Pork Picnic Roast	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Monday 18th	Pork Picnic Roast (Leftovers)	Frozen Veg	Yellow Rice
Tuesday 19th	Whole Chicken	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Wednesday 20th	Brisket	Canned Spinach	Yellow Rice
Thursday 21st	Brisket Leftovers	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Friday 22nd	Chicken Thighs	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Saturday 23rd	Omelets	Bamboo, Mushrooms
Sunday 24th	Whole Chicken	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Monday 25th	Chicken Thighs	Canned Corn	Yellow Rice
Tuesday 26th	Spaghetti with Sausage	Green Beans
Wednesday 27th	Sandwich	Burrito
Thursday 28th	Turkey Parts Fried Rice
Friday 29th	Whole Chicken	Green Beans	Yellow Rice
Saturday 30th	Omelets	Bamboo, Mushrooms
Sunday 31st	Chicken Thighs	Green Beans	Yellow Rice

All that yellow rice is my Puerto Rican heritage again.  Puerto Ricans love them some rice.  Our national dish is Arroz Con Pollo (chicken and rice).  I go pretty light with the rice.  Like two tablespoons per serving.  Carbs are so fattening.

The items for these meals, along with cat food, cat litter, toilet paper, trash bags, cottage cheese with fruit, and prunes for my mother, cost $131.06.


For snacks I went and stocked up on no so great food from the 99 Cent Only store.  I spent about $58 there to give me enough roasted almonds, dried seaweed, granola bars and...OKAY JUNKFOOD!  Cookies.  Airheads candies.  Dried mango.  Candied nuts.  Canned fruit.  I want to have everything salty, sweet, and fattening in the RV so I don't get desperate and drive 30 miles some where for ice cream.  Seriously, I've tried having nothing but healthy food available in the past and I always just end up going to a convenience store for my cravings.  My willpower sucks.

I bought all my meat in one go.  Then I pulled Houdini and crammed it all in the RV freezer. 

Eventually I took the picnic ham for Monday out of the freezer and left it in the fridge.  I also refilled two Sodastream tanks for $32 so I can have easier access to carbonated water (it absorbs better than still water, and I'm short on intestines).  

Well...that's all.  I am going to try to find fun stuff to do and nice people to interact with at the campgrounds for the rest of the month for my entertainment.  I'm officially too broke to party anymore.