| Friday, October 28, 2005 |
| Cost of Eating in... |
Short days, cold nights, and dreary weather have inspired me to dust off my cookware and reacquaint myself with my Caloric stove. Living by myself, I tend not to cook very much. However, today I made an exception since I was hankering for some warm, rib sticking, home cooked fare. Digging in my freezer and cabinets I came up with the ingredients for a modified shepherds pie - just the thing to warm me up on this cold, dark, and windy autumn night.
While preparing the dish, I started thinking about how much this meal was costing me. I dug into my receipt pile (yes, I am one of those who save all receipts) and found the recent grocery store ones. Below is the cost of the ingredients for the meal I cooked this evening:
Ground Turkey - $3.95
Potatoes All Purpose Stop & Shop - $2.49 - $.83*
Campbell's Condensed Soup Tomato - $1.19
Pastene Tomato Paste - $.49
Birdseye Broccoli, Carrots & Water Chestnuts - $2.39
Stop & Shop Butter Sticks - 4 qrtrs - $2.99 - $.38*
Organic Cow Milk 1% Lowfat - $3.29 - $.10*
Total Cost - $9.33
Makes enough for four meals, so each meal costs - $2.33
*this is the amount I used to calculate total cost since recipe only used a portion of item listed.
If I cooked and ate like this all the time I would save an amazing amount of money. This was an easy thing to make and I happened to have all of the items in the house. But I may need to get better about planning meals and shopping appropriately. Something for me to strive for.
Side Story - My Professional Series Caloric Stove
 Before I purchased my house, I walked through the home inspection with the inspector. I remember that when we got to the kitchen stove he commented "all four burners work, oven heats, lights don't work, timer appears to work, no gas leaks, but really, I am sure none of this matters - you will be treating yourself to a new one right?" At the time I responded "probably yes". But later, after I was moved in, I decided to see if I could save myself some money by keeping the stove. I scrubbed and scrubbed the stove top and oven and finally got it as clean and I could. I then found a replacement bulb for the oven and eventually after a long internet search a replacement bulb for the backlight. It is perfectly functional and works. It might not be the prettiest thing, but everytime I use it I think about the money I saved by not purchasing a new one. |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 7:21 AM *
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| 2 Comments: |
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Add about 10-20c for the electric/gas bill for cooking and about 5c for the water in washing up! :-)
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True, it does "cost" to cook at home as you point out, and I probably should have added it to my total cost - but it is difficult to break that down with any accuracy.
Plus, I cooked on a cold night and since the oven heated up my kitchen I turned down the thermostate - so the cooking gas was probably a wash with the savings on heating gas.
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Add about 10-20c for the electric/gas bill for cooking and about 5c for the water in washing up! :-)