It's over, but is it really?

So, the blogging students are done blogging and are back to being just plain stupents. In conclusion, can one live healthily on $7.50 per day?

Students: No.

Me: For the love of Pete, yes!

That we've come to radically different conclusions will come to no surprise to anyone who's been reading along. I've ranted on this a whole bunch in my previous postings, so to make the end of their challenge as anti-climactic as possible, I'm going to completely ignore it until perhaps my next posting. Let's focus on something more interesting instead: me.

This is the last day of my two-week challenge. To revisit the idea, I took the budget for two weeks of groceries, $105 dollars, and bought groceries with it (see what $105 in groceries looks like here.)

Two weeks later, my consumption of those $105 equals about 2/3 of that total, that is, only $69.18. I want to draw particular attention to my consumption today. I ate out for lunch. A modestly priced Korean meal cost me $8 even, including tip. With the rest of my day's consumption relatively similar to previous days, I neared $12 for the day compared to my average of under $5. Clearly, if I were to keep to budget, eating out is something to be restricted. If my consumption ($5/day) and spending were to hold, I could be able to afford bulgogi about once every four days.

If I do say so myself, I made the challenge harder and more interesting than it would have been for those students. When I started my two-week challenge, I also made it a "start-up" challenge. I pretended I had nothing, like it was school the day after Labour Day. (Although a real student would have put three cases of beer in the fridge with $105, instead of groceries.) Now is just the point where it should become interesting, and where it is more comparable to where those bloggers and I actually were on March 8 when it all began - at a point where we had already accumulated a certain supply of foodstuffs to work with. So here I am. Sure, I could call this my last posting and shut 'er down. But wouldn't it be interesting to see what happens if I keep living on the budget, but without the crazy start-up expense? I mean, I was consuming only $5 of the $7.50 budget! I still have A LOT of food left from those first two weeks, which means that if I were to go on, I would continue to consume the food from those two weeks without consuming the money from those two weeks. This would hypothetically mean I can take further weekly budgets and spend them on things like booze, cigarettes, porno mags, and things that add variety and character to my diet. Enough hypothetics. I'm doing it.

Same conditions as before but, in the spirit of budgets, I'm forcing this past week's spending overage of about $15 to shrink next week's budget just to see what happens. As always, follow along here.

The Student Campaign is Over but...

...I've got oh-so-much gloating yet to do. MY challenge (Click here) lasts through Monday. Stay tuned for an exciting development coming soon!!!

First, forgive the period of silence. It's been a rough week for a guy who relies on his stomach for a food-related challenge. Wednesday morning, feeling the promise of a day with food poisoning well behind me, I woke and ate a breakfast of cereal and fruit. Mid day, chills start settling in, headache and the rest associated with that thing I though I had just beaten. Long story short, I came down with a second bout of food poisoning and have since thrown out the two likeliest of culprits: asparagus and the rest of the bag of milk. I've had a really small appetite the last few days and in general have been eating because it's reasonable to do so, rather than because I wanted to. Now on Saturday, I feel more or less back to normal.

My spreadsheet shows a couple new items on the sheet: another loaf of bread and the bowl of soup I bought on Thursday to soothe my poor stomach. It now shows that I'm 87 cents over my two-week budget but in a couple of days I'll explain why it won't matter. I'm not completely sure what to do about the two meals I missed. I'm not pretending this experiment is scientific or being subjected to statistical analysis but fudging data seems like a mistake, so the likely plan is to take note and just carry on in a regular schedule. Anyway, enough data points and the outliers shouldn't affect the trend (or something like that).

Some Scorn

The student campaign is now over. (I have to reiterate that my own challenge ends on Monday evening and you MUST see what happens then.) I'm waiting to see their synopses and final posts, but at least one of them, Nick, certainly didn't manage to "live on" $7.50. He's posted a couple of video blogs (Blog 1, Blog 2) of an interview with a fellow student. Apparently, you have to choose between being involved and eating healthily because when you're on campus late, you don't have time to go home and make a healthy meal. Maybe it's something about students at Wilfrid Laurier, but Andrew at Western seems to understand that meals are portable. I've had classes that lasted until 8, 9 or even 10 when I was in school and had to travel over an hour in transit to get home. That's how I, and hundreds of other students, made the connection that we live in a world of ice packs and Tupperware, not in one where we chase lions away from antelope carcasses or eat at Pizza Pizza to get sustenance.

Whoa! I stopped eating briefly.

So Monday I came down with that noblest of illnesses -- the 24-hour stomach flu. Luckily, 12 of those hours were spent asleep. But this also means I missed an entire dinner, though by utter necessity. When I awoke this morning I took it easy and had only two waffles (I would normally eat three) spread with yogurt instead of syrup and an eighth of a cantaloupe. During breakfast I questioned the wisdom of dumping the bacteria from the yogurt into my digestive system which was probably on an immuno-rampage, but everything turned out OK. I also couldn't fit in a grapefruit half. I found it interesting how much my stomach's capacity seemed to have shrunk in 12 hours and how gaunt my abdomen seemed to have become after it all. If I had a scale, I would have been on it for curiosity's sake.

Here I am now on Tuesday evening. Formerly hungry. The great chicken hunger was upon me. I have eaten two thighs tonight, a bunch of potatoes, and some asparagus.



Week One Done

A breakdown of the week's totals can be found on my spreadsheet. I've spent a third of my budget so far, which means in another week, there could be $30 or so left unspent of my big grocery shop. That's all I'll say about that for now. More or less it speaks for itself.

Today by complete happenstance I came across an article that was a welcome affirmation of my (anti-)cause. When you're looking for satire on the ludicrous, look to The Onion: Click me

Hey, I'm still eating!

Challenge-wise it's been an interesting few days. I broke the breakfast mold and had Shreddies one day and waffles another. Cool, eh? I had dinner at my brother's again on Thursday, which made one day really cheap, but cooked dinner for myself and a friend on Sunday, which made that day more expensive and also served to even out the spending. There was also a delicious homemade apple-berry crumble which she generously brought for dessert. Friday's dinner was a lamb chop with roasted potatoes. Neither was seasoned, though I wished I had put some of my garlic on the chop. Carrying that lesson forward to Saturday, I wrapped a couple of margarined cloves of garlic in foil and threw them in the oven with a pork chop, giving me delicious roasted garlic to spread on my pork.

Weekend lunches are generally small or non-existent for me. I have breakfast later than usual in the morning and often begin running errands in the late morning or early afternoon, which means I will often skip lunch on those days or suffice by carrying something small in my pocket (like trail mix) to munch on while on the go to make it through 'til dinnertime. Anyhow, check out my spreadsheet (Click Here).

Now check out Sunday's meals:

Two over-easy eggs, a heap of hashbrowns with onions, banana, grapefruit half, and a half-cup or so of low-fat strawberry yogurt. $1.32


Spaghetti squash with pasta sauce (includes ground beef, onions, mushrooms, red pepper) and asparagus. About $3.42 per plate. Were I making it for myself, one plate would have brought my daily total to only $5.66.


$7.50 - Enough for Whom?

Blogger Andrew considers the difference between himself, a lean-built guy of average height and relatively low activity level, and a linebacker. Where Andrew might be fine on $7.50 considering who he is, would everyone be able to make it on that budget? Probably not. Maybe the government should be covering its bases and funding everyone for the 12,000-calorie Michael Phelps diet... If I were to hazard a guess, a formula might use numbers from a normalized distribution (often graphically represented as a bell curve) of diet costs where, let's say, 70% or so of the students would fall within the range of diet requirements that I am working to prove can be met for $7.50 or less. Delivering all OSAP students food funding for a caloric intake of the minority of highly active athletes is crazy and would push OSAP students' food budgets WAY over their fellow non-OSAP students' ability to meet the same dietary level. OSAP students, flush with cash, would likely eat out (and unhealthily) much more or would find many other non-food related things to do with the money. I have to stop arguing this particular matter now. It's just too silly.


"Mommy, I want it!"

Blogger Nick's thoughts on spending money eating out: "The student should not be dining out at restaurants several times per week unless they can afford it, but they should have the ability to treat themselves once in a while." My response: If you go ahead and treat yourself when you can't afford it, YOU are responsible for that. OSAP isn't responsible for your treats any more than OHIP is responsible for pec implants, no matter how badly I might need them. YOU are on the hook for it if you walk out of Baskin Robbins with a double scoop, instead of the No Frills with four litres of milk. (That said, if all goes well my budget will soon have enough left over to allow me to treat myself...imagine that!)

The story of how I learned at school to spend my money on food is also the story of how I lost my sweet tooth. It was about making choices and trying to make them good ones.

Wind in my Sails

Day 2 of the self-challenge, and it's going swimmingly so far. I've uploaded a spreadsheet if you're so inclined to cycle through the worksheets to check my figures and follow my consumption, and I also won't have to list it on the blog.

I've had two delicious dinners so far. I made a pot of brown rice. For the time cost of cooking one pot I'll get four servings to be eaten sometime over the next dozen days. (Disclosure: I used some curry powder I had on hand to add to the rice - maybe 3 cents' worth for the batch and you can buy small amounts for next to nothing at Bulk Barn.) I blanched my spinach Tuesday night so it won't spoil on me and I'll get three servings out of the bunch. Hopefully the rest of my veggies last.




Now for a bloggers update. The star of the show, Rachel, reviewed her week and found that she spent $50.43. Slightly under budget and accomplished with the charity of others. Days when she was over budget were days she ate out or bought a bottle of acetaminophen. Now that drugs are apparently under the food budget umbrella we can add uppers, a university student staple, to next week's menu.

I don't understand Nick. I had begun to think that he might actually be doing the challenge by assuming a semi-humourous role of an "average" student, or intentionally just throwing the challenge. That thought is now drifting slowly away, but I'm holding on to it to save me from my incredulity. On the weekend, he played a hockey game and started "feeling it", and they told him "the food I have been eating today/lately simply does not allow me to perform at anywhere near peak performance". He posted a video where he says he's been "living like this for a long time" and it was an "unconscious thing where he was living like this". You'd think that all this might have been some sort of wake-up call, but he's still deeply unconscious. His idea of eating healthy is finding a healthy place to eat. Fast asleep, he appears to be about 6 hours away from the dawn of discovery that he could make his own healthy food.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm picking on Nick. I am, however, picking on what he represents, which is an entire population of today's students who lack day-to-day money and/or time management skills and/or household skills, and top it off with a sense of entitlement. If they become undernourished, it's because they're being under-educated. Hiking the budget for them to eat out as a daily occurence won't help them eat better or pay off their debts afterward (but would give the pennywise student much more cash to play with). Would an increase in food budget for students be a prudent investment of tax dollars, or is it encouraging them not to learn key life skills? Should there be a Grade 12 course on managing these logistics of post-secondary school, or is the hard way the best way to learn these lessons?

Many of the people I have talked to about this whole topic do feel strongly that for some reason students aren't learning these things during their university days. For you, my friends, I give you Nick's closing quote:

"All the time you have to put into planning for food and what you can or cannot afford takes away from the time you should be focusing on your studies. Great life lessons during your undergrad are important but undue stress is not the balance we should be seeking to attain."

Too Weak Challenge!

March 15

It’s a challenge isn’t it? It dawned on blogger Andrew first but I’m running with it. His approach to the challenge at the beginning was logical: take a week’s food budget of $52.50 and buy your week’s groceries with that. I’m taking it a step further.

I’ve taken TWO weeks’ worth of food budget – $105 – and spent it on food. Check it out, yo:



With only $50 it’s hard to get many of the things that will diversify your diet and also last you long enough. A bag of rice and/or potatoes and a few packs of different types of meat will throw you over $50 in no time. You have more leeway if you think long-term. Off the initial OSAP deposit, I think the ideal move would be to use 3-4 weeks’ worth of grocery money at once to stock up. Buying a big bag of rice, frozen veggies, a jar of PB and some sale meats (put straight into the freezer) are musts and are pretty much non-perishable, and last forever. The stock-up is initially painful, but as the supplies run out at different rates, replacing them at need and one at a time becomes much more manageable financially.



I’m trying to make do here with two weeks’ cash. My grocery total came out to $100.83, which leaves less than $5 to wiggle with for two weeks, unfortunately. I’m going to have to plan my menu carefully to maximize use of my perishables. On my shop I also bought stuff that I already had in my pantry to make the test seem realistic. I’m curious if anyone thinks that’s excessive, i.e. that I should have just continued calculating the cost of the stuff I had or if buying the stuff makes the experiment more legitimate and rigorous.

Here’s what I predict. Deliciousness. Also, by the end of two weeks, there’ll be enough left over that if I were to work on a third week, filling out that week’s grocery needs on a week’s budget would be much easier.

Come along. It'll be interesting.

A week in the (grocery) bag

Week 1 is done. Let's see how the weekend days went.

Saturday, March 13
Breakfast – Shreddies with milk, grapefruit half, banana ($0.85)
Snack – Coffee on the train ($2), my muffin & three oatmeal cookies ($0.77)
Lunch – 2 whole wheat sandwiches (4 slices - $0.40) with spiced gouda/egg salad (probably about $0.60), ½ apple ($0.15)
Dinner – Chicken Kiev ($3.99), jasmine rice ($0.50), green beans ($0.25)
TOTAL: $9.51

Sunday, March 14
Breakfast – Pinnell's apple fritter ($0.70), 1/3 Pinnell's long john ($0.23)
Lunch – 3 slices of WW bread ($0.30), spiced gouda & egg salad (~$0.50), ½ apple ($0.30)
Snack – Tim Horton's coffee ($1.60) and a bran raisin muffin ($0.22)
Dinner – Sin chop ($1.10), brown rice dish ($0.40), frozen cauli/broc ($0.38)
TOTAL: $5.73

WEEK TOTAL: $40.46

The first seven days and I'm at a weekly total of $40.46, or $5.78 per day, about $1.75 under the OSAP formula. Even my weekend was under the $15 budget for the two days. Admittedly, this wasn't a typical weekend since I was visiting my folks and therefore relying mostly on the charity of others. (But see "March 8 -- It Begins/Began" to see my attempt at explaining away the idea of dinner with family as charity.)

DISCLAIMER: This bit below is purely for interest's sake, and shouldn't be factored into any results.

Let's compare last weekend, before I even heard about this challenge:

March 6
Breakfast – Cream of Wheat (~$0.60), boiled egg ($0.22), grapefruit half ($0.20), banana ($0.30)
Snack – muffin ($0.22), 3 figs ($0.15), 3 oatmeal cookies ($0.50), Second Cup dealy ($0.97)
Linner – Burrito and half a bottled water (~$7.75), shared regular popcorn and drink at the movies (<$6 – my share)
TOTAL: $16.91

March 7
Breakfast – Muesli with milk ($0.70), banana and grapefruit half ($0.50)
Snack – Muffin, 3 figs, 3 oatmeal cookies, homebrew ($1.37)
Lunch – Calzone ($4.50)
Dinner – Chili dinner ($2.40 – see March 9)
TOTAL: $9.47

WEEKEND TOTAL: $26.38 or $13.19 per day

The weekend before I knew I was going to be working with a budget, the weather was gorgeous and I was out in it and away from my stored food. So relax. Anyhow, if we take a weekly total from March 6 through March 12 I would have been only $2.77 over budget for the week. No big deal. Or is it? What it might mean is that if I were on OSAP, I'm saving enough during the week to eat out on the town on the weekend. Huzzah!

Stay tuned to the next post for the beginning of a smackdown on this whole issue.

It's Assistance, not Affluence

March 11

Breakfast – same as yesterday - $0.85
Snack – FREE coffee, 4 homemade cookies, 3 figs - $0.82
Lunch – PB&J, apple, carrot - $0.71
Dinner – Tin of sardines ($0.79), brown rice with butter, onions, mushrooms and curry powder ($0.40), salad $1 = $2.19
TOTAL = $4.57!

A banner day. No muffin and a FREE coffee. I also found that I was overestimating lunch costs by about $1, but that's good! I'll just leave my previously posted amounts alone though, and not correct them because I'm being cocky about being under budget. I'm going to work on posting a link to a spreadsheet (thanks for the spreadsheet idea, A) so that my costs and math are transparent to you without it taking up so much blog space.

Sarah and Rach (I can call her Rach because her blog told me I can) were both under budget because both are under the weather and have lower appetites. Hurray! (for the costs, that is. Get well soon.) Andrew pulled a crazy 17-hour day – a typical Wednesday for him – but has been getting through his busy schedule by making enough pasta to last him several days. I'm liking the cut of his jib. Nick continues to fall behind, but he requires an entirely new paragraph.

Nick's self-intro reveals a guy active on campus in several avenues. Summer was hard on him financially, so he came into the academic year starved for funding. He got a whack of it from OSAP and spent it on the important stuff that they give you OSAP for, plus "extraneous fees" (hmmm...) and has been so involved with his campus duties that he can't get a part-time job. Strapped for cash, he spends his money EVERY DAY on pizza in any shape or form he can get it – pizza slice, pizza pop, frozen pizza...if Pizza Hut makes a breakfast cereal, you can bet this guy's eating it. So I scratch my head when I read his posts. Does anyone else find it hilarious that OUSA apparently chose someone with a money management problem to take a money management challenge? In my opinion, he should drop one of his extra-curricular activities in favour of a tiny job, $50 a week maybe, if for nothing else but to cater to his pizza compulsions and my blog. Better yet, he should take a lesson from me – that $50 each week dropped into a food budget would allow him to do a hell of a lot of sinning. For $75/week he could incorporate other kinds of sin too. All I want now is for him to graduate so he can get a job and pay more taxes to offset the OHIP costs for treating his future heart disease and impacted colon.

A Word to Students on OSAP

The real reality is that post-secondary education isn't free, and OSAP isn't supposed to make it so (though "free" post-secondary education universally available regardless of socioeconomic class is something I'd like to see one day). OSAP isn't supposed to bring you above the poverty line. The A in OSAP is for Assistance not Affluence. It's a government loan lent because we (which includes you the student) wanted to invest in an education that'll hopefully allow you to enter the workforce as a skilled, productive citizen who will make enough money to contribute positively to the economy and the welfare of your fellow citizens. The taxpayer loans money to you and asks that you spend it wisely, so that there will be a good return on the investment. This investment is risky for some citizens, who barely make enough to live on and have little mouths to feed, and you on Assistance are accountable to them. If school is forcing you to eat pizza and drink beer all the time, use your own money. We all - including the government - understand that some of the Assistance in actuality does go toward these "luxuries" (heck, mine did) – but don't act like you deserve it. And don't complain if the government won't shell for it. You want fun? Find your own means to make it. The taxpayers have done their part. Do yours.

Living in Sin

March 10 - my first overbudget day. Breakfast was only $0.85, thanks to Shreddies which are on sale at Loblaws for $1.74. Lunch was the same as yesterday. I paid for a coffee again, which is what threw me over but thanks to the charity of others I also got a free half muffin, which I'm sure was loaded with lard aka pig (sinful) fat. Man! If I get pork fat for free, I must be onto something with this pig thing. To further the campaign to meet a budget by living in sin, I made dinner using that most delicious form of sin meat – sausages. I matched it with a couple of potatoes and a salad. Only $0.52 over budget for the day.

Now for a quick review of the two days of the four official bloggers' posts:

http://www.ousa.ca/foodforthought/

Three look like they're doing pretty well at keeping it under budget. If Sarah and Andrew can wean off the Boyardee and KD, they'll be sailin'. Nick, however, is already struggling, mostly due to his excuses for how life forces him to eat pizza. He's made two posts and a self-intro so far and already I think I've got his number. Rachel's the star at the moment. She actually cooks (how's an asparagus omelette sound?) and cares about her bowel by putting things in it like yogurt and fibre. She and I even had dinner with our respective families on the same night, bringing her and me sweetly under budget. Her sister got a hug for it, so did my nephews. Rachel just might be my sister from another mister.

March 9

Today's total was about $6.75. It's pushing it a little. I had a Second Cup coffee for free using the "Experience Card", but had I had to pay for it, I would have gone over my daily budget, which wouldn't necessarily be a big deal if the rest of my day hadn't been so routine food-wise. I'll probably have to make my coffee, which is not a big deal, or rely on the charity of others. Spare some change?

Breakfast: One cup of muesli with milk ($0.70), a banana and half a grapefruit ($0.50) and this crumb I found from yesterday’s waffle. My mid-morning snack was the same, except by using the “Experience Card” at Second Cup the coffee was free ($0.87 total). My tuna sandwich at lunch was teamed with an apple and carrot this time ($2.26 total).

Dinner is great, eh? It takes more time and effort to prepare and is more satisfying. Today it was leftover homemade chili, a dish I'm proud of. Chock full of fibre, iron and other good stuff like flavour and heat (Tabasco actually cools it down). For meat I use half ground beef and half ground pork because it's healthier, cheaper, tastes like it’s all beef and, being contrary to the Law of Moses, is far more sinful. If it's sin that's going to carry me through the next 16 days, sin it shall be.

March 8 -- It Begins/Began

Breakfast
- three super-healthy NoName Eggo-style gaufres - $0.52
- “buttery-flavoured” syrup - ~$0.25
- Banana - $0.30
- ¾ cup of 1% milk - $0.20
- Total: $1.27

Snack
- Second Cup coffee – $1.94
- Homemade blueberry-bran muffin - $0.22
- Three dried figs - $0.15
- 3 homemade oatmeal raisin cookies (overestimating – $0.50)
- Total: $2.81

Lunch
- 2 slices of multigrain bakery bread - $0.35
- tuna fish salad (tuna – 1/3 of 90-c can, $0.05 mayonnaise, $0.10 celery and onion) - $0.45
- Bosc pear ($0.30)
- Celery stalk ($0.25)
- Water
- Total: $1.35

Dinner
- Dinner at my brother’s – FREE (it pays to be a half-decent sibling)
- Breyers Double Churn ice cream - $0.30
- Herbal tea - $0.15
- Total: $0.45

TOTAL: $5.88...Auspilicious!!!


As I mentioned, I’m going to do this on $7.50 a day and the charity of others. I really don’t consider having dinner at my brother’s as me being a charity case, but you can’t really discount social circles in bringing down costs. With that in mind, roommates in university can be an excellent source of cash and food. What I’m recommending is waiting until they’ve done a big grocery trip before eating your roommates.

Introduction to the Idea

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) has begun the Food for Thought campaign. Food for Thought aims to test the adequacy of the allotment of $7.50 per day for food in the OSAP formula because OUSA says that according to "students", it's not enough. The campaign includes four student bloggers (I shall call them 'blogdents') who will blog on their attempts to eat healthily on that budget for 18 days. Welcome to my similar blog. I'm generally willing to yawn and stretch out with a bag of corn chips on the couch of apathy, but in the newspaper article I read, the reporter lamented how a student must forego $4.50 London Fogs at Starbucks. And on $7.50, how could one possibly afford a sub when going from class to work? According to the reporter, "the only sandwich (she) can afford is home-made". As a regular sandwich eater and fan, I took offense. The idea that one might only eat a homemade sandwich as a last resort, that it's poverty food instead of a healthy and economic option, got my goat. Today I was thinking about the $7.50/day diet – while eating my second sandwich since reading that article – when I decided to join the club. (And no, it was not a club sandwich.)

In their blogs, I expect to read laments about eating out and maybe the cost of meat. I also expect them to have revelations – realizing the cost and health benefits of bananas over chocolate bars, the cheapness of potatoes, and perhaps most importantly, the valuable life lesson in how to spend money wisely, which some of the fourth-year blogdents still seem not to have learned.

Watch me eat well through average daily expenditures of less than $7.50 (and the charity of others).

http://www.ousa.ca/2010/03/03/the-campaign/
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/education/article/776378---7-50-a-day-is-all-you-get-on-the-student-osap-diet