30 Days on $30 Challenge

Day 30: The Last Supper

2009-04-28T19:28:00.006-05:00

Well the big finish is here at last. I just consumed my last meal on the challenge. I'm looking forward to getting back to some more abundant food selections, but I want to hold on to a lot of what I've learned on this journey. I'll reflect upon those lessons later in the post, but wanted to first document my last day with some photos. Breakfast was the usual oatmeal with raisins which was fine. For lunch I made some more refried beans and had those with brown rice, a fried egg and 3 corn tortillas. They made for some great tasting bargain tacos...

For dinner I used my last bonus egg for another rendition of egg fried rice. It's so simple to make and it's filling and pretty tasty. I still had quite a bit of cabbage and more than enough carrots remaining, so I made a little more than usual and sauteed those separately before scrambling the egg and mixing in the rice. But the crowning moment was something I've been saving up for. I love baked potatoes. So I managed my potato ration in such a way that I had a substantial portion of a whole potato remaining today. So I wrapped it in foil and threw it in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour and a half. Cracked it open and seasoned it with what else but Season-All. It was such a welcome variety change that I might as well have had a steak!

My son witnessed me enjoying my last bite of the 30 day challenge and captured the moment...

One surprising fact to note as I finish up the last day is what was left. Some of the leftovers came as a result of the off-and-on aversions and from watching my appetite shrink over the 30 days. Here's what I've got on hand at the end of day 30, click to enlarge if you're curious...

Reflections on lessons learned...

I can cook! The main lesson I've learned from all of this is just the simple fact that I hold in my power the ability to create food that is healthy, satisfying, creative and tasty. If I can do this on $1/day, how much more can I do this moving forward with a more liberal budget! Yesterday I mentioned receiving a used cookbook I ordered, and today I received two more used cookbooks (how timely!): Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India, and Authentic Recipes from India. I'm eager to start experimenting. Cooking may come as second nature to some of you, but for me, it's a whole new world. So many times my knee-jerk reaction to satisfying a craving for food is to run out and spend money for someone else to make the food for me. I never really thought of it that way before, but essentially that's what I've been doing. Not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but it's just the liberation of knowing that I can do it myself if I want to, and in the process save money to be more generous toward the causes God has called me to support.

Empathy for the poor. I've also arrived at a closer empathy of what the poor contend with on a daily basis. These thoughts are reality for millions every day: If only I could afford some cooking oil. If only I could afford some tomato sauce for my pasta tonight. If only I could afford a stick of real butter. If only I could afford some chicken. If only I could afford... fill in the blank with anything basic that you take for granted on a daily basis. For many, sadly, it's just... if only I could afford clean drinking water for my children.

New perspective on hunger. In 2006 I did a 1-year trial run on going vegetarian. But it was a completely different challenge than this one. Mainly because, as a vegetarian, you still have access to all the fatty and sweet foods, not to mention the fact that you can easily match the caloric intake of a non-vegetarian diet. One thing I've learned from this challenge is that the human body is highly adaptable, and quickly adaptable. If you've followed my blog you've read on a few occasions about me being surprised by my lack of hunger for the most part (it was definitely there, but just not as bad as you might suspect, on most days). I have a friend who fasts often as a spiritual discipline. He says one of the side benefits is that you're just not really bothered by missing a meal, or by eating a late lunch, while for most of us, we end up saying things like "man, I'm starving" or "I'm not going to be able to get anything done on an empty stomach" etc. I've done fasts like the Daniel Fast and other shorter fasts, but none that required this much discipline. I have gained a whole new perspective on hunger and what it is to go without for a long period of time. So much so that I imagine it would take a lot for me to be thrown off by missing a meal or two in the future, or doing without a staple ingredient for an extended period of time.

How to lose weight and feel better. Another lesson learned is on weight loss. I lost 20 pounds during this 30 days. However I was not even setting out to do that. I guess the lesson learned is, if you want to lose weight, you don't have to follow some complicated plan. Just eat less and eat simply, and you will lose weight. And you'll feel better. Shedding all of the sugar and fats gave me more energy and healed my heartburn problems completely. Oddly enough, these two benefits I think aided greatly in helping me overcome the hunger.

Practical advice for those wanting to give this a try. If I had to do it again, I would shuffle the deck a little on my list. Biggest mistake was overestimating my oatmeal needs. I really could have done with just one 42 oz. box instead of two. With that money ($2.29) I could have added plenty of 20-cent 8-oz. cans of tomato sauce, which I was really craving after I ran out. I also would have purchased at least one more 20-cent lemon. I think I would have done a little more research on what could be done with bread making or cornmeal for cornbread, etc. and bought the according flour, etc. Five pounds of pinto beans would have been plenty, vs. my 6 pounds. I would have been able to reallocate 59 cents right there. I would have tried to find a way to fit in cooking oil, but that is a challenge because it is not typically sold in small quantities. Also would have considered trying to find a small portion of soy sauce, but again, a challenge, and not a priority. 10 packs of Ramen probably would have been plenty. I think I wasted 30 cents by buying 12. The basics: drink tons of water. Buy the spicy Ramen packs if you even remotely like spicy foods, or just want to add a little kick to your soups. Even a small amount of their spicy seasoning packs go a long way. Corn tortillas, if you can find them as cheap as I did (90 for $1.99) are indispensable in their versatility, but keep them refrigerated. If you're looking for an adaptation of this challenge, one thought is to consider your existing spices and cooking oils as available for "purchase" in increments. Like find out what your bottle of canola oil cost you, and "purchase" x number of ounces from your existing supply, and count that into your $30 budget. Same could go with salt and spices. That would have made things a lot easier, cooking-wise, while still having to take on the challenge of living off of $30 of food.

Thanks for the links, visits, and comments. I wanted to say thanks to all of you who have followed my blog and left comments of encouragement or advice. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's received over 1300 visits from over 600 unique visitors in 21 countries! Thanks for helping me spread the word. I think it has made an impact of awareness, and for that, it's made all of this worth it. If you have websites or blogs, please continue to link here even though the challenge is over. I think there's a lot to learn here for people searching for ways to simplify or challenge themselves on what they're spending on food.

Final prayer focus: Pray for all of those who don't have a day 31. Their challenge keeps going on perpetually. This is a humbling thought and one that will motivate me to pray for quite some time.

Estimated Savings for Day 30 & Grand Total: We had a catered staff lunch today at our church, so I would not have spent any money on that. (I ate my little bean, rice and egg tacos as everyone else feasted, but it really didn't bother me). It was a really rainy day with a lot on my schedule, so I honestly don't think I would have spent anything else. For this final day, I'm just calculating for my minimum estimated savings of $6. This brings the grand total of my orphanage donation up to $440.60, which represents over 14 months' wages among the poor of South Asia. It's also about what it would cost us at Peace Gospel to sponsor an orphan's expenses at one of our orphanages for 17 months. It also represents what it would cost us to provide life-saving polio immunizations for about 1500 children. Puts a lot into perspective.

Day 29: Finish Line in Sight

2009-04-27T22:49:00.007-05:00

Just knowing that I have less than 48 hours before this is over helped immensely today. I also tried to think back on which dishes I've enjoyed the most and tried those again today. I have been surprised by how good the refried beans taste, so I had those again for lunch along with a small amount of brown rice. But as I was still coming off of yesterday's aversion experience, I did not eat lunch until 2pm. My appetite grew as the taste of the beans motivated me to eat more, so I went ahead and made another batch of what you see pictured here for seconds! With two corn tortillas available, I made some small tacos with the beans and rice...

For dinner I went back to good old egg fried rice. But this time I sauteed the cabbage and carrots in a bit of the vegetable oil spread first to give them a little different texture. With one scrambled egg and a cup of brown rice with some Season-All mixed in, it was a great meal. I realized during this whole time I'd never had Ramen soup all by itself. So I did a half-portion of a pack of Ramen just as soup, as the instructions called for, and that was indeed a nice little variety change up.

Everyone keeps asking what I'm going to eat on the day after. I'm really not sure yet. But I know from past experience in coming off of fasts that you can easily over do it and send your body into shock. So as best as I can control my urges, I'm going to try to take things slow. It might be really nice to just have a bowl of cereal that morning, as I have had no dairy for 30 days. But at some point soon I will definitely be eating at Sri Balaji Bhavan for some authentic South Indian vegetarian delights. Just being able to open up the fridge or pantry and eating whatever is available is what I'm looking forward to the most. Also looking forward to getting back into a normal routine of eating what my family is eating for mealtimes. It's been a challenge to share time with them as I am spending so much time in the kitchen preparing a separate meal for myself. You should see me trying to cook around my wife as she's preparing a meal for the 7 of them. Chaos!

But my biggest desire is to learn more cooking skills. I've ordered several used cookbooks online. My first one arrived today: 400 Best-Ever Budget Recipes. The weirdest thing happened. My oldest son Noah said, "oh, cool, I wonder if they have a recipe for lemon pie" as he loves lemon pies. I said, "well, let's see." I opened up the book, and I kid you not, it opened straight to a recipe for a lemon pie. It's a sign, I tell you! Two other Indian cookbooks are on their way. I want to be able to cook the food I love so I don't have to pay a fortune to satisfy my cravings.

Prayer focus: Pray for India's 70 million disabled. They represent about 6% of the population. Of these, only 2% are educated and 1% employed. We at Peace Gospel have made it part of our mission to distribute wheelchairs to disabled dalits ("untouchables" shunned by society) in India free of charge. It costs us only $50 to purchase a wheelchair. This is making a huge impact in areas where wheelchairs were before only an elusive luxury. People previously confined to literally crawling along on the ground are gaining mobility for the first time in their lives. It is our hope that by giving the disabled the gift of mobility, the statistics will not be so horribly stacked against them. If you'd like to sponsor a wheelchair or a portion thereof, you can click here for more details.

Estimated Savings for Day 29: I might have taken my pre-schooler to Chick-fil-a for lunch today. I would have picked up my usual combo meal for about $5.99 or so. As I was really exhausted today, I would have likely stopped off for a hot black tea at Starbucks or Fioza for about $1.60. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm at $13.59 saved for my orphanage donation today. This brings my running total up to $434.60.

Day 28: Aversions!

2009-04-26T22:22:00.004-05:00

Today was a breaking point of sorts. That stew from yesterday sat with me through the night. I was fitful up past 2 am thinking about how I could possibly eat one more grain of brown rice, one more pinto bean, one more slice of carrot, or one more noodle. I started to question the health benefits of losing 20 pounds in 27 days, I started to get nervous about being able to make it through the last 3 days. And I was, for the first time in awhile, really hungry. Nonetheless, I awoke refreshed and whipped up another bowl of oatmeal and raisins. For some reason, that is the one thing I have not had an aversion toward, and bonus, it really sustains me for a good 4 hours or so. All of this being said, lunch was pretty good. I've enjoyed the refried beans, so I did a full cup of those. And it hit me, I had never enjoyed mashed potatoes without adding them to something else, so I thought that might help on the variety front, to just eat them straight, with a little Season-All, and that was nice. I threw in another rendition of my egg drop soup, this time with brown rice added, and it was enjoyable but still did not feel up to eating the whole thing. I'm also getting a bit of blog fatigue. Tonight, I just honestly don't feel like doing the math to tell you how much this meal cost me. But I know this one was probably around 40 cents or so...

For dinner, I just literally could not dream up anything. A friend had recommended adding a little more water to my rice on the next batch, to yield some rice milk, so I did that yesterday. She had said I might try adding some raisins to this to come up with a sweet tea of sorts. I tried this by blending some water-soaked raisins, and I felt it was a valiant try, but it was just not my cup of tea! Might have come in handy on the vegan shepherd's pie, but not straight up. For your amusement, here's the shot...

But, back to dinner, I did end up having a small rice burrito and a bit of pasta with some Season-All, but I just could not bring myself to eat anything else. Cabbage: no! Carrots: no more! I feel like my 2 year old! But I will say, isn't it amazing that my 3-lb. $0.75 head of cabbage is still going strong?!

Prayer focus: I'm heading up to Taylor University on Wednesday to present some thoughts at an evening event as part of their annual Social Justice Week. Pray for me, as really I have no idea what I'm going to say at this point. But I am looking forward to it. I'll be spending the night in their cardboard village; seems an appropriate book-end to my 30 days! This year they are focusing on India and the caste system. I feel honored and humbled that they would invite me to be a part of this. Thanks for praying!

Estimated Savings for Day 28: No clue. Maybe a real cup of tea at Starbucks? Buck-sixty? Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm at $7.60 for my orphanage donation today. This puts my running total up to $421.01. This is ridiculous and humbling to admit. Lord, may I be more mindful of my spending after this 30 days!

Day 27: Migas, Raisin Style

2009-04-25T20:35:00.004-05:00

Started the day out with my usual oatmeal. It was still very enjoyable, however I am sad to say that I hit the end of my sunflower seeds a little earlier than projected. Just glad I still have plenty of raisins. Speaking of, I decided to try a new twist on Migas for lunch. Migas, for those of you who don't know, is a kind of breakfast dish consisting of torn corn tortilla pieces cooked together with scrambled eggs. It hit me that I obviously had the ingredients for this, but I wanted to make it a little more interesting. So I decided to see what raisins would taste like if I scrambled them into the mix. I first microwaved them in some water to loosen them up, and then threw them into the skillet with the beaten egg and torn corn tortilla pieces. I really did not know what to expect. But it was definitely a nice touch, sweetening it up and adding a variety of flavor I have not yet experienced during the challenge. I also whipped up a quick batch of refried beans again, and together it made for one of my better meals. Cost: 25 cents.

Then tonight, running out of ideas, I made a stew that was not one of my greatest inventions, but filling nonetheless. I combined water with a touch of bean broth, 1/2 serving of Ramen noodles and seasoning, 3/4 cup pinto beans, 1 cup brown rice, 2/3 cup shell pasta, 2.5 oz. cubed potato, 1 oz. carrot, and 1 oz. cabbage. It was definitely a little carb-heavy with the noodles and pasta, making for a heavy feeling, maybe even "hard to digest" kind of meal. But it did the job on the survival front. Cost: because of the number of ingredients, 46 cents.

Just three more days to go! Not sure what it was about today, maybe the poor execution on the stew concept, but I'm definitely feeling ready for this to be over. But I've learned so much I'm going to take with me beyond the 30 days. The fact that I can cook amazing-tasting meals for under a dollar will definitely be a practice I will take with me past the finish line. For that matter, the fact that I can cook any amazing-tasting meals is the shocker, not being much of a cook at all to begin with!

Prayer focus: Pray for one of the villages in South India where we do a lot of ministry. I received an email from our pastor there today requesting prayer for a difficult situation. He writes: There is a school in the village among high caste people, some of our children (Dalits) are studying in that school 8th to 10th class [grade]. But recently there are some problems that took place in the school due to the caste system, between Dalit children and high caste children. This school is in a high caste section of the village. The high caste children are not happy to give these dalit children a place to sit along with them. They are saying bad words and insulting them by using horrible words toward them. Much worse, they have beaten these dalit children 5 times. These children complained to the teachers and to the administration, but there is no use. These high caste children warned the teachers. These dalit students' situation is not good in in [this village]. Please pray for peace in [this village] my brother, we are also praying for this. They need your prayers. So many upsetting things are going on there with this issue, please pray.

Estimated Savings for Day 27: It's interesting, I'm so far removed from what my usual routine would have been like before the challenge started, I really don't know how to estimate any longer. I will just say at this point, I would not be surprised if I had eaten out today, and might have spent about $7 on such an outing. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've saved $13 toward my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $413.41.

Day 26: Soup & Stir Fry Improvisations

2009-04-24T20:20:00.005-05:00

It was a long day so I don't have much energy left to blog. But I will talk about a couple of good meals I had today. I created a new soup for lunch which I thought was tasty and filling. For lack of a better title, I'll call it Spicy Corn Chowder Egg Drop Potato & Noodle Soup. I don't have any true corn, but I used a corn tortilla chopped into little squares to mimmic the flavor. I used 2.5 oz. mashed potatoes to give it the chowdery texture. And of course the spicy seasoning from half of a pack of the Hot Chili Ramen flavoring. Man that stuff goes a long way. I would recommend buying that pack of Ramen at $0.15 just for the little flavoring packet. I used my rules from previous Egg Drop recipe to add the eggs, and wha-la, it was pretty simple. My wife has some friends in town so she had the camera on an outing, so I had to use my camera phone to capture the moment. Not that great, but at least for documentary purposes... Cost: 27 cents.

For dinner, I lacked the creativity of the last few days, but I was hungry and tired-- I just needed to make some survival food. So I threw together about 3/4 cup refried beans. I chopped some carrots and cabbage and "fried" that with about 1.5 cups of brown rice. I made my bean broth reduction sauce again and added that for additional flavor/texture. Seasoned both with Season-All and added a corn tortilla. Made a little refried bean taco from that. For as fast as it was, and as inexpensive as it cost, this was a very satisfying meal. Cost: 30 cents.

Prayer focus: Pray for Peace Gospel's work in the slums. Especially for further development of our clean water delivery projects. Over 22% of India's urban population consists of slum dwellers— those who live in make-shift homes and get by on less than $1 per day. This makes India home to the largest slum population on the planet, with over 60 million slum residents. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 1,600 children die every day in India due to diseases caused by contaminated water. Peace Gospel is laboring to deliver clean water to those living in the slums, where water contamination problems are rampant. Providing clean water for the poor creates economic opportunity because they can focus on getting back to work rather than spending so much time looking for water.

Estimated Savings for Day 26: I would not be surprised if today I would have been found at Sri Balaji Bhavan were I not on the challenge. I've already blogged about it a few times, but if you're newer to the blog, I'll bring you up to speed: if you live in Houston, you should hereby be informed that there is no better Indian restaurant in town in terms of authenticity to true South Indian vegetarian cuisine. Not to mention value. I usually spend about $8 there and have enough leftovers for dinner. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've saved $14 for my orphanage donation today. My running total has now broken the $400 mark at $400.41.

Day 25: Vegan Shepherd's Pie, Oh My!

2009-04-23T22:33:00.008-05:00

Started today off with another shocker at the scale... I've lost 18 pounds, from 226 to 208. And I'm not even feeling that hungry, it's really strange. I have to admit it's a nice bonus I was not expecting at all. Oddly, I'm not getting tired of my oatmeal with raisins and sunflower seeds for breakfast. I've had that the past several days now, usually in a rush and eating it on the way out so it comes in handy. When you have no other source of sugar, raisins become amazing little explosions of flavor. For lunch, I went back to egg fried rice and also made a few seasoned corn ships in the toaster oven. But for dinner, I needed something new to provide the variety I'm craving. I think I was reading on a blog somewhere on cheap meal ideas or something, and Shepherd's Pie came up. I looked up this recipe, and realized I was pretty close to an improvised, very basic rendition of the dish. Also, my friend Beth had mentioned simmering my pinto bean broth down to a sauce, and I thought I might be able to use that in my improv as well. And it did come in handy, thanks Beth! I used sauteed cabbage, shell pasta, mashed pinto beans, and brown rice for the undergirding of the pie (with "juiciness" aided by the bean sauce), and mashed potatoes (5 oz. worth) to spread on the top of the pie. Topped with my last two teaspoons of tomato sauce and seasoned with Season-All, it was delicious and very filling! But if it were not for the cabbage and sauce, it would have been a bit too starchy. For the curious, here's the recipe...

Ingredients

5 oz. potatoes
1 cup cooked brown rice
3/4 cup cooked pinto beans
2/3 cup (before cooking) shell pasta
1.5 oz. cabbage
1 cup pinto bean broth
1 tablespoon vegetable oil spread
2 teaspoons tomato sauce
1 teaspoon water
A few dashes of Season-All

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Cube potatoes and boil them until cooked (about 8 minutes?)
Bring water to boil for pasta shells, cook accordingly.
Bring bean broth to a boil then reduce to medium heat until reduced to near-sauce-like status, but still a bit watery.
Chop the cabbage and saute in skillet with vegetable oil spread until browning occurs.
Mash the pinto beans with a fork.
In a small casserole dish, add the mashed beans, pasta, cabbage, rice and bean sauce together so that all ingredients are evenly distributed. Press the mix down with a fork or spoon so that it's even on the surface.
Once the potatoes are cooked, mash them with a fork until even consistency is achieved.
Carefully spoon out the mashed potatoes onto the top of the mix, kind of painting the potatoes onto the surface with the spoon.
Place dish in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
Add 1 teaspoon water to the 2 teaspoons tomato sauce to increase its volume. Spread the sauce on top of the dish after baking is completed. Season with Season-All as desired and enjoy!

Cost: About 43 cents.

Maxing out the stovetop!

The finished product...

Prayer focus: Pray for Sonam and Karma, two of the children at our Nepal orphanage. They are suffering from unexplained nose bleeding. Pray for their healing and peace in their hearts. Praise update: Krupamma is much better today, checked out fine, and back to work serving the children. Thanks for praying!

Estimated savings for Day 25: I was craving BBQ today, so I would not be surprised if I had joined a friend for a chopped beef sandwich and cole slaw at one of the many incredible local BBQ shacks around here. That along with a drink would have likely been around, what, maybe $8.50? I might have had an appointment at Starbucks, where I would have had a hot tea for about $1.60. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've saved $16.10 toward my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $386.41.

Day 24: Pomme Frites aux Oeufs

2009-04-22T21:38:00.007-05:00

You're thinking that I translated my lunch dish into French to make it sound fancy, but honestly, that's the name of the recipe my friend Omar from Cameroon gave me. That's right, a genuine French-African dish right here on the 30 day challenge, baby! However I did add my own twist to it: oven-roasted carrots. This is seriously easy to make and tastes great. (Note: I saved up my rations of potatoes and carrots from yesterday to use for this dish, and also borrowed my bonus egg from tomorrow to use here) ... Recipe:

Ingredients:

5 oz. potatoes
2 oz. carrots
2 eggs
2 tablespoons veg. oil spread (or butter)
1/2 teaspoon Season-All

Directions:

Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
Cut potatoes into strips like french fries. Chop carrots into sliced quarters or halves.
In a medium sized bowl or large coffee mug, place 2 tablespoons vegetable oil spread (or butter), microwave for 20 seconds or until melted. Dip chopped potatoes and carrots into the vegetable oil or butter, making sure each piece is well coated. Place the potatoes and carrots in a single layer on a roasting pan or baking sheet.
Roast for 20 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, turning every 5 or 6 minutes to brown on all sides.
Beat the two eggs in a bowl. When potatoes and carrots are ready, place them in the bowl with the eggs. Let the potatoes soak up some of the eggs for about 3 or 4 minutes as you stir occasionally.
Pour all of the ingredients into a skillet on medium high heat. Scramble as desired with spatula. Scramble an additional 3-4 minutes after eggs are solid to ensure all ingredients are well heated.
Serve and season to taste with Season-All.

Alternate, more authentic method is to dump the eggs, carrots and potatoes into the skillet and NOT scramble them. Just let the eggs harden like an omelet. When the eggs harden, place a plate over the skillet and flip it to serve the omelet upside down! I meant to do this but misread my friend's instructions. Still turned out great using my improvised method.

Cost: About 37 cents. (One of my more expensive dishes!)

Soaking the ingredients in the eggs:

The finished product:

Tonight for dinner I made refried beans again since they were so tasty last night. I used two of my tortillas to make corn chips, and one to make a taco of my beans and rice. Also had a spicy chicken-chili flavored ramen noodle soup (half-serving) with cabbage. Delicious! My kids love the homemade chips and beans. Cost of the meal pictured here, including the soup was about 30 cents.

Health Ponderings: Today I did start to feel a little lethargic from the lack of fruits and fresh veggies. Had a few headaches, but kept downing the water and that helped. The remainder of my lemon essentially rotted a few days ago, so I'm missing the vitamin C there. The meals today were a bit heavy with the vegetable oil spread, which could be contributing to my "thick" lethargic feeling. So I think I'll cut back on that tomorrow and try to go a little lighter on everything while keeping the water flowing. My appetite has decreased and hunger pangs are less frequent. I have not weighed in lately but I think I continue to lose weight. Glad to be rounding the home stretch. Six days to go!

Prayer focus: Pray for one of our staff "mothers" at the orphanage in India. Her name is Krupamma, and she had to go to the hospital today complaining of chest pains.

Estimated Savings for Day 24: I was thinking about Indian food a lot today, so I think I would have likely made my usual run to Sri Balaji Bhavan. I might have had some iddly with lemon rice, or maybe a Madras Thali, not sure, but definitely would have had a cup of their chai. Probably would have spent about $8 there. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm looking at $14 saved for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $369.31, equal to over one year's wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 23: Refried Bean Chimichangas

2009-04-21T18:06:00.003-05:00

I stumbled upon another delicious improv recipe today. I followed a basic refried bean recipe to make about one cup of refried beans with my vegetable oil spread and Season-All. I then melted some vegetable oil spread and brushed that on the front and back of two corn tortillas while the oven was preheating to 500 degrees. I placed the refried beans down the middle of each tortilla, rolled the tortilla up and turned them over (seam-side down) on a baking sheet. I then baked them for 8 minutes. The tortillas cracked a bit, but the taste really blew me away. I was managing my expectations, but these refried bean chimichangas really were delicious. My son Noah can testify- it passed his "awesomeness" test. I added some reheated brown rice and it felt like a complete meal! Best part... this meal cost only 21 cents!

For lunch I did a repeat on the Spicy Egg Drop Noodle Soup, but added cabbage. Still loving it. Did oatmeal for breakfast, and had one of my remaining oat raisin bars for a snack. Not feeling much hunger at all today! But drinking plenty of water is the trick. Tomorrow I will have a double portion of potatoes and carrots. I've got an African recipe involving oven roasted potatoes and eggs, I might try that mixed with roasted carrots tomorrow.

Prayer focus: Pray for our dairy farm and its staff in India. Pray for the productivity and health of our water buffalo cows and the health and safety of our native team there. Pray that more funds would become available to purchase more water buffaloes. We rely on the milk sales to provide for much of our orphanage budget.

Estimated Savings for Day 23: I'm not sure where, but I likely would have eaten lunch out with friends. Might have spent about $8.50. Also would not be surprised if I had stopped by Fioza for a cup of hot tea and a cinnamon raisin scone for about $4. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I saved $18.50 toward my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $355.31.

Day 22: The 18-cent Egg Drop Masterpiece

2009-04-20T23:43:00.009-05:00

Today was another huge breakthrough day of "recipe improvisation." I'm calling my latest invention Spicy Egg Drop Noodle Soup. The traditional egg drop soup recipe calls for cornstarch. So I thought to myself, well I have some corn bound up in those corn tortillas, and where there's corn, there's cornstarch, right? So wheels started turning in my head and I got to work. I double toasted a corn tortilla until it was nice and crispy. Then I put it in a zip lock bag and hammered it into a powder. I added the water to the powder as the recipe instructs, and I got a sort of cornmeal consistency that gave the soup some great texture...

I then beat one egg and started pouring that into the boiling noodles and cornmeal bit by bit. I was pretty thrilled to see the egg turning into that Chinese restaurant style egg drop soup consistency. I really never imagined myself making egg drop soup, but here I was. I then added half of the spice from the Ramen noodle pack pictured below (also just used half of the noodles). After that you can see the finished product. I really surprised myself on this one. Even without all of the proper ingredients, my improvisation was a home run in my little world. This one will definitely make my long term list of future recipes well past the 30 day challenge. You should give it a try. Best part, the cost of this delicious and filling soup is only 18 cents.

Dinner was great as well. I baked two corn tortillas cut into triangles yielding 16 tasty seasoned tortilla chips with an all-natural bean dip. I enjoyed the roasted potatoes and carrots so much last night that I decided to go with that again. On top of all of this, it was pasta day, so I enjoyed a cup of pasta with two teaspoons of tomato sauce. Running very low on tomato sauce- just about one more serving remains!

Prayer focus: Pray for our widow's seamstress business initiative in India. Many widows in this part of the world are socially shunned and often pulled into the darkness of prostitution. But Peace Gospel is offering widows a way out of their poverty and despair. As we receive sponsorship funds from donors like you, widows are taken through a 3 month training program and then equipped with a sewing machine and basic supplies. This allows widows to start a practical in-demand business that provides for their family. Through the incentive of a micro-credit program, the newly commissioned business owners will pay back their equipment costs in affordable monthly installments. These payments are placed into a fund which is then used to commission more widows into the program.

Estimated Savings for Day 22: It was one of those gorgeous Houston spring days, bright sunshine and 70 degrees with a light breeze. On days like these I love to go to Becks Prime and sit out on their deck under the huge oak trees while catching up on some reading. I would have dropped about $9 on a hickory cheeseburger with fries and drink. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've saved $15 toward my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $336.81 which is about 11 months' wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 21: Pinto Bean Rice Burgers!

2009-04-19T21:49:00.005-05:00

Today was a lot of work but a fun day of trying new combinations from my ingredients. My crowning culinary moment came in the form of an improvised bean burger recipe, the original found here. I didn't have a lot of those ingredients, so I subbed soaked & blended raisins for the salsa, and cabbage for the onions. I did have an egg, plenty of brown rice and pinto beans, so no problem there. I tried one with a teaspoon of tomato sauce, and one with just Season-All, and although the "tomato sauced" one had good texture and some degree of flavor, I preferred the seasoned one. These were a lot of work to keep the patty from morphing into a blob at first, but after cooking a couple I got the hang of it. I went ahead and made an extra one for tomorrow, and still have the mix for two more. I can imagine a vegan-vegetarian type really digging these burgers, and to be fair, they are really good when seasoned and eaten fresh out of the skillet, but they probably will not make my long-term favorite list. Overall, a great eating-to-live meal, very filling, and a welcomed departure form the norm. Including the corn tortilla and seasoning, each burger costs about 10 cents. Take a look...

Something I've been wanting to experiment on for a while now is roasting potatoes and carrots. I melted some vegetable oil spread and coated that on my cubed/sliced potatoes and carrots along with some Season-All, and then baked them at 450 for 20 minutes, turning them every 5 minutes. It was delicious... I wish I had thought of it earlier. I wrapped half of them in a corn tortilla and and ate the other half straight. It made for a great dinner. Cost of the meal: 13 cents. And it looked great too...

Prayer focus: Please pray for Ma Kanghe, a new orphan we recently took in at our Myanmar orphanage. She lost both parents to Cyclone Nargis last year, and we found her working in the market gathering firewood for a vendor there a few months ago. She is happy at the orphanage but there are emotional scars to be healed from her loss and the dark experiences of living on the streets before we found her.

Estimated Savings for Day 21: We had some guests over for dinner this evening, and we ordered in some Indian food from a place called Shiva. I was enjoying my roasted potatoes and carrots, so that probably saved me about $10 right there, as Shiva is not exactly your budget Indian restaurant. Other than that, today was a little too busy for any other outings. So, add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I saved a total of $16 for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $321.81.

Day 20: Rainy Day

2009-04-18T21:50:00.003-05:00

Honestly I don't have much to report. With all of the rain today it was kind of a blah day. Just feeling kind of unmotivated. So I was not feeling very creative today. I had my usual oatmeal mix for breakfast, egg fried rice again for lunch, tortilla chips and bean dip again, and then used my bonus egg for an over easy fried egg on a corn tortilla, topped with boiled potatoes, rice and beans for dinner. The bonus egg day (every 5 days) always comes in as a nice boost. Then I had an oatmeal raisin bar for "dessert." Again, it's plenty of food for the most part, it's just finding the time to be creative (toward the goal of variety) and to do the prep work involved in getting there. I was going to try roasting some potatoes and carrots but today's schedule turned out to be a little too overwhelming to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Hopefully tomorrow I'm going to have time to try that out along with an emerging idea on a rice & bean burger patty with make-shift ketchup and egg drop soup! I'm determined that tomorrow is going to be a better day!

Prayer focus: Just pray for Peace Gospel in general today if you would. We're having a bit of a rough month financially and could use some catch-up donations. Fortunately our orphanage budgets in India and Myanmar are supplemented by their farms, but they do not yet cover the entire budgets, and they do not yet cover other aspects of our outreach either. So we've got a short-term goal of raising $10,000 by the end of the month to get us caught up. Pray with us toward that end.

Estimated Savings for Day 20: Likely would have taken one or more of the kids out for a meal or a treat of some kind, for a bill of around $7.50 for my share. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm looking at $13.50 saved for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now at $305.81. That's over 10 months' wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 19: More Discoveries!

2009-04-17T19:42:00.007-05:00

Today was another eureka! kind of a day. Breakthroughs:

Perfected my Egg Fried Rice
Made bean dip for my new tortilla chips
Baked some oatmeal raisin bars w/ sunflower seeds

I scrambled my egg before adding the rice and this just put the dish in another league. It was good before, but this tasted amazing. I know some of you are laughing at this point, but I've never made egg fried rice and I was just kind of winging it yesterday...

The bean dip was simply chilled pinto beans mashed into an even consistency. With the corn tortilla chips this tasted so fresh it was almost too good to be true that both the chips and dip cost only 5 cents. My wife had a few bites of each of these and she was pretty impressed, actually amazed, as was I. It's all in the presentation...

That's been the growing theme of this challenge for me: shocked at how much I can actually make from my list, and definitely beginning to think in terms of how I can sustain this (in terms of cooking with simple ingredients- maybe on $60 or $90 a month?) moving forward beyond the 30 days. Also gaining an inspiration for growing my own foods, maybe my next challenge? 30 days on 30 seeds?

The other discovery was a baked oatmeal raisin bar recipe a friend sent me. It was an improvised guess, but it worked. I soaked about 1/4 cup of raisins overnight in an equal amount of water. Put them through the blender to create a syrup. Poured the syrup into a mix of 1 cup of rolled oats, 1/4 cup of raisins and 1 teaspoon of sunflower seeds. Mixed it all thoroughly and baked at 225 for 1 hour. It yielded six 2-ounce bars that will make great snacks. I actually already enjoyed one of them tonight. It reminds me of a vegan oat cookie they sell at Whole Foods here in Houston. Not very rich without any butter, but definitely sweet, and certainly filling. Cost of each 2-ounce bar: 8 cents.

Prayer focus: Pray for Myanmar (Burma). Four decades of repressive military rule have isolated the nation and brought it to utter destitution. Widespread despair followed the repression of democracy in 1990. The courage of the leader of the main opposition party, Aung San Suu Kyi, was recognized in her being awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She has remained under house arrest since 1990. Pray that the international community and the other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members might speak out and act to bring democracy. Pray for an orderly transfer to a just and democratic government that will rebuild the country with both democratic and religious freedom.

Estimated Savings for Day 19: I met a friend during the lunch hour today. If I was not on the challenge I know we would have met over a meal. I'm not sure where we would have eaten, but let's just say it would have cost around $8.50. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've saved $14.50 for my donation to the orphanage today. My running total is now at $292.31.

Day 18: Egg Fried Rice Revolution

2009-04-16T22:28:00.005-05:00

If my little world had its own newspaper, today's headline would have been Egg Fried Rice Revolution Has Begun. It turns out that I have a pretty good portion of the ingredients needed for this classic dish: rice, eggs, cabbage, carrots, and seasoning! (Thank you Andrea for the aha! moment). My execution was not that great, but it tasted out of this world anyway. Again I've proven that anyone can stumble their way through cooking, especially if you're hungry. I also cut a corn tortilla into triangles, basted them with a touch of melted vegetable oil spread, seasoned them, and then baked them in the toaster oven. The kids were amazed that daddy can now make tortilla chips that taste better than the usual brand-name standards. I also thought of adding pasta shells to my soup at dinner, and that added a welcome new texture to the soup experience. I managed to capture a shot of the egg fried rice and the tortilla chips... Cost of Egg Fried Rice: 25 cents. 8 Tortilla chips with seasoning: 3 cents...

Prayer focus: Pray for the girls of Nepal, especially those in vulnerable situations such as those orphaned. They are widely trafficked for the Indian and Middle East sex industry which is a terrible evil. There are an estimated 250,000 in India (mainly Mumbai & Delhi) where they are terribly abused; 60-70% are HIV positive and few will reach 25 years. Pray that the Peace Gospel orphanage in Nepal would be fully funded with the ability to reach many of these girls before they are enslaved.

Estimated Savings for Day 18: Just for fun, I'm going to say I would have been over to an old favorite spot for lunch today, Texadelphia on Westheimer. Their chicken cheesesteak sandwich with special mustard blend sauce is, well, something I'm craving at the moment. Not to mention they have the best queso in town. With a drink and tip I think this would have set me back about $9.00. I met a friend at Starbucks today, and I would have likely spent my usual $1.60 on a cup of hot tea there. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've got $16.60 saved for my donation to the orphanage today. My running total is now at $277.81.

Day 17: The New Normal

2009-04-15T20:52:00.003-05:00

Today I think my body kind of resigned and accepted this as the new "normal." I'm just not getting as hungry as I was in previous days. I'm also feeling a lot more energy in general. My wife says it's due to the weight loss. On that front, I continue to be shocked. As of this morning I've lost 13 pounds! However I will say that my cravings are still in place. At the same time I am feeling more acclimated and less hungry, I am starting to think about some of my favorite foods I've not had access to. I'm even starting to make plans in my mind about what I'll eat on April 29th. I think I'm also looking forward to not having to think about what I'm going to cook each day. That's been one of the more stressful parts of this challenge, but at the same time I am enjoying the puzzle of it all-- trying to figure out how to combine the few ingredients I have to keep the variety flowing. Assuming I have time, I am going to do a little more experimenting later this week or over the weekend. I've had a couple of friends email me some great ideas like seasoned roasted potatoes, and vegetable stir fry! Not sure why stir fry had not occurred to me, but definitely looking forward to trying that out!

As for today, I was not all that creative. I had my usual oatmeal in the morning, no tacos, a new soup, and my triple portion pasta (hard to believe it's already been 3 days since I had pasta). For the new soup, I hard-boiled an egg, chopped it up and added it to a soup chock-full of ingredients: Beans & Rice, Ramen Noodles, Potatoes, Carrots, Cabbage and bean broth. It was good, but it's always better when you're able to eat it right after cooking. I made it this morning and reheated it for lunch. Never quite hits the mark that way. I made corn tortilla chips again, but just enjoyed them as a snack separate from the soup. Anyhow, not sure how interesting this photo will be to anyone, but wanted to document it nonetheless:

Prayer focus: Pray today for all of Peace Gospel's native pastors in India. It is not uncommon for an Indian pastor to shepherd 5 or 6 congregations, and for him to reach these locations in remote areas by foot or bicycle. These are some of the hardest working men I've ever met. Pray for their safety, health and strength, and that they will receive supernatural ability to yield fruit in their ministry by means not imaginable.

Estimated Savings for Day 17: Today was kind of back to a normal schedule for me. So if I were not doing this challenge, I would have been back over to my usual once or twice weekly stop at Sri Balaji Bhavan. I would have probably spent about $8. Our internet and phones were down at the office, so I would have taken that as a great opportunity to get some free wifi signal down at Fioza or Starbucks, while enjoying a hot tea for about $1.60. Add this to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've got $15.60 saved for my orphanage donation today. This puts my running total at $261.21, which is almost equivalent to 9 months' wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 16: Souping it Up

2009-04-14T21:57:00.003-05:00

Today was another day toward acclimation that overall went pretty well. I went with oatmeal in the morning again, without a breakfast taco. I enjoyed the pretend fish tacos again for lunch. But then I hit one out of my little ballpark with a new soup. I'm calling it Spicy Bean & Rice Potato Noodle Tortilla Soup. It's very filling and thanks to the chili flavoring from the Hot Chili Ramen, it's got a nice zing to it. I took a corn tortilla, sliced it into strips and baked it until crisp, and topped the soup with that and of course what else but Season-All. Just using my daily ration, it made a hearty portion, so much so that I had a little leftover. Best part, the cost was only 28 cents! Photographed for your unbelieving eyes:

Prayer focus: Pray for India's 10 million blind. They represent over a quarter of the world's total blind. Few have learned the Braille script, nor are there many materials in Braille in Indian languages. Pray for the completion of a Braille Bible and Braille education. At present there are some books of the Bible available in nine languages, but none have the whole Bible.

Estimated Savings for Day 16: Today was a busy day on a "staff development" retreat with my church staff. So this morning I would have likely been in my usual busy routine of getting kids out the door and on my way to the day-long event. I probably would have grabbed breakfast at Chick-fil-a for about $2.99. Lunch was a part of the deal today (but of course I brought my own pretend fish tacos), so I would not have spent any money on lunch. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I come up with $8.99 saved for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now at $245.61.

Day 15: Vegetarian Fish Tacos

2009-04-13T21:55:00.005-05:00

Today was a little more slow-paced so I actually had some time to experiment with some ideas on rearranging my ingredients. Andrea posted a comment about hard boiling eggs for variety. For those of you following this blog, you know I'm a total novice cook, so I had to google how to prepare a hard-boiled egg. Evidently there are a lot of opinions on the matter. I chose one that seemed most logical (#5 on this page), and wound up with great results. Oh, and it was my "bonus egg" day, so I got to enjoy a hard-boiled egg at lunch, and a fried egg at dinner! I skipped oatmeal yesterday, so this morning I was blessed with a double portion of raisins and sunflower seeds. It was approaching muesli status - mouth-watering!

But my big breakthrough is a new creation I'm calling vegetarian fish tacos! I know, it's a long shot, but if you were in my world, you would completely relate. Here's the deal... I was trying to think of a way to freshen up the taco experience. So I laid out all of my ingredients, and it hit me that fish tacos, which I love, include corn tortillas and fresh cabbage as two of their stand-out ingredients. I thought, yesss! I can do that! I boiled chopped potatoes to add to my beans and brown rice, placed the chopped cabbage on top, touched it up with a healthy dose of Season-All, and wha-la, I had vegetarian fish tacos (budget style) on my hands! I just imagined the potatoes as being the fish, and I think I actually tricked my mouth! I had skipped my breakfast taco in light of my oatmeal bliss, so I had an extra corn tortilla available and just went ahead and made two of these new little delicacies. I added the hard-boiled egg with a touch of Season-All, threw in some chilled carrot slices and I had an amazing new experience on my menu. Best part, what you see here cost only 27 cents (and each taco cost only 8 cents)!

Prayer focus: Let's pray today for India's continuing struggle with leprosy. Over 1.5 million Indians suffer from the disease. This represents 63% of the world's total cases of leprosy. I have had the opportunity to meet some of these individuals. It's disheartening to learn that the social effects of the disease are oftentimes more difficult than the physical impact. Pray that they could receive medical treatment and that education on the matter would lead their loved ones to stop the practice of disowning them.

Estimated Savings for Day 15: On Mondays I typically take my 4 year old son out to lunch since he's not in school yet. He likes to come along to get some Indian food with me. I would have probably ordered my usual Madras Thali plate with a cup of chai for about $7.75. I also would have likely been by Fioza for some late afternoon tea at about $2. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm looking at $15.75 saved for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $236.62.

Day 14: Cheating

2009-04-12T23:40:00.007-05:00

If you recall, my specific challenge is to live off of whatever food I could buy for $30, for 30 days. Mind you this does not include any other foods, just the food I bought for $30. Well, today I found it really hard to avoid some cheating. It was Easter Sunday so we made the road trip up to my aunt's house and there was a serious feast going on. At first I did pretty well to stay under the radar and no one noticed I was not eating. Then it was discovered I was not partaking, and I had to go headlong into the 30 day challenge story for everyone, explaining what I've been doing. But my dear aunt would have none of that. She could not stand to have someone in her home not eating on such a day of feasting. So she convinced me to at least have a little sample of some of the foods, and assured me it was valued at less than $1 (apparently she did not get the part about eating only what I bought for the 30 bucks). So, reluctantly, I enjoyed a few bites of some quite delicious morsels. Needless to say my taste buds were on overload and my sensory cortex was doing a dance. Then, on top of that, I went on a date with my wife for our 13th anniversary tonight. She insisted that I at least enjoy the free bread, olive oil and seasonings that they put out on every table, that it would make her feel less guilty about eating in front of me. There again, I gave way and enjoyed a few bites and felt like I had just scored a four-course meal, especially with that olive oil. Although my perfectionist side does feel that I've tainted my 30 day experience, I am glad I got a little "taste" of what it's like to appreciate the smallest pleasures. Pleasures I would have wholeheartedly taken for granted in the past.

More absent-mindedness... I totally forgot to eat my "double portion" of pasta last night, so tonight I had a "triple portion" and it felt like a very solid meal when coupled with the rice, beans and corn tortillas. I think I will actually do this the remainder of my time, as it will add variety, and will also extend the life of my tomato sauce. (I used only 2 teaspoons of sauce for 3 rations of pasta, instead of 1:1). Thought I would include a photo of tonight's meal:

Prayer focus: Pray for India's children. When it comes to children in crisis, no country can rival India's need in terms of sheer numbers. Of India's nearly 400 million under the age of 18, over 70 million are child labourers, 10 million are bonded laborers (a form of slavery to pay off family debts), 13 million are homeless, and 2 million are orphaned street children without any relatives they can turn to. There is widespread child abuse, and there is a deficit of 40 million girls because of female foeticide – over 20,000 ultrasound clinics thrive on this illegal practice. There are an estimated 575,000 child prostitutes and there is a massive trade in Bangladeshi and Nepali girls sold into prostitution. (Data source: Operation World)

Estimated Savings for Day 14: I would have spent at least $2.50 on a snack and a drink on the road trip. With the anniversary date at a nicer restaurant, I would have spent quite a bit on an appetizer, entree, dessert and coffee, probably to the tune of $30. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I wind up with $38.50 saved for my donation to the orphanage today (well over one month's wages among the poor of South Asia). This puts my running total at $220.87.

Day 13: The Incredible, Edible Egg

2009-04-11T23:00:00.003-05:00

I don't have much time to blog today as I've been busy with many family activities, but I wanted to spend a moment on the amazing bounty of the chicken egg. As you might have already noted, I bought my 3 dozen eggs for $0.99/dozen. This puts each egg at a cost of 8.25 cents. Now check out the photo below, and marvel at what just 8.25 cents produces (this is from breakfast, I scrambled the egg and cooked it omelet-style)...

Today went OK... The hardest part is being around feast-like foods... We went over to Brett's parents' home for an Easter egg hunt and tons of food... sitting it out was a challenge. But I just tried to keep focused on serving the kids and making a lot of conversation and that seemed to keep my mind off of the cornucopia. Day 13 is under my belt, 17 to go! I think my stomach is proverbially "shrinking" ... I took less rice and beans tonight. Or, might be burn-out setting in, just diminishing my craving for the same common denominators every night.

Prayer focus: Pray today for the several widows currently enrolled in our widow's seamstress business school. Pray that they would grasp the concepts and feel empowered and equipped to begin their new businesses. Also pray that God would bring them the local respect and the customers they need to get their businesses off the ground successfully.

Estimated Savings for Day 13: Today would not likely have included any eating out, but might have solicited a run to the local coffeehouse, where I would have had some chai for about $2. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've got $8.00 I saved for my donation to the orphanage today. This puts my running total at $182.37 in just 13 days.

Day 12: Feeling Acclimated

2009-04-10T23:38:00.006-05:00

Today was a good day. I feel like I'm really getting acclimated to the routine. Again, it's no cakewalk, but I think the initial shock to the system has worn off. A few rays of optimism hit me today...

One, my 3 lb. head of cabbage just keeps on giving and it still looks huge. Having those big steamed leafy chunks in my stew have been a blessing.

Secondly, my breakfast taco refinements have continued to sustain me to where I don't feel a need to add a serving of oatmeal to the meal, so I'm saving that for snack time, with a full sunflower seed and raisin dosage. It hit me today this means unless I'm really hungry by the end of the day, I overbought on oatmeal and will probably have a few cups left over at the end of the 30 days. So now I'm actually thinking of more things I can do with the oatmeal. If you have any ideas of what I can do with the extra oatmeal, considering my ingredients, let me know. Speaking of what you can do with oatmeal... my 4 year old son is at that stage where he's asking where everything comes from. So I was making him some frito pie today, and he asks "Daddy, where does chili come from?" So I started to tell him about the ingredients, and low and behold, rolled oats are in Wolf-brand chili- who knew? Too bad I don't have anything other than beans and oatmeal to make chili with.

Back to my list of optimistic perspectives... Thirdly, I can see that I've rationed a little too conservative on my raisins and I'm about to have a bonus portion or two in the coming days.

Fourthly, I was at the end of my 4 day ration of brown rice and I had an entire cup left over, so I used that in my stew today, making for an extra-hearty serving. My wife tasted it and testified that it actually does taste good! Here's the photo:

Last but not least, I got to the end of my 6 day ration of pinto beans at dinner time tonight... and something about the consistency of the beans at the bottom of the tub (kind of smashed) creates a delicious buttery taste when put in a corn tortilla with brown rice. Might be just be my imagination, but it really did taste like butter.

I cooked my next 6 days' worth of pinto beans tonight, and again I was amazed at how much those little things expand, check it out, before:

And after, it more than doubles:

Prayer focus: Pray for our dairy farm in India. The farm funds much of the budget of the orphanage there. Whenever we can, we direct our funds first into improving, maintaining or expanding the dairy farm so that our funds are then multiplied by the milk sales. Right now we're a bit behind on where we need to be in expanding the dairy farm, and even hitting some obstacles in some critical supply and equipment needs we have at the farm. Pray for successful fundraising and that those so inclined to give would do so generously and cheerfully.

Estimated Savings for Day 12: Today was a day off around the house, so I don't imagine we would have eaten out. However again I don't know how much of this is because I'm doing so much cooking. So I will at least assume that we might have taken the kids out to lunch just to get them out of the house. In that case we probably would have hit up Chick-fil-a, and I would have enjoyed my usual combo meal for about $5.98. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm looking at $11.98 saved for my orphanage donation today. That puts my running total at $174.37, which is equivalent to about six months' wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 11: Passover Feast

2009-04-09T22:25:00.004-05:00

Today was Passover. So I had a bit of a feast, relatively speaking. I had a double portion of cabbage in my lunchtime stew, which was delicious actually, thanks to that amazing Hot Chili Ramen flavoring. I've stopped chopping up my cabbage, instead I just tear it up into big portions, and that makes a difference in the stew experience, believe it or not. Dinner was amazing, I had my bonus egg and my extra pasta saved from yesterday's abstinence. Here's a photo of dinner (cost: 41 cents):

In keeping with the feast theme, I also added another ingredient to my breakfast taco, right when I thought I had maxed it out. A little brown rice went a long way in adding yet another layer of variety to the breakfast taco standard. So now I've got an egg-rice-bean-and-potato breakfast taco! (It was filling enough that I moved my oatmeal with raisins & sunflower seeds to snack-time, yet another variety enhancer). Here's a photo of the latest breakfast taco creation, still under 20 cents:

Prayer focus: Pray for Fatima and Bhojari, two "ragpickers" featured in this story about life in the New Delhi slums. What's particularly interesting is that the story breaks down Bhojari's food expenses from that day. He made $2 selling items of value he found in the trash. From that, he had to buy food for his family for that day. (Keep in mind this is a Canadian story, so the dollars are Canadian, which are worth about $0.80 US).

Estimated Savings for Day 11: I would have likely eaten out today for lunch, probably at my usual destination when nothing else is going on: Sri Balaji Bhavan. It's hard to even write about it without my mouth watering, but I might have enjoyed some Chola Batura with Puri, and maybe some lemon rice with curd, and of course a cup of their very authentic chai. Would have run me about $8. I might have met a friend at Starbucks where I would usually grab a hot tea of some kind for about $1.60. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I've saved $15.60 for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $162.39.

Day 10: Abstaining

2009-04-08T22:57:00.004-05:00

Today was a day of abstaining from a few things in the hopes that tomorrow will provide a relative feast. It was bonus egg day but I skipped it because I felt like I did not really need it. Also skipped my pasta so I could have another "double portion" tomorrow. Also skipped out on the cabbage in my stew, so I'll have a bit of a heartier lunch tomorrow. I think I'll need the boost tomorrow, as today was a bit of a struggle. I just did not have the time to adjust the standard menu, so it was a pretty ho-hum day on that front. It was also another day of thinking about other foods. The psychological effect is starting to kick in. I am resisting it, but I thought I should record that it is there. There's a real struggle there with thoughts such as "does anyone really care about this?" or "what's the point?" or "man this just stinks, what have I gotten myself into?" but I keep telling myself that I know there's a purpose, and I know this is making a real impact. Even if it's just the spiritual benefits of denying my flesh and being a better steward of my resources to benefit the orphans, it's worth it.

At Peace Gospel we often quote James 1:27 in citing a purpose behind our desire to reach out to orphans and widows. It reads...

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

People tend to quote the first part of that verse because the second part at first glance seems kind of out of place. But the more I think about it, and as I think about it now during this "fast" of sorts, there seems to be a direct correlation there. By keeping ourselves from the pollution of this world (e.g. the deceitfulness of riches and excess) we can better look after orphans and widows in their distress.

Today I don't have any photos of my food, as there was not really anything interesting to capture today. Instead, I'll share with you a photo that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I don't know these kids' names, but their faces are etched in my memory. Their shanty home had just been bulldozed by the police along with scores of other homes in this slum area in Chennai. The space behind them is where their home once stood. The photo speaks for itself...

Prayer focus: Let's just pray for these two little kids in the photo. They are nameless in our minds, but God knows them intimately.

Estimated Savings for Day 10: Today was so busy I probably would have grabbed breakfast and lunch out. Breakfast, probably Starbucks: hot tea and a breakfast sandwich for $3.99. For lunch, something quick like Murphy's Deli. You gotta love their muffalettas. I think a combo meal there costs about $6.99. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I'm at $16.98 saved up for my orphanage donation today. My running total is now up to $146.79 in just 10 days.

Day 9: Pushing the Envelope on the Breakfast Taco

2009-04-07T21:53:00.003-05:00

I added about an ounce of potatoes to my breakfast taco this morning, at cost of only 3 cents, giving my new breakfast taco a price tag of 18 cents. Since I already cook my lunch in the morning most weekdays, I already had the potatoes ready for the Ramen Noodle Stew, so I just borrowed half the amount from there for the taco. You wouldn't think it would make that much of a difference, but again, it's amazing what changing up one ounce of your meal can do when you're on this kind of regimen. The flavor impact was substantial, and that's what I'm craving these days-- flavors that take me away from the common denominators of my ingredients: rice, beans, oatmeal. I took a photo to capture the moment:

Yesterday, in search of ways to mix things up, I skipped my 1/3 cup of pasta knowing that I would enjoy the bonus of a 2/3 cup serving tonight. And I was right. Again, it was nice to have a separate side dish to dinner that was substantial. I also got two teaspoons of tomato sauce with the double portion of pasta. Topped off with a few dashes from my $0.99 Season-All, it hit the spot. I am a bit worried, though, as my 8 oz. can of tomato sauce is already about half empty on day 9. Might be having some dry pasta by day 20. Cost of my double-portion dish of pasta: 11 cents. With my pinto beans, brown rice and two corn tortillas at 22 cents, dinner came out to a total of 33 cents.

Prayer focus: Pray for Christians in the Orissa State of India. In August 2008, widespread and unprecedented mob violence against Christians erupted in Orissa state following the assassination of World Hindu Council (VHP) leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. Although Maoists claimed responsibility for the leader’s murder, Hindu militants continued to use it as a pretext to attack Christians throughout the state, burning Christians’ homes, shops, churches and killing believers. Militants throughout the country were emboldened by the violence and launched attacks on believers in over 12 states. Thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes for government relief camps, where militants used violence and intimidation in an attempt to force them to deny Christ and convert to Hinduism. (details provided by persecution.net)

Estimated Savings for Day 9: Today I likely would have eaten lunch out with my fellow staff members at my church. We tend to frequent a place called Terlingua's on Bellaire Blvd. Their lunch menu is not exactly budget oriented, so with tip I likely would have spent about $10. Add to that a likely stop at either Fioza or Starbucks for a hot tea, and I add another $1.60. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I come up with $17.60 saved toward my growing donation to the orphanage. My running total is now at $129.81 in just 9 days. This represents more than 4 months' wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 8: Them Belly Full but We Hungry

2009-04-06T21:41:00.005-05:00

Tonight I've got an old Bob Marley tune in my head, Them Belly Full but We Hungry. The morning started out great with a new breakfast taco recipe I threw together, but as the day moved along, things got a little harder. It started with the stew. With my $30, I bought a few different Ramen flavors, thinking the variety would be a good idea. Not so much. The chicken flavor is just not that great with my ingredients. It was pretty bland. But I love the hot chili flavor, so I took my chicken and beef flavors back to H.E.B. today and exchanged them for the hot chili flavor. Even 1/3 of the little flavoring pack gets my sinuses cleared. Amazing, you can really feel it. And I really missed it when I switched over to the chicken flavor. Then I guess cooking for my kids was a bit of a challenge tonight. The chips and salsa they were gorging on was really tough to get my mind off of. They also got flour tortillas and queso, man it looked delicious. But I did skip my corn tortilla at lunch so I could have two at dinner time, and that was nice. Day 8 I think will mark the day where I really started craving other foods. But overall things are going well. I'm 26.6% of the way done! 8 down, 22 to go! Here's a photo of my new breakfast taco. I borrowed some pinto beans from dinner to make a bean & scrambled egg taco, topped of course with what else but some mouth-watering Season-All. It was a very welcome change-up to my morning menu from the past few days. Best part about it... cost: 15 cents.

Prayer focus: Pray today for Pastor Samson's wife, Prabhukumari. Her father just passed away a few days back and she is having a rough time with the loss. Pastor Samson is our India Director. His wife Prabhukumari serves in the ministry so selflessly and tirelessly. She is a mother to many and a strong pillar at our India orphanage. The orphans love her and call her the equivalent of "mommy." So in a sense, our orphans have lost their grandfather (he frequently visited the orphanage) and are of course sad about this. Pray for all of them.

Estimated Savings for Day 8: On Mondays I usually take one of our younger kids to Chick-fil-a for lunch. It did not happen today but I think it was because I needed to be home to cook my lunch. I would have enjoyed my usual combo meal there for about $5.98. I also might have stopped by the neighborhood coffeehouse, Fioza, where I would have purchased a hot cup of chai tea and one of their homemade raisin cinnamon scones (which are out of this world) for about $4 total. Add in my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual food cost, and I end up with $15.98 saved for my rapidly-accumulating donation to the orphanage today. My running total is now at $112.21 in just 8 days.

Day 7: Midnight Snack!

2009-04-05T23:02:00.003-05:00

Today was somewhat uneventful on the food rearrangement front, however I did just enjoy a midnight snack of sorts! I skipped my afternoon oatmeal snack and instead opted for having it just before writing this blog entry. It's gotten a bit cold all of the sudden, so it was kind of nice to have a bowl of something warm. It's really amazing to me what you come to appreciate when you have so little to work with. For those of you who've been following along, you know that I only have 24 oz. of raisins to work with over my 30 days. Did you know that there are 29 grams of sugar in just 1/4 cup of raisins? Man those suckers pack a sweet punch! Especially when that's the only sweet thing on your menu! So I've come to appreciate every little raisin in my oatmeal, and odd as it may sound to you who can't appreciate it, I've found myself developing a habit of trying to make sure each bite I take contains only one raisin, so as to not rob the other bites their due pleasure. I'm including a photo of my warm bowl of raisin and oatmeal bliss in the hopes that you might catch a shadowy glimpse of my new appreciation...

Prayer focus: Pray for Peace Gospel's fundraising efforts for our new project in Nepal. We recently partnerned with an indigenous Nepalese church to launch a new orphanage and its supporting goat farm. Phase One of the orphanage has already been completed and we've been able to take in a handful of orphans. However we still have a lot of work to do, and the funds for the goat farm have yet to be raised.

Estimated Savings for Day 7: Sundays are usually pretty low-key for us. Twice a month we might eat out, but today we went to my in-laws' and they usually treat us to a wonderful lunch. So, no cost savings from that. Can't really think of what other food or drinks I would have spent money on today, so I'm just going to leave it at my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7. Subtract my actual cost of $1 today, and I've saved $6 for the orphanage today. My running total of money I've saved to give to our India orphanage is now at $96.23 in just 7 days.

Day 6: Weight Loss Sets In

2009-04-04T23:03:00.003-05:00

Here I am at the end of day 6, also at the end of my first of 5 rations of cooked pinto beans. Today I learned that another miscalculation wound up in my favor. I had mis-measured the original quantity of beans, and so now on the next 4 rations I will get an additional 1/2 cup of dry beans for each ration, which comes to about an extra 1 & 1/3 cups of cooked beans per 6 days (I've discovered you get about 2.75 cups of cooked pinto beans for every 1 cup uncooked).

On the health front, I was surprised by an unintended side-effect of the challenge: weight loss. I guess I knew I might lose a few pounds, but not so fast. As of this morning, I've lost 6 pounds. Kind of a nice bonus, as I could stand to loose a few pounds. I feel like I've cleared the initial hurdle of the shock to the system. The headaches are completely gone and I'm getting used to the hunger pangs I start feeling about an hour or two before meals. There was also a bit of irritability going on for the first few days, and that's now gone-- I'm in a pretty good mood. One thing that remains is the fatigue and with that, a bit of absent-mindedness as I recorded earlier. I think it has to do with the fact that I've probably cut my caloric intake by about 50%, but I'm not exactly certain of that stat. I hope to find time in the next few days to do the math and really figure out how many calories I'm consuming per day with the food I have.

I thought I would include a photo of the ingredients of my Ramen Noodle Stew. I must say, it looks quite healthy, doesn't it? Thanks to the seasoning, it's quite tasty as well. Here's the list:

1/3 ramen noodle block
2.6 oz. potatoes
1 oz. carrots
1 oz. cabbage
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
3/4 cup pinto bean stock
4-5 dashes of Season All
1/3 ramen seasoning pack

Prayer focus: Pray again for the Indian government leaders today, that they may be more committed to tackle the serious problems of their society -- in a culture of corruption at many levels of government, that they may find ways to free up the economy to reduce poverty, improve the national infrastructure, deal with the widespread use of child labor, female infanticide, the rapid spread of AIDS and overwhelming stress on the environment.

Estimated Savings for Day 6: Today we took a family road trip. As is almost tradition with any Trapolino family road trip, we typically stop at Starbucks on the way out. I probably would have topped off my trusty tumbler with a hot black tea & a splash of half and half, at about a $1.60. On the way back into town, we stopped at an old favorite restaurant of ours, Taj India on Highway 6. They have one of the more affordable Indian buffets in town, at $7.95. I abstained of course, and just tried to busy myself with helping the kids and the time passed without me thinking too much about what I was missing out on. Add in my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract today's actual cost of $1, and I came up with $15.55 saved for the orphanage today. My running total is now at $90.23 in just 6 days, about equal to 3 month's wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 5: Bonus Egg Day

2009-04-03T22:22:00.003-05:00

Day 5 was an eventful day in my little eating world. Dinner turned out to be a relative feast because of two things. One, I did not have time to cook rice for the stew today, so I got to move that half-cup of brown rice to dinner. Secondly, due to the fact that I started with 36 eggs, I get to have a "bonus egg" every fifth day! So tonight I had a "rice, egg and beans" taco. It was delicious! Having that kind of variety on my 5th dinner was equivalent to a steak dinner at Taste of Texas. I know I'll read this some day and be like huh? But anyway that's the way I feel about it today. It hit me on my way home that it was Bonus Egg Day, and I started getting excited. Crazy what a little variety will do for one's psyche when found in a mundane routine. I was in such a hurry to eat it that the thought of taking a photo of the special dish did not even cross my mind. Maybe I'll remember on day 10. Already looking forward to that. I have another "bonus day" up my sleeve I'll let you know about later. Can you guess what it is?

Prayer focus: Pray for the believers who gather at the Bethel House of Prayer in Chennai. This is a tiny little shack of a church right in the middle of a large slum area. Below is one photo from this area, but you can find a link to more of them under my links list at right.

Estimated Savings for Day 5: I definitely would have been back at Sri Balaji Bhavan today, probably for some of their amazing samosas, a serving of lemon rice, and a cup of the most authentic chai you will ever taste in Houston. This would have run me about $8. Add in my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract today's actual cost of $1, and I've come up with $14 saved for the orphanage today. My running total is now at $74.68 in just 5 days.

Day 4: Absent Minded, but Thankful

2009-04-02T23:01:00.005-05:00

Today I really started to notice something going on with my brain -- I've heard the term "not getting enough brain food"-- now I understand. I left my planner at the office this evening. For those of you who know me, I take that thing everywhere, never let it leave my sight kind of a thing. Then I was supposed to pick up my son from his Speech Meet practice after school. I got home and Brett was like "Where's Noah?" I'm like "what?" Enough said. It was a challenging day.

However, on the food front, today was a bonus day of sorts. On day 1, I cooked enough brown rice for 4 days. I had measured it out so that I had an estimated 1.5 cups (cooked) for each of those 4 days. Well tonight I got to dinner time and there was almost 2 cups, and I had already used a half cup in my stew at lunch! The revelation stage is really starting to hit me at this point, folks. If I can eat this much food (granted the lack of variety) just imagine what I could do with $60!

Another thing I've noticed is what a difference it's making to have just a tiny slice of lemon in my water bottle all day. When I get to the bottom of the bottle, the lemon juice is concentrated down there, and it's like a little dessert or something. I never thought I would appreciate a little lemon juice so much! I'm starting to appreciate smaller blessings previously unnoticed!

Prayer focus: Pray again today for the Indian government leaders, that they would resist growing pressures to pass discriminatory 'anti-conversion' laws, legalize and favor extremist Hindu organizations, restrict foreign funds and buildings for minorities, and limit press freedoms for those who protest.

Estimated Savings for Day 4: It's kind of funny trying to think of what "normal" food I would have bought today. All sorts of cravings start coming to mind. But I do love a quick run to Chick-fil-a for lunch, so let's just say I might have grabbed a chicken sandwich combo, on a golden wheat bun with extra pickles (yes!), I think that would probably run me about $5.98. I might have met a friend at Starbucks, where I usually get a tall hot green tea for about $1.60. Add in my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract today's actual cost of $1, and I'm looking at $13.58 saved for my donation to the orphanage today.

My running total of estimated funds saved from my first 4 days is at $60.68, about two months' wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 3: Spreading Out the Calories

2009-04-01T22:01:00.010-05:00

Day 3... 10% of the challenge completed! Today I tried borrowing from my "rich" meals to give to my "poor" meal and to create a snack time; a redistribution of wealth, of sorts. I took half a cup of cooked brown rice from my dinner and added it to my lunchtime stew. I took half of the oatmeal & raisins amount away from breakfast and prepared that as a snack at 3 pm. Although I'm still hungry at times during the day, I thought this worked out really well to sort of spread the calories more evenly throughout the day. My headaches were diminished, and my intestinal turbulence seemed to be on the mend. However the vegetable oil spread I'm using to fatten up breakfast is still a problem, I think. I tried reducing it from a tablespoon to half a tablespoon, but it still left that sticky oily flavor in my mouth. It's the kind of oily feeling you get when you eat too much movie popcorn (does anyone else have a clue what I'm talking about?) I think it's the trans fats in the spread. Mind you this is not margarine, but like a cooking spread. I got it because it was less than half the cost of the margarine sticks, and real butter was way out of my budget. I think I might try cooking a smaller sliver of it into the fried egg tomorrow morning, and not using it in the oatmeal (I've been doing both). At this point though, I have to say I might have been better served in using that $0.59 for two more tomato sauce cans at Fiesta. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

I had said I would post my receipts when I could find some time. However I lost my receipt from Dynasty, where I purchased the carrots and cabbage, so you'll just have to trust me on that one. Also to note here, when I got to the register, I realized I had gone slightly over on the sunflower seeds (by $0.02) and also a tad bit over on the pinto beans (by $0.05). It was hard to read fractions of ounces on the analog scale! Here you go:

Parenthetical... Rewind back to the eve of Day 1... Sunday night I went to one of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants (Mai's on Milam) for my last meal before the challenge. My fortune cookie had the message "Your contribution is significant." What a great message! For all of us!

Prayer focus: Pray for the government leaders of India, that they might have a stronger desire to enforce their constitution by maintaining religious freedoms and protecting religious and ethnic minorities. Some state governments within India have demonstrated a pretty bad record on abuse of human rights and flagrant discrimination against Christians and Dalits ("Untouchables").

Estimated Savings for Day 3: With 6 kids, sometimes it's hard to prepare breakfast for yourself, let alone your kids. Sometimes I crater to the temptation of convenience by grabbing breakfast on the go. I might have stopped at Chick-fil-a today to indulge on a chicken biscuit with hash browns, at a price of about $2.50. I would likely have been back to Sri Balaji Bhavan, the best restaurant in the city, for my usual $7.75 purchase. Add in my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's actual cost, and I end up with $16.25 saved to donate to the orphanage. My running total is now at $47.10.

Day 2: Reality Settles In

2009-03-31T19:14:00.001-05:00

Day 2 brings on the reality of the fact that I've got 28 days to go with day 2 being no cake-walk. I did not have much time to experiment with rearranging the $30 worth of ingredients, so it was the same menu, round 2. The morning was a frenzy trying to cook two meals and help get kids out the door. But I made it. Definitely starting to feel some of the physiological effects of making such a drastic diet change. The stomach is churning a bit, similar to the effect of traveling to a different culture and adjusting to new foods. Getting some headaches, probably from the caffeine withdrawal? I stopped drinking coffee about 6 months ago, but I still enjoy black and green teas 2 or 3 times a day, so there's some degree of caffeine I'm coming off of. Another challenge is that the stew is not really carrying me to dinner time. I'm considering some kind of shift in strategy involving taking half of the oatmeal & raisins serving from the morning and moving it to an afternoon snack time. I'm looking into baked oatmeal recipes, but I don't think I'll have enough of the ingredients. Breakfast is definitely leaving me feeling a little heavy or bloated, or something. It may be due to the fact that the Vegetable Oil Spread has a bit of trans fats, so I'm considering cutting the tablespoon into a half tablespoon. When I got home this afternoon I was exhausted and crashed for about an hour. Then my hunger motivated me to get up and get the beans, rice and pasta going. It never tasted better.

I didn't have time to take a photo of breakfast yesterday, but managed to grab a shot today, so here's breakfast from this morning, it's the same as yesterday. Like I said, not bad but too much oatmeal for one sitting. The egg/tortilla/season-all is delicious.

Cost analysis. I thought it might be interesting to look at what each meal is costing me.

Breakfast:

Egg & Corn Tortilla with seasoning: 11.5 cents

Oatmeal with raisins and sunflower seeds: 25.2 cents

Lunch:

Stew: 1/3 Ramen, Potatoes, Carrots, Cabbage: 17.7 cents

Corn Tortilla: 2.2 cents

Dinner:

Rice & Beans with Corn Tortilla: 28 cents

1/3 cup Pasta with teaspoon of tomato sauce: 5.6 cents

The other 9.8 cents (+/-) goes to lemon for my water, seasoning, vegetable oil spread, etc.

Prayer Focus: Pray for Venkatesh, a young boy we brought into Peace Gospel's India orphanage. His parents were lost to AIDS and he was surviving day to day on the streets. There are many others like him. Pray that funding would become available to sponsor more of them.

Estimated Savings for day 2: I'm on staff at my local church, and on Tuesdays we typically eat out together in between our staff meetings. One of our usual destinations is Berryhill Tacos. I would probably get a tamale plate and a Dr. Pepper, for about $9.50. Add that to my normal estimated daily grocery cost of $7, subtract $1 for today's cost, and I total out at $15.50 saved for the orphanage today. My running total is now $30.85, which, in just two days, is already over an average month's wages among the poor of South Asia.

Day 1: Unexpected Bounty

2009-03-30T21:54:00.006-05:00

Well, I survived Day 1, and with a few surprises to say the least. Weights and measures in the US Customary System have never really come intuitively to me. The whole fluid ounces vs. non-fluid ounces has thrown me off. For example, a cup is 8 ounces, but only in fluid terms. But it makes sense now that I've had to deal with it in a real life scenario (I've already told you I'm a total novice cook). So my point is, I had been making some of my calculations based on how many cups X ounces would produce. Well, fortunately for me (and for those of you who might be inclined to take the challenge with me) this turns out to my advantage. For example, I was thinking I would only get a small amount of oatmeal each morning (2.8 oz - which I erroneously was thinking would be a little less than half a cup). It turns out I actually get an entire measuring cup of oats per day, which turns out to produce over two cups of oatmeal after cooking. This also has played out to a bountiful yield on my brown rice and pinto beans, of which I prepared bulk batches today. Here's what I ended up with today:

Breakfast:

Two "servings" of oatmeal (1 cup produced about 2 cups cooked) with 1/8th cup of raisins, 1 teaspoon of sunflower seeds, and 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil spread. (To my joy, it turned out that my 1/3rd lb. of sunflower seeds measured out to exactly 30 teaspoons). I'm used to sweetening my oatmeal so it was a different experience but one I think I can grow to enjoy. Definitely filling.
Over-easy fried egg on top of a toasted corn tortilla, topped with 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil spread, seasoned with a few dashes of Season All. Delicious!

Lunch:

1 generous bowl of Ramen Noodle Stew. I was pleased to discover that you can quite easily cut a Ramen noodle brick into thirds with a sharp knife. I'll post the exact recipe later, but suffice to say I used about 1/4th of a medium sized potato, chopped up along with 1/6th of a large carrot, one leaf of cabbage, the 1/3rd of the ramen noodles, the 1/3rd of the ramen seasoning, and a few dashes of, you guessed it, Season All. The real bonus hit me when I was looking over at my pinto beans in the crock pot to see how they were coming along for dinner. It hit me that there had to be some kind of nutritional value in the "stock" the simmering beans were producing. Sure enough, there was plenty there, and I added a couple of cups of this to the stew, making it much more stout than I had anticipated. This really turned out a lot tastier than I had expected. Left me feeling a little hungry but nonetheless satisfied with the quantity and the taste.
Of course, I enjoyed one of my 3 daily corn tortillas with the meal.

Dinner:

1.5 cups cooked brown rice seasoned with Season All.
1 cup cooked pinto beans, seasoned with Season All.
1 cup cooked pasta shells with one teaspoon tomato sauce.
Made a delicious beans and rice taco with the corn tortilla, and had plenty of beans and rice left over to enjoy once that was consumed.

Interesting yield notes:

2 cups of brown rice yielded 6 cups cooked (made enough for the next 4 days).
2.5 cups of pinto beans yielded 6 cups cooked (made enough for the next 6 days).

Prayer focus for day 1: Pray general blessings over our native teams in India, Myanmar and Nepal. Pray for provision for their work that they might be well equipped to reach and serve those in need both spiritually and physically. Pray for their protection from those who wish them harm.

Estimated Savings for day 1: Today I probably would have eaten out at my favorite Indian Restaurant for lunch: Sri Balaji Bhavan, which would have cost me about $7.75. I might have purchased a tall hot tea at Starbucks at about $1.60. Note: Each day I will add what I'll call my estimated normal daily grocery cost, which I am estimating to be about $7/day. To be honest this is a guess, so please drop a comment if you think I'm too low or too high. So for today, after subtracting the $1 spent, it totals out to $15.35 saved for the orphanage.

Late-breaking price changes: good and bad

2009-03-29T22:14:00.004-05:00

Shopping report: first, the bad news:

5 lb. bag of potatoes at Fiesta went up $0.20 to $1.99
1 lb. bag of lentils went up $0.49 to $0.99/lb. - forcing me to cross it off the list

But the good news was:

Pinto beans went down $0.04/lb. from $0.63 to $0.59, making them comparable to the previous price on lentils.
Found a sale on generic oatmeal at H.E.B. - $2.29 for 42 oz. compared to $2.74 at Walmart - since I was buying 2, I saved $0.90, helping me recover from the above losses!

I've updated the Google Spreadsheet to reflect the final accounting.

Here's a photo of everything I purchased for the $30 (click to enlarge). Maybe tomorrow I will post the photos of the receipts if I have time!

Shopping Day, Other $30 Challenges, Rules, Prayer Aspect

2009-03-28T19:35:00.005-05:00

Well the big day is here-- the eve of "Day One"-- time to do the majority of the shopping... about to head out this afternoon. I was able to go ahead and grab my Chinatown purchases yesterday. I found locally-produced eggs for $0.99/dozen at Hong Kong Food Market! I also went ahead and purchased the carrots and cabbage at Dynasty, which still had the least expensive costs on those two items by a long shot. I've made a few more adjustments to the Google Spreadsheet if you want to check it out. Major adjustment: When I had checked the oatmeal price at Walmart, they had the 42 oz. box in the wrong place, so I misread the price. Talk about a bummer. I was really basing a lot of my budget around the fact that I was going to get 42 oz. for $1.74. So I had to switch to generic which is still $2.74, and had to drop a few packs of ramen and do some other tweaking. But it's really OK because I decided that ramen was probably not something I'd want to weigh down my diet with anyway, for health concerns.

Other $30 challenges out there. A few of you have brought to my attention other $30 challenges out there, or $1/day challenges. For the record, I was aware of one sociology experiment done in this context, but have been intrigued to learn of other "challenge" type sites out there. Thanks for pointing those out, Lance and Howard. This guy tried to buy his food each day instead of one bulk run, putting a different twist on the idea. On his site he links to a handful of other similar blogs of people giving it a try for various reasons. There was also a couple who took their twist on the $30 "diet" challenge together, which I had heard of (and subsequently received inspiration from) but did not know the extent of their fame. From the links my friend Lance sent me, I learned that they were featured in the New York Times, and that they've even gotten a book deal out of their little experiment. Crazy!

Rules of the Challenge. For the curious, I thought I would lay down some ground rules. Although the real heart of my particular challenge is to save money and donate it to the Peace Gospel Orphanage in India, there is still an aspect to my challenge involving fasting to foster a stronger heart of compassion for the poor. My thought is that as I have to make the hard choices of what to eat with such little resources, I will be forced to think of what the destitute have to face on a constant basis. Thus in my particular challenge, I will not be accepting any food people may want to offer me. In short, what I buy with my $30 is all that I will eat during this 30 day period.

Prayer. As with any fast, there is also an aspect of prayer involved in my challenge. Thus each day I will be choosing a specific prayer focus related to our work with Peace Gospel International. My hope is that I'll be able to make a post per day during the 30 days. Each day I will post the prayer concern so that you might share with me in that prayer focus.

Further comments on the sample menu in my March 21 post. After consulting with my wife on this (I'm not much of a cook), she gave me some ideas that will allow me to find a little more variety in working with the ingredients I'll have. So, the sample menu will indeed be just that, a sample of what may be. I'm a bit relieved at this honestly, as I really was not looking forward to eating the same exact thing every day for 30 days. I'll try to spare you of every detail, but I will try to post some record of what I'm actually doing with the ingredients as I go along through the 30 days.

Ok, well I'm off to the shopping, and then tomorrow starts the big "Day One."

Thank you, Chinatown

2009-03-24T09:45:00.004-05:00

Just a quick update to let you know I managed an extra pound of carrots and and extra quarter-pound of cabbage (for the same amount of money), thanks to a store called Dynasty Supermarket in Chinatown. Carrots are $0.39/lb. and cabbage only $0.25/lb. Amazing. I've been told I need to check out another store down that way called Hong Kong Supermarket. Not sure if I'll have time as it is a bit of a drive for me. Thanks to my friend Judy Ho for the tip on trying Chinatown! Check out my updated Google Spreadsheet.

Thoughts on Rice; Revised Sample Menu

2009-03-21T23:02:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I had to pick up some dinner items to prepare a meal with the family, so I stopped in at a Foodarama on the way home. While there, I was able to check a few prices. With a name like Foodarama, one might think it would be a deep discount store, but they didn't have anything on Fiesta, nor H.E.B. Then today I was making my usual monthly run to Sam's Club for some family needs, and was curious if they might be able to help me refine my list. There were a few things that beat my per-ounce or per-pound prices-to-beat (pinto beans at $0.58/lb. for example), but the quantities were just too huge. So, at this point I can say with confidence that my list is as good as it's going to get.

A correction on my previous post. I had erroneously stated that brown rice is $4.26 for 4 lbs. when in fact it is $4.26 for 6 lbs. The best deal I've been able to find on white rice is about $0.51/lb. whereas brown rice is $0.71/lb. So I would save $1.20 by going with white rice, assuming I can get it the right quantity bag. However the health benefits of brown rice are strong enough to make me want to forgo the savings at this point. Although $1.20 is 4% of my budget, so I'm still mulling it over.

Interesting to note. 6 lbs. of rice is only 12 cups, which produces only 24 cups of cooked rice. So I will only be able to have a 3/4 cup of rice each day. But I think that will work out alright for my rice & beans tacos.

With the savings outlined in my previous post, I think I will post a new sample menu for what I anticipate to be a typical day.

Breakfast

1 fried egg in a corn tortilla (you could call it a "lite" breakfast taco), seasoned with Season All
1 small (9 oz.) bowl of oatmeal with 3/4 oz. raisins, sprinkle of sunflower seeds, 1 tablespoon of vegetable spread
plenty of tap water

Lunch

something I'm calling Ramen Noodle Stew: consisting of 3/4 pack of ramen (since I'll only have 20 packs) with 2.6 oz. potatoes, 1 oz. carrot, and 1.5 oz. cabbage (not sure yet how I'm going to divide up the 20 packs into 30 portions, but I'll figure something out)
1 lightly toasted dry corn tortilla
tap water with a very thin slice of lemon

Dinner

brown rice & beans taco: small serving of brown rice and pinto beans in a corn tortilla, seasoned with a dash or two of Season All
1/4 to 1/2 cup side of pasta with 2 teaspoons plain tomato sauce
alternate: brown rice & lentils taco
tap water

Although it's not the most appealing menu, especially due to the lack of variety, I hope you're starting to see that it's not that impossible to eat pretty well off of $30. You're hopefully starting to think, I just might be able to do this, especially if it means saving up a lot of money for the orphans. Maybe you're also starting to think like me... eating this way for 30 days will not only enable me to give more generously, it will increase my burden for the poor and what they have to endure as a constant reality.

For those of you following it, I've made a few adjustments to my Google Spreadsheet. You can check it out by clicking here.

Thanks to H.E.B. I'll be eating a bit more...

2009-03-19T18:01:00.005-05:00

I was pleasantly surprised by H.E.B.'s prices today. Just when I thought I had found the rock bottom prices at Fiesta, sha-bang, H.E.B. came out of nowhere with some pretty amazing prices:

I'll be able to save:

- $0.64 on my 3 dozen eggs.

- $0.40 on corn tortillas, while adding 18 more tortillas (90-count!)

- $0.05 on each Ramen pack, allowing me to add 5 more packs!

I'll be able to add:

- 1 lb. of vegetable oil spread sticks to fatten up the oatmeal for only $0.59!

Check out my updated Google Spreadsheet to get the details.

Their sign says "Small Store, Big Savings" ... true in my case. One thing to debate. I can get an entire additional pound of rice if I go with their deal on white rice - $2.59 for a 5 lb. bag. Up until now I've been thinking brown rice (4 lbs. at $4.26 - Walmart) for the nutritional benefits. But if I can shave off $1.67 and add a pound of food, that's tempting. Just think of what I could do with $1.67! I could get another 5 lbs. of potatoes at Fiesta! Crazy!

Just 10 days to go before I start on the 30th. Tomorrow or over the weekend I might blog on what I've been thinking and praying about as I approach the challenge. It's really started to hit me, this is not going to be easy. Thanks for checking in!

Fiesta! and... a Google Spreadsheet

2009-03-17T16:26:00.005-05:00

Had a chance to visit a local discount store here in Houston appropriately named Fiesta. It's a very festive place! I was pretty amazed by their prices. I've managed to squeeze in the following, with the same money:

- 6 more eggs

- 28% more potatoes ($0.36/lb. vs $0.50/lb)

- 25% more lentils ($0.50/lb. vs. $0.67/lb)

- 25% more pinto beans ($0.63/lb. vs. $0.84/lb)

- 12 more corn tortillas (some days I'll get 3!)

- 2 additional ounces of seasoning (thank you, Lord!)

- 9 additional ounces of raisins (yummier oatmeal)

- 1 lemon (high in vitamin C)

- 1 8-oz. can tomato paste (to season up the stew, or for making light pasta sauce)

Walmart still wins on brown rice and oatmeal. Randall's still wins on cabbage at $0.29/lb. I will try HEB tomorrow but I can't imagine them beating Fiesta's prices.

I've set up a Google Spreadsheet to share with you how I'm calculating things. Click here to view it.

More to follow...

Getting a feel for what $30 can buy

2009-03-16T23:43:00.009-05:00

Today I had a bit of time to price out a few items at 3 different grocery stores. I started at our local Walmart. I discovered some really economical items I will likely use on my 30 day menu. Some good prospects were:

2 lbs. of Carrots: $1.34
Red Potatoes: $0.50/lb. (about $0.25 each - score!)
Bulk Pinto Beans: $0.84/lb.
2.5 dozen eggs: $3.35 (about $0.11/egg)
Adolphus Brown Rice (2 lb. bag): $1.42
"Great Value" Lentils (1 lb. bag): $0.67
Guerrero Corn Tortillas (60 count bag): $2.34
Quaker Old Fashioned Oats (42 oz.): $1.74

I love potatoes, so I was pretty encouraged on the red potatoes being only $0.50/lb. My friend Angela told me that I would be better off eating brown rice, as my blood sugar would not crash as fast as when eating white rice. So I was pleased to see that brown rice is relatively affordable. But I might need 2 - 3 bags, so it is getting up there. Corn tortillas will be great in soup, or with eggs for a small egg taco.

Then I checked out Whole Foods Market for their self-serve bulk spice bins, to see what kind of price range I would be looking at to get a few tablespoons of seasoning. I was surprised to see most of their spices up in the $1/oz. range, but I did find Cayenne powder for $0.50/oz. One ounce is 2 tablespoons so I'll have to decide if $1 to $2 worth of spices is going to make a difference. I guess a dash of seasoning is better than nothing. I think I'll also scope out Fiesta tomorrow to see if they offer self-serve bulk spices. Prices at Whole Foods on most everything else were out of my budget, except maybe for the bulk sunflower seeds at $2.69/lb. but even that seems pretty high. But I wold like to have some kind of nuts on hand to add to my oatmeal, so maybe a quarter-lb. of sunflower seeds would be doable.

I had an errand to run at the Randall's customer service desk, so I had a chance to check out some of their prices as well. I didn't have time to check these products at Walmart, and I'm thinking they might be cheaper there. But I think this is probably a good indication of what I will be paying for these types of items:

Ramen Noodle Soup 6-packs: $1.50 ($0.25 each)
- There's bound to be a better price on this somewhere
Generic Raisins (15 oz. can): $2.49
Cabbage: $0.29/lb. (1 cabbage comes to about $0.79 - nice!)
Generic Macaroni Pasta (2 lb. bag): $1.79

I know there's something I'm not thinking of at this point, but this is what came to mind today. Still have 13 days before I begin, so I'm sure this will continue to evolve. But if I had to choose based off of what I found today, after doing some calculations, here's what I'm probably looking at:

Breakfast:
Half bowl of oatmeal with a dash of raisins and sunflower seeds.
1 scrambled egg in a corn tortilla
Lunch:
Potato, Carrot & Cabbage Ramen Noodle Stew - Half Bowl
(half carrot & half small potato, 1.5 oz. cabbage, half of a ramen pack)
Dinner:
Half serving of Macaroni, Rice & Beans Taco in a corn tortilla
(alternate between lentils and beans)

There you have it.

Just the Food, Folks

2009-03-14T10:15:00.002-05:00

I've received a few questions about what I mean exactly by "living off of" $30 for 30 days. In my case, I am just talking about food. With the challenges of getting kids to school and work responsibilities, etc. I decided it would not be practical to include transportation, electricity, etc. But who knows, you might feel called to up the ante in your own challenge. You could ride your bike to work, go off the grid for 30 days, or include toiletries in your $30 limit. I'm sure there are all kinds of variations you could think of to make it more challenging. Go for it.

Getting Started / Why I'm Doing This

2009-03-14T00:51:00.005-05:00

Well, here we go. I've been contemplating this for awhile now. I’ve traveled to South Asia extensively for the past 16 years. I often tell friends about the staggering statistics of poverty in that part of the world. But just a few weeks ago I was walking in the slums of Chennai, India and it just really hit me, I will be getting on a plane and flying out of here in a few days, but for them, this is their constant reality. I took some photos in those slum colonies, you're welcome to view them here. While I was in India, there was a lot of talk about the movie Slumdog Millionaire. So as you can imagine, as I travel to South Asia frequently, a lot of people were asking me if I had seen the film. So I had to go see it just to get an idea of what the big deal was. I was blown away. It really hit the nail on the head, and really brought so much attention to the poverty crisis of South Asia, right into the heart of mainstream Western culture. Wow. I connected with the film on so many levels and had a very emotional response in my spirit. With all of the thoughts of the Chennai slums still fresh in mind, the film just kind of solidified everything and I walked out of the theater thinking, ok that's it, I'm going for it, whatever it takes. So here I am blogging, in the hopes that it will bring more awareness and maybe even raise a little money for our orphanage, maybe it will help them rescue just one more orphan off the streets. Maybe the handful of you who will actually read this will somehow by the grace of God be motivated to join me in my quest here. Maybe you'll accept the challenge. Maybe you'll offer me ideas or encouragement along the way. Whatever the case may be, thanks for checking in.

So what's the plan, you might be wondering. Well, I am speaking at Taylor University's Social Justice Week on April 29th. So I thought it might be nice to have completed the 30 days just before the event, so I will start the my 30 day adventure on March 30th.

This gives me about 2 weeks to figure out what in the world I can buy for $30 that will sustain me for 30 days. So far I've thought of beans, rice, oatmeal, eggs, tortillas, raisins, and maybe a small jar of peanut butter. Just brainstorming at this point. Please post comments with ideas on what I should buy, recipes, or any other advice you might have for me. Or maybe you'd like to join me, that would be huge.