Essentials

$4 – 1 Gal. of Milk (purchased as two half gallons in weeks 1 and 3)
$1 – One Dozen Eggs
$6 – Two big boxes of off-brand cereal. (Covers Breakfasts)
$4 – Two packages of frozen burritos (makes 6-12 meals)
$2 – Two boxes of Mac n’ Cheese (makes 4-6 meals)
$3 – One box of Hamburger Helper Complete Meal (makes 4-6 meals)
$4 – Two 12-packs of Maruchan Ramen (24 meals)
$1 – One bag/box of Spagetti or other noodles (8-12 meals)

Subtotal: $25 Meals: 30/30 Breakfasts. 60/60 Lunches/Dinners

$3 – Four cans of veggies (Covers 8-12 meals)
$6 – Two 46 oz bottles of V8 Fusion (10 – 12 meals, usually breakfast)
$7 – Three bags of frozen veggies (10-12 meals)

Subtotal: $41 Meals: (Divide up so that veggies are eaten around once a day)
Wiggle room for the list below, price increases, or random craving: $9

$5 – Minute rice (LOTS of meals. I only need this about every 4 months even without budgeting)
$3 – Complete Pancake Mix (About every 3 months. Also, waffles freeze /really/ well. Just stick them in the toaster or eat them right from the freezer!)
$1 – Cookie/Brownie mix (Hey, even I still have a sweet tooth!)
$5 – Whole Roasted Chicken. (fresh meat, and freezes well. Lasts 6-8 meals)
$3 – Peanut Butter
$3 – Jelly
$3 – Loaf of bread
$2 – Box of tea

Other occasional essentials includes flour (can be stored in the freezer for years), baking soda/powder, white sugar, cooking oil, favorite spices, and salt and pepper.

Often Offered Coupons

V8 Fusion, cereal, and frozen veggies.

But now the potential of a new job, for less pay but greater rewards in the long run, has me taking the time to seriously consider how I’m going to survive with a $300 a month pay cut. Netflix? Buh-bye. Cable until tornado season? Toast. Cheaper internet connection? Welcome!

Now, to cut my food budget from an average of $80 a month down to $50. There are several big challenges to this.

First and foremost, I’m lazy. I’m not an extreme couponer by any means and every attempt to do so results in boredom and the desire to bash my head against solid objects. Secondly, my new job will require that I bring my own lunch, whereas my current job lets me buy a bowl of soup each day for $1. Thirdly, nowhere on the internet is there a pre-made food list of generals that isn’t ridiculously complicated (who cares about eating homemade fruit parfait for breakfast when a bowl of cereal is WAY cheaper??) and is within my budget. Most single people apparently can’t survive off of less than $100 a month.

And so, to help with every poor college student and struggling artist out there, I will develop and reveal a monthly guide of easy foods that will stay, roughly, at the $50 mark.

Graham Crackers (one square per s’more)
Marshmallows (mini ones are easiest to work with)
Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to somewhere around 350 degrees. Once hot, turn from Bake over to Broil. Put graham cracker squares on an oven safe pan or sheet. Put chocolate chips on graham crackers. Put marshmallows on top of chocolate chips. Broil for approx. five minutes or until marshmallows are browned.

Extra Tips:
To avoid doing the dishes afterwards, line your pan with a strip of aluminum foil before adding the s’mores. Then just throw away (or recycle) the foil and put the pan back into the clean pile!

Easy Chicken Salad with Fruit

2 cans of Chicken
1 can of Mandarin Oranges, drained
1 can of Pineapple, drained (crushed would be best, but it always costs more so I avoid it)
1/2 c. mayo

Drink the drained juices from the canned oranges and pineapple (it is tasty). Put chicken into a bowl. Use a fork to break up the chicken chunks, then add oranges, pineapple, and the mayo. Mix thoroughly. Refrigerate.

Best served cold and on top of some sort of bread (like a bagel).

As fate or luck (I have yet to decide which) would have it, the person who has an open space and is willing to take in my literary baby and train it into grace and beauty was not the one on the lower end of the pay scale. So here I sit, having to decide just how much I am willing to put into this chance to better my manuscript and give it the best chance possible to see the sunlight of bookstore shelves.

Will I chicken out as I have often done when ready to send it out into the world for consideration? Or will I take a risk and spend the money that was intended for my student loan repayment?

You’ll just have to wait and see. ^_~

Lots of mystery,

Abby

It was January of 2010, and I had just become the proud renter of my first apartment. Because AT&T offered the best deal for internet at the time, they were the ones I chose. I went into the store, gave them the address, and got all set up for my internet a week later. It didn’t come.

When I finally called in, I learned that whoever had put in my address had forgotten to include my apartment number, so the account was never activated (note that the never activated thing should be very important here). And because AT&T can’t actually change an address on an account, the woman had to delete the never activated account and create a new one. No charge to myself since it wasn’t my fault and within a couple days I had my internet.

My first problem came when in February I received my bill for my current account. It had the wrong last name on the mailing address. Thankfully the first name was correct, along with the actual billing information. A phone call in got this name issue fixed. Of course, then there was a bill for the incorrect-and-never-activated-and-also-deleted account. Half hour phone call later, and my bill had been ‘paid in full’ and the account deleted. Again. I mail in my $100 rebate (which I had been assured would work fine despite the change in accounts), and my world was happy.

March: No word on the rebate, I call in and they inform me they’d not received it. Thankfully I’m smart enough to keep copies of everything, so I follow instructions and mail it in again. My current account had my correct name listed BELOW the incorrect name, and I also receive a bill for the twice-deleted-and-never-activated account. I call in, again, and have the bill ‘paid in full’ and the account deleted for the third time while also getting my name fixed, again, on my real account.

April and May: No bill this month from my thrice-deleted-and-never-activated account, so that made me happy. Unfortunately, my rebate never went through. Again. And the wrong name was still on my mailing address.

June: I am finally connected with an AT&T woman who knows the system, and I learn that due to the account error at the beginning, I can’t get the $100 rebate without having an AT&T person in the store I got it from call AT&T and reverify that I do deserve it. Also, their computer system has a monthly reset button which means no matter how many people ‘fix’ my address each month, it will always revert back to the original (hense why that original account had to be scrapped). I go into the store, and some poor lady there spent 45 minutes arguing with various AT&T people before finally getting me my rebate. My world seems to be as happy and settled as possible.

March 2011: I get a phone call from a bill collector saying I owe almost $200 from the thrice-deleted-and-never-activated account. It seems they hadn’t done enough damage to my sanity the previous year, so now they’re going after my credit and finances after I have a full time job (which means no chance of calling them during their business hours). I go to the AT&T store, and an AMAZING worker there takes up the challenge of fixing this problem.

April: The amazing S. is still arguing with the company to fix the problem.

May: The amazing S. finally got my account deleted by the RIGHT people. But it took another week of goading to get the bill collector’s ‘paid in full’. My year and a half long hassle with AT&T is now ended, and to celebrate I bought the amazing S. cookies.

All of the above troubles, ALL of it, caused by the absence of an apartment number on my address back in the very beginning. Amazing what one little mistake can snowball into.

Within the first two days, the main painter (we’ll call him… Jay) already allows me to work on my own, by Friday, when he had to leave early, he trusted me with the task of re-staining several front doors on empty resident rooms.

This particular stain, he explains, is far more flammable than other wood stains. Other wood stains you can throw the rags away after you’ve used them. This stain will spontaneously combust (O.o) if you don’t put the saturated rag into a water-filled metal can within a couple hours. After showing me how to do the staining, and how to dispose of the rags afterward, he leaves for the day and I leave to stain the doors.

The doors, I would like to note, came out beautifully. Unfortunately, so too did one side of my pants. And too much imagination, plus the warning he gave on the flammability of this stain, equals a long two hours of paranoia with the mental image of my pants going up in flames.

Obviously, this did not occur or my job may have gone up in smoke before my first paycheck date, but it did make for an interesting end to my first week on the job.

-Abby

Mary had a little lamb as you have heard before, and then she passed her plate again and had a little more!

Mary had a little lamb and when she saw it sicken, she shipped it off to packing town and now it’s labeled chicken!

Mary had a little lamb and tied it to the heater, and when the lamb did turn around it burnt its little Peter!

After meeting up with my parents, we proceeded to buy Sprite, sherbet, pineapple juice, sugar free cookies, fruit trays, and… picked up my equally amazing brownie bite things that I’d ordered. I’d gotten the bites because I wanted something other than cake, you see, (for who wants to eat leftover cake for a week) but my friend insisted I needed a cake and so that was her gift to me.

From there we headed to the church, slightly behind schedule, and ended up arriving at about the same time as some other family members. It wasn’t any problem, and soon I had a table set up with goodies and I spent time visiting with relatives, the two friends that came (I had been expecting far more), and two of my professors who came. During all of this I learned that the aunt of my friend who got me the cake goes to my church, and that my two professors not only knew one another (they’re from different departments) but one of them also knew a church member who happened to also come to my reception. It was quite fun.

My mother, being a mother, also brought a scrapbook that she had made that covered my life from babyhood through college. I dubbed it ‘mortifying’, of course, but it was really a lot of fun to look through. Nothing like showing your college professors your ballerina pictures from when you were five years old. It worked wonders for conversation starters.

From this, we cleaned up quickly and I departed for the university campus, where I donned my cap and gown, got my name card, and hung out with my fellow music education majors until it was time to walk into the gym for graduation.

I must admit, this graduation ceremony was really great. We walked in two rows down this long line of our faculty members, everyone all dressed up in robes and fancy regalia, then we sat and listened to the president’s speech on being respectful and professional to all, and then… we walked!

When it was my turn, my name was read, I walked along shaking hands with all the head faculty people… and upon reaching the university president I mentioned the fact that “I still have the mallet”, to which he laughed and hugged me before I continued on. This statement dates back to my first day on campus, when during the Welcome Freshman pep rally the mallet head flew off of the mallet that was beating a beanie baby of our arch rival’s mascot, bounced on the stage, bounced on the front seats, and beaned me smack in the center of the forehead. I got to keep the mallet head, and learned later that the story of my pain was told to the incoming freshman for several years after it had happened. I had a memorable first day on campus, and now, today, I have received a memorable finale. Of course, the end of one segment in life is but the beginning of another, and it is a beginning that I am looking forward to experiencing.

Lots of Smiles,

Abby

Quick Cup Cakes

1 box Angel Food Cake Mix
1 box of any FRUIT Cake Mix (I went with pineapple)

Mix them together in a large ziplock bag and keep.

To Serve: Put 1/3 cup of mix into large coffee mug. Add 3 Tablespoons of water. Stir and microwave 1 minute. Turn over and empty out the cupcake. Enjoy!