$30 a week

[Grammy Ginger]

My husband works away from home sometimes. During these times, he works 16-18 hour days, leaving him zero energy to cook and even less resolve to stick with eating properly. This time around I sent my homecooked frozen entrees to help him stay out of restaurants. Doing this saved us big $$$ and also will save his health and waistline. I'll expand my frozen repertoire for the next time around, but he was perfectly happy this week eating lunches and dinners of:

1. mashed cauliflower and potatoes with cauliflower gravy $6

AND

2. black beans, brown rice, steamed veggies, and salsa $4 (salsa replaces the cabbage salad because the latter doesn't freeze well--this raised the cost and lowered the nutrition)

For breakfast, he eats muesli: oldfashioned rolled oats, applesauce, oat milk, and cinnamon. Because he buys the oat milk, the week's breakfasts total $6

Total Cost $16 for the whole week. Prep time was an hour except soaking and slow cooking the beans.

[Grammy Ginger]

We have continued to stick to this menu but have added brown rice linguine with marinara and steamed veggies and polenta with sauteed veggies. You have to be smart where you shop to keep total expenses under $15 a week per person. However, I find my discovery to be rather exciting.

I conclude that there is enough here to write a cookbook AND that this is 100% doable by anybody desiring an inexpensive healthy lifestyle. I must admit that I have fruit trees and gardens both indoors and out. But can and did eat only basic foods: cabbage, carrots, onions, garlic, frozen cauliflower, canned tomato products, applesauce, apples, oranges, bananas, legumes, brown rice, cornmeal, brown rice pasta, oats, herbs, and spices during the experiment. I really already knew it could be done. When raising my children, my budget was very small for a very large family. Although we did eat differently, we ate heartily on very little money. The above were all big parts of our diet but with lots of cheese, eggs, butter, and some meat as well. If eating well on very little money can be done with those expensive items, obviously it can be done much easier without them.

The biggest benefit has been the meals I freeze and send with my husband each week. He flies home with an empty suitcase to visit. Right before he goes to the airport, I put 10 frozen meals in a soft-sided cooler in the suitcase. He eats oats and applesauce for breakfast. Sticking to these meals he hasn't slipped back into bad eating habits this tax season--so far. He hasn't eaten break room junk. Whenever he starts to feel a migraine coming on, he eats one of the meals I send instead of running to Taco Bell for a caffeine and fatty burrito fix. He reports a lack of cravings for junk food after eating three solid vegetable and starch packed meals a day. When he first jumped on the plant-based bandwagon, he spent a couple of months at True North. He did lose weight with fasting BUT fasting (and binging) became his diet strategy. Eating high-nutrient, low-calorie, low-fat plant foods to satiation is a much more enjoyable and healthy weight-loss strategy. Anyway, I love saving money, the planet, and our health with this plant-based pantry principle.

I have self-published books in the past with varying success. I may do it with this new one or maybe offer it for free. I don't know.