7 Month 6: Spending

Waste month is over and it's time to look at how we did:

1- Carpooling. Brian and I are going to try our hardest to drive 1 car this month. We did really well on this. There were a handful of days when our schedules force us to drive separately, but otherwise we carpooled most of the time.
2- Become recycling vigilantes. We do recycle, but are lax about what goes in the garbage. No more! I'd say we got better about this over the month.
3- Always using our reusable grocery bags. Another habit I'm lax about. The key is putting them in the car. We missed this a couple times, but did get better. At least now with composting I can easily get rid of the paper bags.
4- No fast food/take-out. Basically, no food that comes in a container you have to toss. This also means I have to eat all my food at restaurants. There was one fast food incident that we won't talk about but otherwise we did really well: no pizza, no thai, no lunch takeout.
5- All Starbucks runs have to be made with a travel mug. No cardboard cups. I went to starbucks once in the afternoon for an iced tea and got a plastic cup. Otherwise, I used my new travel mug, which I adore.
6- Eating everything in the fridge before it goes bad. Also, eating out of the freezer and pantry before hitting the grocery store. Eh, not so much. We're moderately good about this and didn't get better or worse.
7- Hopefully composting. We are asking our landlord if we can built a little compost bin in the backyard, and we'll get a counter top pail for the kitchen for scraps. I'm hoping to do some gardening this summer and hate the idea of good compost items going to waste. Yes! It's amazing how small our trash bags have become since composting and recycling better. We could take it out once every two weeks if it wouldn't smell. As it is, we could switch to a smaller bin if we wanted.

A lot of these habits will continue- the travel mug is a habit, composting is necessary, carpooling is fun and we saved a little in gas money over the month. Not as much as I thought we would, but we still drive about the same amount, but together instead of separately.

This month is spending and the goal is to pick 7 places to spend our money this month. As I'm just coming up with this today, this will start tomorrow. I looked over our bank account for this past month, and we spent money in 23 places (which lumps all our bills together). This included basics like groceries (3 different places), gas, Brian and my's respective coffee shops and my daily parking. Our extra's this month were a couple different restaurants, the movie theatre, target, cash for the farmer's market, haircuts.

My picks for the month:
Online Bill Pay - yes, this is a bit of a cheat, but other we wouldn't be able to eat.
Parking
Pick N'Save & Metro Mart for goceries - this means no Sendik's (my favorite, more expensive, grocery store). Those two are owned by the same company, so I'm lumping them together.
Gas
Brew Bayou - Brian's coffee show on campus

That leaves us two spots to play with over the month- a favorite restaurant we'll hit a couple times, or an emergency Kohl's trip....?

Things I'm not counting: our money to church and compassion international, or spending money on gift cards. We'll see how we do!

January Hits and Misses

Hits:

Pastor Andy: A large nondemoninal church out of Alpharetta, GA. Brian's family and I heard this preacher on the Christian radio in North Carolina over New Year's. I was immediately drawn into his style of preaching and messages. He's currently doing a sermon series on "Breathing Room."

The Secret Sisters After seeing a feature in Garden & Gun on these awesome singers, I decided to give them a try and was glad I did.

Modern Farmer. Hipser Farmers with a weekly baby farm animals power ranking post. Amen.

Scandal, Nashville, Jusified. Yes, Yes, Yes.

Sunday Supper 1/27
Spilled Milk's Cafe Lago Meatballs with Kale Caesar Salad. The meatballs are dreamy, we decided we like kale better cooked. The Spilled Milk podcast is also dreamy.

Spinach-Pineapple smoothies. Yum!

Running again. Yay me. Maybe by summer I'll fit in my pants?

Girl Scout Cookies! Maybe by fall I'll fit in my pants?

Pot Roast po-boys. It's what you think it is. It has garlic mayo. It's awesome.

Misses:

Cabbage slaw with too many big pieces and not enough dressing.

We don't watch Downton Abbey. Sorry.

We DID watch Carolina lose to NC State. Bullsh*t.

The weather. Blech.

January Brunch

Maple Sausage from Dominion Valley Farms, Milwaukee Winter Farmers Market
Fruit Salad with Honey Vanilla Mascarpone
Egg bake from friends
Brunch Cake
Mimosas
Sunlight

Sunday Suppers*; Roasted Trout with Blood Orange and Fennel

It's cold here in Wisconsin, like really cold. It's just snowed again overnight. I'm counting the weeks until DST starts (8, exactly) and getting ready to start seeds indoors, just to see something green.

This is the time of year when I get really heartsick for San Francisco. I can't say homesick- I've never lived there, but when I visited with my Mom and Grandmother a couple years ago I was blindsided by how much I loved that city. I loved the Ferry Plaza market, the ease of the Muni, the light, the trees in bloom in February, Chinatown, Japantown, the Noe Valley, that bookstore I want to live in, the Bay, the ocean. I went back less than a year later for my birthday weekend with a guy I was dating. I woke up the morning of my 26th birthday, a beautiful Sunday morning, and took a run through Mission Dolores park, stopped into the Starbucks at 18th and Castro and walked back to the apartment we were renting. All I could think was "Good lord, I love it here" and "Good lord, I'm 26, dating a guy I can't marry and want to have some babies. I need to get my act together." 

Until I met Brian, San Francisco was my back-up plan. "If I don't meet someone here in Milwaukee in a couple years or so, I'm moving. I'll save and move to San Francisco." I meet Brian two months after that trip, thankfully. I wouldn't trade him for an apartment with a view and an unlimited account at the Farmers' Market.

But I still get heartsick, so I cook. I cook food that makes me think of California and this past week I caught the article on blood oranges in the New York Times. They run pieces on blood oranges and Meyer lemons and grapefruit every year, the good citrus is only in season for a couple short months. But this year, as California tugged on my heartstrings, the roasted fish with blood orange and fennel caught my eye. The flavors reminded me of a meals at the Zuni Cafe. Plus I've never cooked whole fish before, and it was on my cooking challenge list, a running list I keep in my of head "I've never done before, have to try it sometime."

We had this roasted trout with fennel with brown rice and braised leeks (another NYTimes recipe). I'm not sure the expense of the whole fish versus a fillet was worth it, but it's nice to have crossed that goal off my list. Also from that article? Blood Orange Upside Down Cake. Yum!

Recipes: Blood Oranges Add a Ruby Hue to Dishes and Desserts.

*Every Sunday I make a big Sunday Supper, it's the first of our family traditions. I'll be keeping up with those family meals every week. Sunday Suppers involve an awesome meal, dessert, proper dishes and candles.