Christmas Meals Costs

 Continuing on with my meal expense/cost thing I did like once or twice but thought I would do again...

This is all part of a budget cutting game to help pay for the house I'm having built bit by bit. 

Here's my Christmas meals cost estimate

I ate A LOT because I like to cook when I have a day at home.

I'm very grateful to the free and cheap food available to me and for the people who are willing to use my mediocre help in exchange for food.

Breakfast  90cents:

Mocha (chocolate coconut milk  32cents  (super sale treat bought a month ago and saved for the holidays), coffee...free because it was old coffee from the closet at work...dated 2015)  32 cents

Water:  free

Blackberry pancakes with jam and fake butter  (flour  free from the food distribution people for helping butcher chickens, blackberries free for helping with picking, jam free as a gift, baking soda 1cent, 2 eggs 50cent (bought from a friend because my chickens are on the fritz for the winter), coconut oil 1cent (1lb for 1$ on super sale), cinnamon and nutmeg 2cents approx from the bulk bins, fake butter 5cents..bought on super sale as a treat)  58cents

Lunch 33cents:

Blackberry muffins...all 12! Oops  (flour free, buckwheat honey 25cents (bought by the pound, only 2T here but it was a spendy treat I am stretching), coconut oil 4cents, baking soda 1cent, cinnamon and nutmeg 2cents, orange juice drained from a free can of mandarins so free, blackberries free, vinegar 1cent (bought in a BIG bottle and used to preserve the blackberries then used as blackberry vinegar which is delicious))  total  33cents

Supper  31cents:

Pumpkin and duck topped with fake butter, salt and pepper and a side of mandarins floating in blackberry flavored gelatin  (one must have a gelatin based side dish on a holiday)  (pumpkin free from the community garden and roasted inside my woodstove firebox, duck free for helping butcher and can ducks with a friend, fake butter 10 cents (I had quite a bit on the pumpkin which I mashed up after roasting it in the "oven"), salt and pepper 1cent (probably less), gelatin 20cents (purchased like 2 years ago so using it up, bought by the pound but still a bit spendy really), olive oil infused with garlic as an extra bit of flavor on the pumpkin and duck free (gift, thanks chris and pat!)  

Seriously...roasted the pumpkin INSIDE the firebox of the woodstove.   Coals pushed to the back and the pumpkin sitting on a broken fire brick.

It is NOT on fire and it does not have a light inside it in the picture below.  It was dark and I lit the picture with my head lamp.  

For the record:  I was 1600 calories over budget for the day.  I am not starving on my cheap food kick.

Total for the whole day:  $1.54

Not bad really.   If I'd purchased the duck, organic pumpkin, garlic infused olive oil, etc etc etc it would have been a very expensive day.

The coffee wasn't the best but with the really nice chocolate coconut milk (thanks Grocery Outlet!) I got for 99cents for a quart, it was totally doable.  Quite good actually.   

I made more of the crap coffee today.  This time I used a percolator (thrift store score) on the woodstove and let it go about 20 minutes.  Also threw on a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg.  It was better because randomly strong and the cinnamon cut the bitter taste a tad.  Or maybe it was the nutmeg.  I mixed the cinnamon and nutmeg together in one container to save space on the shelf so I can't experiment with using one or the other at the moment.  Anyway, it sucked less with some spice on it.  Even the 2nd brewing with 1tsp of new grounds on the old grounds was drinkable.  It is a light roast which is not my favorite to the extended brew time seems to help.  I wonder if I can roast the grounds a bit more before brewing....hmmmm.  I may try it.  There are 50-100 little bags of the stuff at work and they don't go in the single cup brewer that is so popular now.  Also pretty rank in my french press, but I will keep trying with that.