So I failed at the low-budget food challenge. Feeding America will be getting a donation for all of the times I cheated. On day 2 or 3, I started to realize some of the mistakes I made that made it harder. But what the reinforced even more was that shopping on a very small budget requires a lot of planning to make the ingredients stretch so you don’t end up hungry.
I think the biggest thing I would do differently if I tried this again would be to not get white bread and peanut butter. Instead, I would have gotten a dozen eggs instead of 6 and some soft tortillas. I could have used the potatoes, eggs, and chili to make breakfast burritos, which would have been more filling. I would also probably have purchased mayo (or made some from the eggs) so I could have chicken salad wraps for lunch.
Overall, I was hangry, I was miserable, and I realized how fortunate I really am to not have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. In my original post, I mentioned I didn’t want this to be a one-time thing where I do the challenge and forget about it. I’m probably going to be looking to do more volunteering to make a difference, and I’ll be posting lower-cost recipes (and tagging them into a low-cost meals category).