Eating out is awesome

but expensive - very expensive!

I've ate out a lot in the last week, probably more than I was expecting which really didn't help the budget (and even though J paid more for it anyway). In the past week, we've eaten at:

(1) Siam Square Thai - one of our local Thai restaurants. The restaurant itself is cosy and the service is always excellent. That is, if you're actually at the restaurant. We've tried their delivery service once and ended up waiting for almost 2 hours. It was a marvel that we still came back but their food is hard to beat. I especially like Mussuman Beef & their satay prawns are to die for. It's pretty cheap as well and it's BYO. For an entree & lots of main to share, expect to pay around $20 each.

(2) Sushi Samurai - J's sister & I had a dinner/movie night on Friday because J was at work all night. We had dinner at my fave Japanese restaurants. I ordered some karaage chicken to share and a chicken & avocado inside out roll and some green tea. The serves are generous and the price is a little bit more expensive than a typical Japanese restaurant. All that I ordered came to exactly $20!

(3) Ichiban Boshi - the best budget Japanese restaurant in Sydney, hands down! J & I have been going here ever since we started dating and that was more than 5 years ago. Since then, the prices have probably gone up less than a dollar but the quality has never wavered. We try and go here at least once every fortnight. On Sunday, we watched An Education (for free and it was a good movie!) and had lunch here. We both had drinks (Calpis water), had an entree to share (gyoza), had mains (karaage cheese curry for me & Aburi Chasu-men for J) and the bill came to less than $35.

I foresee no eating out until maybe this weekend. We're trying to rein it in as we impulsively planned a holiday in December (post on this later!). October is going to be an expensive month as it is because it's my birthday month. I don't have a birthday - I have a birthmonth. I actually celebrate for the whole month because I love birthdays and funnily enough, I actually welcome getting older now. November is going to be a tight-ass month for sure and half of December is too. I don't even want to think about Christmas presents yet!

Cheap & Easy: Penne with Meatballs

The ultimate cheap and easy meal is pasta - get a few grams of meat, a pasta sauce and you're set. Or if you have pasta, some olive oil, herbs, spices and some vegetables, toss it together and it makes a simple healthy meal.

J & I love our pasta. We try and not have it often (due to high carbs!) but it's definitely one of our fail safe meals. Tonight, I'm cooking a simple penne pasta with meatballs. The recipe called for frozen meatballs but I made my own tonight for the first time. The frozen meatballs are usually around $6-7, the home made ones are less than that and yummier. I usually get mince when they're on sale for around $2.50 per half a kilo. Most of the other ingredients you should have in your cupboard.

Meatballs

1/2 kilo pork mince
1 egg
breadcrumbs
1.5 cup tasty cheese
salt & pepper to taste
fresh herbs

Mix these ingredients together and roll them up into little meatballs.

Then fry them. Once they're cooked, add mushrooms and the pasta sauce of your choice. In a sauce pan, bring water to a boil and put your penne in. Mix together. Sprinkle with some more fresh herbs.

Eat with gusto and a glass of wine!

Yikes : Groceries!

J & I went to our local supermarket, Woolworths today to get some groceries for the week. The bill came to $95.57! Definitely more than what we've budgeted for, I thought it was going to be around $60. It's ok since we should have dinner until Thursday and this also include lunches and snacks. This will help me have a couple of NSD's next week, especially Monday and Tuesday!

We don't have a set budget yet for groceries but at our next pay which is this Thursday, we're going to start putting money in a kitty just for grocery shopping. We'll probably start with $50 each a week and see how we go.

Here's some of what we bought that made a big dent in the total price:

$10 - 10 tins of tuna (good for salad lunches, we bought some springwater and some flavoured ones)
$7 - 5 tubs of yoghurt (they're bigger than a normal pot-sized so this should be a good snack to bring to work)
$5.99 - extra virgin olive oil
$8.94 - 1 kilo chicken breast fillets (should be good for a few meals and left over lunches)

We're having a BBQ party at our place on Sunday with about 6-8 people coming over. They're bringing their own drinks and a plate to share but I still want to have everything pretty much covered. I'm going to come up with a summery menu later on this week.

No Spend Day

Finally, I have finally have something to show for the NSD Challenge (or nothing to show?). Yesterday, I brought my breakfast to work (PB&H sandwich), had a cooked pasta for lunch and had 2-minute noodles for dinner! I did went grocery shopping today though and it was $41.30 with nary a sign of meat. Why are groceries in Sydney so expensive?

This what I have to show for $41.30:

1kg cous cous - $4.49
Marinade 160g - $3.19
Maltesers x 4 small packs - $3.96
Girly pads - $5.74
Grain waves chips - $2.99
Moroccan seasoning - $2.93
Greens Pancakes mix - $2.99
Pepsi Max 1L - $1.09
Schweppes Lemonade 1L - $1.09
3L milk - $3.66
1kg Jasmine rice - $2.49
1 loaf of bread - $3.99
12pk eggs - $2.69

These items are also mostly on sale except for the pads and the milk. Some of them are supplies that will last for a while like the cous cous, the seasoning and the rice and the bread should last until next week.

Tomorrow is going to be another NSD. I'm not even bringing cash to work so I don't get tempted. That brings my total to 2 days out of 10 and it's already the 10th tomorrow.

Market Haul

J & I went to the markets in the city today since we're already headed there for lunch. Can you believe we bought all these vegetables for only $7.80? If we bought it at our local supermarket, it would probably be around $20! Avocadoes in our supermarket are on average $2.50 EACH! In the city markets, they're .60!!

The breakdown:

2 x pakchoy baby = $1
2 x avocado = $1.20
1 lettuce = $1
6 tomatoes = $.70
half pumpkin = $1
sweet potato = $1
2 x green capsicums = $1.20
1 x eggplant = $.70

We also got some cheap meat from the butchers ($24) that will probably last us a few days for dinner for three people and maybe some work lunches. We still don't know if it's worth it travelling to the city every week or every other week to go to the markets. The prices are 50% off and the vegetables and fruits are fresh however, we need to travel to go there. It's not very far but parking is already $10 on Sundays and a bus there would be $16 both ways for the both of us and $8 if I'm going by myself which I don't really want to because the haul is heavy! We need a strategy so we can shop there maybe every week - maybe I can do the shopping myself and J can pick me from a corner or on Saturdays we can pay $5 in parking but we have to do the shopping in an hour. We'll see but so far, we're very happy with what we got today and for a very cheap price.

Cheap & Easy: Mango Curry Wings with Vegetable Rice

I made this easy chicken recipe for dinner last night and had the leftovers for lunch today.

Ingredients with approximate cost (bear in mind that food prices in Sydney are probably twice more expensive than other cities):

1.5 kilo chicken wings - $4.15
1/2 cup mango chutney - $3.30 (there's quite a bit in the bottle - maybe enough for 2 cups)
1/4 cup raisins - $1.99 (only a big bag is available - will have the rest as a snack)
2cm fresh ginger, grated - $.20
3 tsps mild curry powder - $1.75 (in a medium tin - this will be used for a long time)
salt & pepper to taste
rice (should be on your cupboard)
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables - $2.20 (again, there's a lot in this bag)

Total: $14.00 - serves 4 but most of the ingredients can be used three or more times

1. Place chutney, curry powder, raisins & ginger in a large bowl. Stir. Add chicken. Toss to combine. Season with salt & pepper.
2. Place chicken mixture in a single layer in a large baking dish.
3. Cook in a hot oven (200C) for about thirty minutes, or until lightly browned and cooked through.
4. Cook rice in a pan of boiling, salted water for 7 minutes. Add vegetables. Return to boil and boil for a further 5 mins until cooked.
5. Divide rice among four bowls. Top with chicken and cooking juices.

This will be a staple part of our menu!

$12 = 4 meals

Here is something simple I made tonight that was enough for 4 meals and cost only $12.

Ingredients:

1 big eggplant - $1.80
750g chicken breast - $7.00
Chinese marinade - $3.20

We already had some essentials at home like rice, soy sauce and brown sugar to add to this dish.

I cooked 4 small cups of rice. I marinated the chicken breast and left it for an hour or so then fried it. The marinade is a bit expensive for only one use but it really is quite tasty and don't need any more spices. I then cooked the eggplant with a little bit of oil until it's soft then added some soy sauce and a little bit of brown sugar. That made 4 meals all up and they're quite big servings.

J had dinner tonight for his night shift. I had mine for dinner too then I divided the rest in two more containers to bring to work for the next two days. If I'm this disciplined every Sunday afternoon, I wouldn't have to spend anything for lunches for the whole week!

Food at Work

I didn't quite succeed with my challenge of not buying lunch at work this week by one day! I need to be more prepared getting my lunch ready and packed during the night as I start very early in the morning. This will be another interesting challenge for next week. I'm getting more essentials such as tuna and salad and hard-boiled eggs and just have them in the fridge as well for back-up.

So today, I bought a sweet chilli chicken burger and a drink for $9.90 which is my only expense of the day (so far). I did manage to make a PB&H sandwich for breakfast before I left for work and instead of buying $3.20 skim capps everyday, I buy a pack of flavoured coffee and have that. If it's on sale, the $2.99 small tub usually lasts around two and a half weeks.

J & I are going out to dinner tonight with J's family to celebrate his mum's birthday. His parents always pay for our dinners when we go out but tonight, we're going to insist that it's going to be our treat (J&myself plus his two siblings). I'm budgeting around $40 for this. J has already bought a cake for $30.50 which we're also splitting 4-ways. It should be a good dinner to finish off the week!