How a family of three eats for a week
Name: You know
Location: Where You Think
Age: 29
Number of people in family: 3 (me and my two sons)
Occupation: Office worker
Household income: $34,000/year
Weekly food budget: Doesn't Matter, Because I Didn't Record Prices
Day 1: Monday
10:44am - I'm not a morning person and neither are either one of my boys. It doesn't help that I woke up really hungover. I make the boys two bowls of Cheerios and chug some water before we leave the apartment. They usually eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, although I try to change it up at least once a week with a bowl of fruit or a frozen waffle or honey toast. I have granola bars to grab if we wake up too late to eat a sitting breakfast. We use their dad's address for their school, so I drive them to their neighborhood bus stop to catch the school bus. I'm at work by 8am and I inhale two cups of coffee and life is better.
12:30pm -- My lunch break is from 12-1pm every day and I live so close that I usually go home during my break so I can take care of some household work, too. While making eight peanut butter sandwiches for the boys' lunch that week, I toast a cheddar provolone turkey sandwich and burn it. I eat it anyways with a can of Mountain Dew and my second bottle of water, while finishing my Russian lessons at the kitchen table.
3:30pm -- I start on my third water bottle. As long as there's a water bottle by me I'll drink it steadily without thinking. My goal is to drink three bottles a day, which would be roughly nine cups.
5:15pm -- I leave work and face two more hours until dinner due to soccer practice and I'm hungry. I stop at a gas station and buy two packets of 89-cent packs of peanuts. When I pick up my sons for soccer practice, they're hungry and split one of them. I'm annoyed because they have been home for at least a hour after school and didn't eat anything, even though their dad knew they had soccer practice tonight. They drink the rest of my water bottle, too.
7:30pm -- We finally sit down for dinner. I microwave marinated steaks served with cucumber salads. The steaks, which I cooked over the weekend, are overcooked, which I guess is the theme for today. The boys drink milk and eat grapes for desserts. I start on my first glass of wine. We do a little homework -- yes, they have homework in kindergarten and 1st grade, it sucks -- and take baths before they go to bed at 9:30pm.
12am -- I'm trying to relax after a long Monday which means I stay up way too late watching television and other nonsense. Before I know it, its midnight and I am starting on my second glass of wine. Probably going to regret it in the morning.
Day 2: Tuesday
12pm -- Horrible headache this morning that I think is sinus related as the weather is on a rollercoaster. Two cups of coffee, an allergy pill, and three iburpofens are my breakfast. I'm not really a breakfast person, but I usually get hungry midmorning but never have a snack to eat for brunch. By now, I'm one and a half way through my water bottles. I'm supposed to take lunch now but everyone is so busyI'm delaying. In desperation, I eat a snack bag of Lay's potato chips and immediately regret it. It leaves me feeling greasy and gross.
1:30pm -- Finally, lunch. At home, I grill another sandwich, not burnt this time, which putting up clean dishes and doing laundry. I drink a Mountain Dew. Off and on, I give up soda then fall off the bandwagon, but I'm usually off the bandwagon when I am sleep deprived. I snack on cheese crackers, too. I don't want to be hungry for my run tonight.
3:30pm -- I try to eat gummy bears for a sugar snack but they are the only bad gummy bears that I've ever eaten. I'm shocked; I didn't know bad gummer bears existed. They taste worst than medicine. I start my third water bottle.
5:30pm -- I finish 3/4 of my third water bottle before my three mile run at the YMCA. The boys are in the kids room while I'm running. They enjoy spending time playing with different toys, especially these crazy clear building blocks. They always have some masterpiece to showcase when I pick them up, which they promptly to destroy.
7pm -- Dinner: Balsamic Chicken and Mac n Cheese with a glass of wine for me and milk for the boys. This is much better than yesterday, although the boys don't care for the chicken as much as the mac n cheese. I guess balsamic vinegar is a rather adult flavor. After dinner, we do homework at the kitchen table, which is never easy. I have to alternate between giving one boy work he can do on his own while I listen to another boy read or I read his homework to him. It's stressful, mostly because they have no patience.
9:30pm -- 2nd glass wine is poured while putting the boys to bed. Some mothers enjoy having a child depend on them to do everything but not me. I happily lay on their bed watching them brush their teeth, put on pajamas, and pick a book out to read.
11:30pm -- 3rd glass wine while I finish my cheese crackers. I'm engrossed in my book of the month, Lonesome Dove.
Day 3: Wednesday
7:30am -- Why did I stay up so late and drink so much? I feel pretty bad, all stuffed up with a headache.
9:30am -- I have finished my first water bottle and two cups of coffee. And I realize that I probably have a cold.
12pm -- Lunch is two grilled cheese sandwiches and a dose of DayQuil I grab from home. I'm drinking a lot of water to help this cold, which means no Mountain Dew today.
5pm -- I'm supposed to eat cabbage soup for dinner, which would be great for my cold, but I don't have the energy to cook a new recipe. We order a pepperoni and bacon large pizza with garlic parmesan chicken wings and I reschedule the soup for Sunday. We spend the evening laying on the couch playing video games, although, after some mental debate, I manage to get their homework done. I medicate with DayQuil and wine and go to bed early.
Day 4: Thursday
7am -- I wake up feeling better. As the morning progresses, I still am fighting a cold but I don't think it'll be that bad. I inhale two cups of coffee, one bottle of water, and a dose of DayQuil by 11am.
12pm -- I need to take my son's tablet to his dad so he can use it after school or he'll be upset with me, so I take the opportunity to buy groceries at Walmart during my lunch break. My ex-husband Clifton gives me some homemade cold medicine that he says has a much of minerals in it. I don't know what means but it probably won't hurt so I take it. I make a cheddar turkey sandwich from the groceries with a snack pack of Lay's potato chips and Mountain Dew from the office and a dose of DayQuil for dessert and eat it at my desk. I'm on my second water bottle.
7pm -- After a workout at the gym, which on non-running days is just ten lifting machines, we go home and sit down for dinner: minestrone soup with saltine crackers. This is out of can because I love minestrone soup but can't master the recipe myself. The boys drink milk and eat grapes for dinner. I'm having a liquid dessert.
Day 5: Friday
9am -- I have already drank two cups of coffee and a water bottle. Work is unbearably slow so I'm bored and hungry. I wish I brought something from home to do, like my reading or writing. The only thing to eat is the Lay's chips but I know I will just feel greasy and gross after I eat them.
1030am -- I give up and eat a snack pack of Fritos. I hate them. They smell like a giant fart.
12pm -- I go home to eat a sandwich then realize I have leftover pizza! I eat two slices with a Mountain Dew.
4pm -- I reward myself for no reason with a fun-size peanut butter M&M's.
7:30pm -- The boys stay with their dad on Friday and Saturday nights, but I stop by after work and find out how their day went.Afterwards, I run 3.5 miles at the YMCA. I'm recovering from a rough bout of depression in which I didn't regularly run, which really improves my mental health. When I'm not dealing with crippling depression, I run a nice 5 miles on Friday nights. Now on the tailend of the bout, I am working back up to the 5 miles. 3.5 goes smoothly. I pour myself some wine and eat the last slice of pizza. I bake the pork chops I had scheduled for dinner but don't eat them. I watch old episodes of The Office and fall asleep on the couch.
Day 6: Saturday
9am -- I start chugging Mountain Dew when I wake up for the boys' soccer game, which is just across the street. After the soccer game, I invite them over to make pork chop sandwiches with provolone for everyone. Clifton and I share a pot of coffee. We have a double header of soccer today to make up for a rained out game, but they're really far apart. I wish I could hang out with them the whole day, but I scheduled an appointment to give blood.
12pm -- I give blood at the mall in a donor van and grab a Coke as a reward, although I really have had enough caffeine today. I take care of some errands before the next game.
2:40pm -- Second soccer game. At least the weather is nice. Afterwards, they come over again and I cook the cabbage soup, a new recipe that turns out to be delicious. I pour myself some wine with dinner.
7:30pm -- Eventually they go back to his home, leaving me alone for the night. In order to avoid having to buy delivery for dinner again this week, I do some future cooking: cabbage chicken for tomorrow, stuffed pepper for Tuesday, and fish stew for Wednesday.
Day 7: Sunday
8am -- I'm chugging a Mountain Dew that I wish was coffee on the way to pick up the boys before going to church. I'm teaching Sunday School today to the kindergarten class. The lesson is on Moses and the Exodus from Egypt and we make a fun poster with string that shows the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. After Sunday School and the church service, we eat turkey and cheese omelets at home while watching a car show on Netflix, Rust to Riches.
1:30pm -- After we have taken care of some household work, we buy icees from Oncue and go to the local park to enjoy the great weather. We haven't visited in a while and are shocked there is a new playground. The boys quickly abandon their icees to play. The icees start attracting massive amounts of bees, which I'm allergic to, so I quietly dispose of them, making me sad, because we only drank half.
6pm -- Back at home, I heat up the cabbage and chicken but it's not great. I should have fried it more, plus we're tired of cabbage. We would be horrible Ukrainians. We eat a triple berry pie with whipped cream for dessert (which is also not good, I'm really batting 1000 this week) while watching the Nightmare Before Christmas. Halloween is in a couple days.
10pm -- I'm drinking a lot because I don't want to go to work tomorrow and get hungry, so I snack of two string cheeses from the refrigerator. I guess there are worse things to eat in the middle of the night..