Original Story: NPR

So this weekend, I did five loads of laundry. I vacuumed the apartment. I did the grocery shopping and ran some errands and put the pot rack up on the wall. I organized the spices and planned out the living room. I added a new lampshade in our bedroom and put pictures on the walls. I took the recycling up to my Dad’s since we don’t have it here. I packed a fantastic bagel sandwich for myself and one for Ben. And I made tuna noodle casserole in lunch sized portions stacked neatly in the fridge. And then I had myself an existential crisis on the upcoming wedding and the meaning of the word “wife”.

I woke up on the verge of tears because I skipped my shower yesterday, and by the time I woke up, the apartment had begun the scheduled water shut off so not only could I not take my overdue shower, I also could not make my morning cup of coffee. Ben had a couple water bottles in his car and I had a little water in my water bottle, so we scrounged up the two cups of water I needed. Once caffeinated, I was doing a bit better, although still in the middle of this etymological mire. So while I waited for the maintenance man to show up and install our new programmable thermostat so I could just go take my goddamn shower, I read a bunch of absolutely beautiful pieces by brilliantly powerful women, and it helped.

My grandmother called and we had a nice long conversation. I spent some time at the library today as well. I’ve got a stack of books that came highly recommended. I really don’t know where I am with this yet, but I’ll try to keep updating here as I figure things out. Meantime, I’ve got some reading to do.

My mother is the queen of kitchen gadgets. If there is a kitchen gadget out there, she not only knows about it, there’s probably one stashed in the cabinet under the island. What this means for me is that I rarely have to buy anything for my kitchen. The most recent acquisition from my mother’s kitchen is a KitchenAid stand mixer. It had been sitting on her counter for a year and a half and she had used it only twice, so it relocated to my apartment on the condition that the two times a year Mom wants to use it, she can come over and bake with me. In the first week that it resided to my counter, I made two loaves of bread (one challah, one white bread), Blackberry Cabernet cupcakes and frosting, Eggnog snickerdoodles, lemon bars, and meringue cookies (twice). While working a fifty-hour week up in Baltimore. So there’s been a lot of baking going on around here; expect more on that in the future.

The most recent work has been on the meat we consume. Last season, we split a share of a CSA with my grandparents and mother. Towards the end of the season, we ordered bulk meat, and in December, we picked up a pork package and a lamb. This weekend, we added half a cow to the inventory, which is good because BSK & I have almost finished our pork & lamb. Mom also brought down some venison and chicken from her freezer, so we’ve now got that added to our section of Grandma’s large freezer. And we just secured a source for more meat once we’ve run out of what we have.

There’s a lot of stuff I’ve been wanting to write about lately; there’ll probably be more on that soon, too. I’m hoping to actually resume writing here on a regular basis. March will bring another attempt at my 365 Photography project in a hopefully more manageable format of 31 days of photos. If that works out well, I may try expanding it into a longer term project, but I’m not committing myself too soon. We’ll see what the coming months bring. Hopefully, more out of me rather than less.

I start with rice, either fresh from the rice cooker or leftovers from the fridge. If I’m using leftover rice, I’ll microwave it till it’s nice and warm first. Either way, it goes into a bowl. I add plenty of sugar — about two tablespoons or so, I believe. The next ingredient is soymilk (because I don’t eat any cow-dairy, but I’m sure it would taste just fine with regular milk if that’s what you prefer), which is poured over the rice till it just begins to pool at the bottom. I mix it up thoroughly, and then top with fruit. Mango is my favorite when it’s on sale, but frozen berries do nicely in a pinch (just put them on the bottom, under the steaming rice to thaw them). Today, I had banana, which I sliced up on top. Since I was using leftover rice, I tossed the banana slices in the micro too, and they taste quite delectable when warm. To top it all off, I added a sprinkling of cinnamon to the whole thing, then called it breakfast. Tada!

I’m not completely happy with my chopped liver recipe and how it turned out. It’s in the freezer for when I’ll get a chance to go see my grandmother and get her to help me fix it. In the meantime, I still need things to eat, so this afternoon, I broke out my old stand by: fried rice.

It’s nothing too complicated. I open up the refrigerator, and when I see a container of leftover rice from a previous meal, I know that my lunch will be fried rice. The next task is to search through the fridge and pick what else will go in it.

I always have garlic around, so two or three cloves of that get chopped up. There’s usually onion hanging out in a drawer somewhere (this week, I happened to still have some organic spring onions, a gift from my mother!). Of course soy sauce, which we use in so many things and therefore buy by the gallon. And then an egg for added protein. Beyond that, I just toss in whatever happens to be lying around.

Basic Ingredients:
Leftover Rice (about 1 ½ c.)
2 cloves garlic
1 spring onion or ¼ small onion
olive oil
soy sauce
1 egg

Today, I started with the onion and garlic. Chopped up and tossed into the skillet of hot oil. Saute those for a moment or two, then toss in the rice and carefully stir. After it’s been allowed to warm up a little, I drizzle it with the soy sauce. Today, I still had leftovers of the homemade teriyaki sauce we like to keep around, so I used that instead. Later, when it seemed like it needed more sauce, I added plain soy sauce. I tossed in a little Frank’s wing sauce for some kick, added the cooked egg whites (leftover from making lemon bars last week), and stirred some more. It was still lacking something, so I added some miso paste (yeah, I know, these are not the sort of things most Americans keep lying around in their kitchen — use what you’ve got). Stir it around and throw in some more soy sauce, and then turn off the heat. In less than five minutes, lunch is ready and quite tasty. There was enough for lunch and plenty for leftovers.

Dinner tonight (pictured above) involved cooking up a chicken breast, slicing it once cooked, and tossing that in with some of the rest. It was supposed to be just sliced when cooked, but I discovered when slicing it that I’d managed to cook it about medium-rare, which for steak is acceptable, chicken not so much. Back into the still-hot pan it went to saute for a moment more, and then all done. The chicken, by the way, is pre-packaged, boneless skinless breasts, premarinated in teriyaki. Normally, I wouldn’t do this, but I got to the store on the same day as their sell by/freeze by date, which meant the store had put a 50% off coupon on the package, making them cheaper than the ones with bones and skin.

Total cost: less than a dollar for two meals, with leftovers for tomorrow’s breakfast or lunch.

Mind you, currently I do not live extravagantly. Many are shocked to hear I usually live on somewhere around $900 to $1000 a month. But I can do better than that. I *should* be able to do better than that. So that’s my current goal. I plan to track here exactly how I go about doing that. It’s all part of the life in theater, after all, and it seems like so few people actually are aware how easily one can live on almost nothing.

Granted, I have several advantages in my favor. First of all, I’m naturally cheap. There’s a big difference between being frugal and being cheap, and I tend to err on the side of cheap. I’m slowly working my way over to frugal, since cheapness has its own expenses (for example, buying a $15 pair of shoes every 6 months to be cheap, or a $60 pair every 4 years to be frugal — the good shoes save me $60, as well as being better for my feet). Secondly, I have my loving, supportive family. If things get to be too tight and I just can’t afford a healthy meal, my family is local and I can always call up Mom or Dad to meet them for lunch or dinner. Occasionally, Mom buys me groceries (more on that later). Dad spoils me by helping my gaming habits. These are wonderful, amazing people, without whom not only would I not be in this world, but I would never be able to securely take the risks I need to in pursuing a career in theater.

My first task to tackle is my eating habits. That means recipes on the cheap, cheap ingredients, and bumming money, food, and groceries off of people. Next (in no particular order) is entertainment expenses, then household expenses, pet care for a finicky old cat, and other miscellaneous expenses as I come upon them.

In general, I’d like to get into a writing schedule of at least once a week. I feel that when I’m writing stuff here, it improves my communication skills in other areas, especially in sending coherent emails. As I find myself on a serious job hunt every three or four months, it is imperative that I be comfortable in just sitting down to write an email to a total stranger. If, along the way, I can possibly help others who are trying to live on low incomes to live a little better, then that just brightens my world.

My overall philosophy as far as the way I live now? Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you have to live in poverty. I don’t mean live extravagantly, because ultimately that will catch up with you faster and harder than living in squalor. But the finer things in life don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. I can have a comfortable place to live and entertainment expenses and good, healthy food, and all of it without giving up my dreams of pursuing theater. I don’t have to be rich to live well.

Anyways, to the point: I called Mom to find out where she got it so I could get my own (when I showed it to my housemate, who works more than I do as a theater electrician, she coveted it too). Mom said she got it “at BJ’s or Costco, I don’t remember which”. So I went to the websites of each, just to check. Found hand tools at Costco, although none of the stubby wrenches. So I checked BJ’s website. No obvious categories for hand tools, so I used their handy little online search for wrenches.

You see my confusion. So it looks like we’ll have to check BJ’s in person, because their web search, well, not so useful. Oh well.

Ceci n’est pas une pipe: not the version you might have known.

Hypotamoose: Totally Need This. (Update: purchased!)

Shakespeare Hates Your Emo Poems: I have much desire for this tshirt.

Stabby McKnife: Need I say more?

We’ll be safe in this dark creepy barn: See Zombie, above.