We don’t have a budget.

We both have jobs. Don’t have kids (cats don’t count). Have a mortgage payment, but otherwise few other bills.

But, my spending at grocery stores is simply out of control. The last few months haven’t been too bad, but there are times when I can drop some cash at Whole Foods with little to show for it.

I think it is hereditary. My father also loves grocery shopping.

We’ve decided to implement the Envelope Method of saving money.

My wife has set the limit of grocery shopping and eating out at $350 $450 a month. September will be our first month to try it out.

Basically, I’m going to put an equal amount of cash in envelopes for each week for both of us. So, approximately $56.25 a piece per week.

I get the feeling that isn’t going to go very far at Whole Foods. I already see myself stealing from asking my wife for money to go grocery shopping.

Looks like it is back to Giant. I’m not even sure the money will last at Trader Joe’s either.

Let’s not forget, this is only a test. It might fail after the first week. We’ll see how it goes.

Today, my wife and I picked up 45 pounds of hard red wheat.

I hope it soon marks a new day of homemade cereal.

We tried to buy a yogurt maker from Williams-Sonoma, but they were out of stock. Apparently, it is a popular item.

I’m going to attempt to make some sort of nut yogurt.

Is it sad that I am this excited about massive quantities of homemade bread and yogurt?

Most people talk about wanting to have a good work/life balance. No one questions its importance.

I’m curious about the life/life balance.

What is the life/life balance? For me, it is the amount of time, money, or health you are willing to sacrifice to accomplish your personal goals.

Let’s look at a few scenarios. For each case, let’s assume people like to do the following with their spare time (keeping it relatively simple):

• Work out
• Eat healthy
• Occasionally watch TV
• Read often

Person A:

Person A goes to the gym after work 4 days a week. Since cooking can be a hassle, he picks up pre-made meals at the grocery store (not TV dinners or some garbage like that). He eats his pre-made meals while watching a few different TV shows and finishes off his night reading a chapter of a book in bed.

Sacrifice: Money (and probably some health)
Typically, you are charged a premium for prepared foods. A regular uncooked piece of salmon might be $7/pound. Throw on a marinade and a few exotic looking veges and you are looking at $12+/pound. Also, the meals may be somewhat healthy, but most pre-made foods bought from a store (even our favorite – Whole Foods) needs to taste extra good for people to buy it again. This means adding in extra calories in the form of sugar or fat or whatever.

Person B:

Person B plans out his meals and does his grocery shopping for the week on Sunday. During the week, it takes him 45 – 60 minutes to prepare, cook and eat his food. Since he is cooking health-conscious foods, he uses more kitchen items which result in a decent clean up effort every night. He catches the latest episode of his favorite TV shows and then settles into bed with a book.

Sacrifice: Health
He doesn’t have time to work out due to the time involved in cooking and cleaning. His eating habits are good, but working out is necessary to live a healthy life.

Person C:

Person C also plans out his meals and shops on the weekends. During the week, he goes to the gym after work and proceeds home to prepare, cook, and eat. By the time he sits down for dinner, it is late and he is tired. He does his clean up and then watches some TV. He takes his book to bed and falls asleep reading.

Sacrifice: Time
Because of his evening activities (working out and cooking) and his needs for a little relaxation (TV and reading), he doesn’t get much sleep at night. In a way, this also counts against his health.

I won’t bore you with more examples, but hopefully you get my point.

It seems that somewhere, people make a sacrifice to accomplish their higher priority activities. But, my scenarios are simple. It seems one should be able to do all of this without much sacrifice.

The equation becomes even more complex as you add in weekly activities like school, sports, happy hours, book clubs, etc. Accomplishing life/life balance as part of a marriage? Even more difficult. Then you are coordinating the schedules, opinions, and differences of two people.

People choose what is most important to them. In my simple examples, I can choose to eat healthy and work out, but give up on lazy activities (reading, TV, computer). You can mix and match the other variables to come up with other possibilities.

I haven’t even touched on addiction with the internet.com.

I’m not sure how people do it all….

For the past few months, my wife and I have been living without a microwave….at least one that’s plugged in.

Our microwave is sitting in another room, on the floor.

Why?

Our theory:

Microwaves promote unhealthy eating.

Prove me wrong.

What food cooked (not just reheated) in the microwave is healthy?

Very few.

And most of those foods you could make in the microwave taste better from the stove/oven, regardless of their healthitude.

Our one difficulty is reheating. It usually requires more time not only in providing the heat, but also in cleaning the heating apparatus (e.g. stainless steel pot).

What have we gained in this experiment?

We’ve stopped buying food that is easy to nuke in the microwave. Generally, those foods aren’t very good for you, although they probably taste delicious.

I’d like to think this approach to meal making is contributing to positive health habits.