This is the breakdown of where we spent the money. It actually comes out to $54.04, not $54.11, so I picked up 7 cents somewhere.

I normally do all my shopping at Martin’s. I went to Food Lion because Martin’s does not carry any ramen that’s vegetarian, and Top is better than Maruchan anyway. While I was there, I bought the other items on sale.

Before you think I went running all over town, don’t. Food Lion and Big Lots are on the SE corner of Remount Rd and South Street and Martin’s is on the SW corner of the same intersection.

I usually don’t by house brands, and I usually spend pretty indescriminately on produce. Also, I usually buy Morningstar Farms products for both of us and one kind of meat for me. Both are too expensive for this plan, but I like bean dishes and this diet is quite healthy anyway. I also wouldn’t normally buy margarine instead of butter or “vegetable” oil. I usually use peanut for cooking and olive for other things. Dry milk, of course, is not something I’d buy, and I do normally drink coffee instead of tea.

I’ve gotten a lot of money saving ideas from Miss Maggie, the Hillbilly Housewife. She really knows how to stretch a food dollar and has great, simple, satisfying and nutritious recipes. As you can see just by my groceries, I’ve gone the southern route with the food. It’s cheap AND tasty!

I am using a bread maker, but you can pick those things up at Goodwill and garage sales for not much money, so it would be a good investment for someone anyway. The general government guideline is 30% going for food spending, so that leaves 70% for a one time investment that will be usable for a long, long time.

Other than that, I’m not using any special equipment. It’s just not necessary. I’ll measure the nutritiousness of this diet on fitday.com. I will give my public address out later once I start posting over there.