The $50 Challenge: The Results

Side note: I don’t really eat breakfast, hence the very few mentions of breakfast.

Thursday: I spent $4.70 at Coles on a large jar of Nescafé Gold instant coffee to cover me for the week. I used free milk from work. I made a sandwich for lunch with the last 2 slices of bread in the freezer and some maybe-past-it tuna. Later that day I bought two mini bananas for $1 (for both). Then I got a free feed at a networking event in the evening.

Friday: Went to the supermarket and spent $18.25 on food for the week. I had some staples like oil, salt, pepper, herbs and some leftover cheese from last week already, but other than that bought everything else. For lunch I made a sandwich with wholemeal bread, tuna, rocket and cheese, and for dinner I made 2 pizzas with a wholemeal wrap as the base, topped with tomato purée, cheese, green pepper and mushrooms.

Saturday: For lunch I had the same sandwich, and for dinner I bulk-cooked 3 portions of homemade tomato pasta sauce with spaghetti. The sauce was just 1 tin of tomatoes, mixed herbs, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. During the day I played tennis and got a frozen coke afterwards to cool off – $1, and a $3 large bar of Kit Kat Gold. Oh, and I ate a banana.

Sunday: Lunch – you guessed it, that sandwich again followed by a banana. I went to Kmart and spent $6 on a framed print for our lounge and scored a free coffee while I was there #winning. For dinner I found some frozen dumplings at the back of the freezer so I had those. You could say it’s cheating, but I had enough ingredients to have the wrap pizzas again, so technically I could still have fed myself within the original shop.

Monday: I spent nothing, and had a sandwich for lunch and leftover spaghetti for dinner.

Tuesday: The third portion of leftover pasta for lunch, followed by a far-too-brown a banana. DInner was at my partners’ parents house, so that was a free feed in my book.

Wednesday: As you can see my spending dwindled towards the end of the 7 days! For lunch I had a sandwich and some soup, but I saved up my remaining $16.05 to go out for dumplings with my partner, as the one year anniversary of settling on our first apartment. I spent $14 there, and $1 on the Macca’s deal of the day – a large sundae #worthit.

So, I finished up the challenge with $1.05 – which I gave to a homeless person.

Meals I ate on the challenge

Lunches:

Sandwich x 6

Leftover spaghetti + tomato sauce

Dinners:

Wrap pizzas

1 free feed at networking

1 free feed at in laws

Spaghetti + tomato sauce x 2

1 bowl of frozen dumplings

1 meal out (dumplings)