I haven’t chimed in here before, so here’s a wall of text to make up for that.
Flu Shot Dilemma:
We got our flu shots last week. I almost posted about it here on the Mustachian People Problems thread, it was a bit of a dilemma. The big chain pharmacy offered a $5 off $20 coupon with flu shot, but we never shop that pharmacy and it’s quite over priced. If we got two coupons we’d have to put quite a bit of work (and time in the store) into spending them on things that we might or might not otherwise buy. So I decided it would be better to get our vaccines from the locally owned pharmacy. Keep our insurance spending close to home and it’s a much smaller pharmacy with a robust delivery service, so much less foot traffic. Great choice but oh the siren call of “free” money. I tried to look at it like skipping spending $30-40.
Upgrading some Kitchen Gear:
But on the way home from the pharmacy we stopped at Walmart to buy a bag of dirt so we could transplant the house plants and bring them inside… quick in and out of the store, don’t have to touch anything except the dirt… but if we’re in the store we’d better grab some frozen fruit and the things that were in the bag they clerk forgot on our last grocery order… because this is pandemic, and it’s hard to get by without milk and eggs! One thing lead to another and we bought a clearance Kitchen Aid Mixer marked down from $375 to $190… So I didn’t really save that $30-40 dollars did I? hah. This all ties to pandemic hoarding I swear. We handmade bread and pasta and baked goods in normal times and have really been looking forward to increasing that with cooler weather…
Keeping track of so much food:
Limiting our grocery shopping due to pandemic has made us pay attention to how much food we eat, how often we need treats and variety. It's hard for us to separate how many of the changes in our food lifestyle this past year have been related to buying a house, growing family or pandemic, but I’m expecting these changes to stick around at least until we have another large lifestyle changing event.
We've always cooked mostly from scratch and didn't eat out often, but now we're getting better at it and we keep so much more food on hand. I counted 25 pounds of dried beans recently. We are down to about a pound of rice, so time to restock that. Previously we’d run out of things for a while and just eat something else, but now we’re keeping everything in stock. We got a large-ish box of dry milk. Hoping we don’t have to use it, but nice to have on hand. We used to buy mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, but now we also buy a variety of frozen to stretch things out. Same thing with meats.
Meal Planning and recipe organization:
We’ve started meal planning to help make sure we spread variety out between shopping trips and to help alleviate the stress of decision making on long days. I love it. We don’t always follow it, but it’s still invaluable. I do it in three week chunks to match our shopping trips.
I’ve also been working on getting our favorite recipes into a binder. My spouse is getting much more interested in following recipes and creating complex flavors. We even sometimes manage to be in the kitchen together without sniping at each other!
Upgrading Kitchen Gear Continued:
We’ve bought more bulk and leftover storage containers. It was time, but we might not have, or at least not bought as many as we did if we weren’t keeping so much extra around. I found weevils in a bag of rice and that prompted a bit of a frenzy.
Bulk orders vs Grocery pick up:
We’ve done some online or bulk orders via Target and Amazon, but have stepped that back since starting to do a grocery pick up in a town an hour away about every 3 weeks. No local stores offer pick up. I love grocery pick up. Want to continue it forever. Pairs so nicely with menu planning.
Garden:
We grew a small garden this year and have a little bit of fall greens trying to make it, and we’re hoping to manage some salad greens in a plastic tub over winter.
Balancing Risk:
He WFH full time, pre-pandemic. Due to pandemic I WFH and go in to the office one day a week (or so). We have gotten lax and done more non-urgent in store shopping. We know we need to stop… but there are a lot of excuses.
We did go to two outdoor restaurants in August/September. We’ve had two social events with friend that were outdoors and mostly safe but maybe not, and another two bonfires that were really great and a model for how we’d like to keep up social interaction during winter.
Spouse has also started up his voice lessons again just this week. I have huge reservations about it, but, I’ve decided to just bite my tongue and get more serious about reducing risk in other ways I’ve mentioned that we got more lax. He has made a lot of sacrifices this year and is full time WFH, gave up the gym even though it’s back open… this is his one outlet and it seems necessary even if I do worry about it a lot. They do wear masks the whole time and stay spread apart, but that might be the riskiest activity yet. That and my once a week office time with my boss who thinks it’s all a conspiracy…