eating according to what I call "Bulkapean"

[ArmsOfLove]

that's my little name for it :giggle

I suddenly figured out why my food/meal planning and grocery shopping just weren't lining up and working :doh I do *not* do well with any schedule. I've been dealing with this in my daily routine, my budget, and now my food. According to the principles of Organizing From The Inside Out which I am finally working through to these areas I'm realizing that it's just not practical or helpful or realistic to try and shove myself into some external demand--even if I create it :rolleyes

I eat according to how I feel. I'm a strong Abstract Random combined with a very strong Concrete Random; an ENFP (edited because I posted ENTJ :doh). If I make a schedule for food and I'm not in the mood for that meal I don't eat it :shrug Plain and simple. I've been this way my entire life and I'm really tired of feeling, as a wife and mother, like this means something is wrong with me :/

So Bulkapean is how we are going to try eating for the month of May (though we started two day ago).

Everything for baking and canned goods will be bought in bulk to save the money there (esp our gluten free flours, etc)
Weekly I will go to Trader Joe's for things like toilet paper and anything we need as staples for that week or that we are out of
Daily I will be walking to the local grocery store for produce for that evening and the next day.

I'm hoping this will reduce the amount of produce that gets thrown away never eaten, will help me to remember what we have, will give me the flexibility to make whatever I want for dinner without feeling guilty about not making what's on the schedule. And if I get to the store and what I wanted to make costs a lot more than something else I'm free to change the meal even there :rockon

I'm also going to get about 30 minutes a day of exercise :rockon

[heidisue]

i do that every so often. for us it keeps food from going to waste because i get only what we need for the day which means i get what we're in the mood to eat and don't waste money on the stuff that no one apparently likes at the moment.

[abbiroads]

sounds good! alothough I am tempted to buy convience food if I go to the store, like premade hummus which is very expensive.

[ArmsOfLove]

well, thankfully this little IGA is a local store with a bunch of stuff we can't eat and produce :giggle

[Soliloquy]

I would LOVE to walk to a farmer's market or something every morning and plan my meals based on what looked yummy. :yum That's how many European women shop--whatever looks good that morning!!

I'm so glad you've found a plan to work for you!! I

[Mother of Sons]

That's what I do too. I've been trying to go every 2 days. Sometimes it doesn't work for me because I don't want to go to the grocery store either but it works better than buying a weeks worth of groceries and then not using any of it. :shrug My plan was to walk every 2 days to the grocery store with the kids but I usually drive. It's a mile each way and I haven't been planning well enough ahead for that (I remember to go to the grocery store at 5 lol) But that's the goal anyways.

[abbiroads]

well, thankfully this little IGA is a local store with a bunch of stuff we can't eat and produce :giggle
perfect!!!

I would love to cook/eat in a pre industrial way, but alas, this is america where we value convince over health

[ArmsOfLove]

Yeah, we'll see how the walking goes as it gets hotter :shifty

We've had so much growth in our area that I'm a little nervous about walking after dark which is what I'd have to do in the summer. So I may drive then. But, at the same time, I used to walk in the heat when I was losing weight when Liam was a baby. I just bought myself a cold drink at the store. So we'll see :)

[4MKfam]

:think You may have something there. I usually do a flexible menu plan, and follow it more-or-less (this is coming from an INTJ/very Abstract rather Sequential kind of person :) )... I've gotten kinda good at finding ways to make what I want with what I have and avoiding emergency trips to the grocery store, but we do have a TON of produce simply thrown out at the end of the week. Maybe the daily-shopping for that sort of thing would work better... I'm walking dd to school every day anyway... Thanks for the idea!

[bliss]

I definitely do better buying more frequently like that - I look at all these sites with buying everything for the month, etc. and it just ends up getting wasted or no one wants it. I go once a week now but am usually back by Wed. for milk, bread, and produce. . .I hope this works out well for you!

[GrowingInGrace]

I suddenly figured out why my food/meal planning and grocery shopping just weren't lining up and working :doh I do *not* do well with any schedule. I've been dealing with this in my daily routine, my budget, and now my food. According to the principles of Organizing From The Inside Out which I am finally working through to these areas I'm realizing that it's just not practical or helpful or realistic to try and shove myself into some external demand--even if I create it :rolleyes

I eat according to how I feel. I'm a strong Abstract Random combined with a very strong Concrete Random; an ENTJ. If I make a schedule for food and I'm not in the mood for that meal I don't eat it :shrug Plain and simple. I've been this way my entire life and I'm really tired of feeling, as a wife and mother, like this means something is wrong with me :/



That's kind of like how I am. I always thought schedules and plans work - for other people. Not so much for me, especially with little ones about. Though I've tried and I've tried. I do have Organizing from the Inside out and I should go back and review it. I'm just one to kinda do what calls out to me the most, not so much I do this on that day, or I eat this on that day, because it all depends on the mood I'm in. I ought to go and do one of those personality quizzes and find out what I am...

I've wasted produce too often too. Though one thing I found helpful is when I can't think of what to eat, or forget to take something out of the freezer ahead of time (which happens too often), I usually throw together a big salad with the produce or freezer vegetables I have. Those are especially good on days when we might have leftover meat - not necessarily enough for a full meal but just enough to add to a salad for dh and I.

My SIL on the other hand, is super organized. She has lists upon lists for everything - months in advance for parties, weekly lists posted on the fridge for meals. I admire that, but just can't do it myself.

[ArmsOfLove]

your sil sounds like a concrete sequential :)

and :doh I edited my OP because I am totally not an ENTJ but am an ENFP! The Feeling/Perceiving are why I'm more flighty and go with the flow :shifty Apparently this morning I was having a personality crisis :giggle

[tempus vernum]

Hmmmm. .. Very interesting :scratch I have no clue what letters I am but have huge issues with never being in the mood for what I have "scheduled" :rolleyes My problem is I HATE HATE HATE the grocery store. :think

One of the reasons I LOVE LOVE LOVE my garden :tu I can walk out in the afternoon and think what can I cook from here.

I would love to walk to the farmers market every day too I used to live a block from the biggest in our area and it was WONDERFUL. Walked there OFTEN! :TU

:laughtears about your "personality crisis" :P~

[mamaKristin]

do you have any idea how many times I've seen this thread title and been :scratch as to how to pronounce it? then I read the thread. :doh

[milkmommy]

We dn't have extreme dietary needs so that helps but.. I bulked up on the canned and dry goods in January after we got our tax refund bought about $200 worth of things like dried beans rice pasta flour sugar then lots of canned veggies fruits cereals and staple ingredients and even some goodies some boxes of cookies bags of chips. Well its been about 4 months and were still going through the stuff. Its made a HUGE diffrence in what were able to get. I havent really cut my spending we get $260 a month in food stamps and I use it all but the diffrence is I can now buy better stuff.
When FS kicks in I go and get the meat I'll need for the month this accounts for about $60 worth of the monthly spending then every few days I go get the parishable staples (milk, juice fresh veggies fruits yogurt eggs which is around $30 a week or about $150 a month and I spend about $10 a week in sasitifying pregancy cravings and other "extras :O).

Deanna

[GrowingInGrace]

your sil sounds like a concrete sequential :)

and :doh I edited my OP because I am totally not an ENTJ but am an ENFP! The Feeling/Perceiving are why I'm more flighty and go with the flow :shifty Apparently this morning I was having a personality crisis :giggle


Definitely she must be a concrete sequential. You should have seen the lists she gave all of her bridesmaids of their duties when it was time for her wedding. We were like :laughtears :rolleyes But we took it all in stride.

Unfortunately, for her new baby, she's got her on such a rigid schedule because of her need to have them. At Easter, I could tell they were making the 3 month old baby finish off 5 oz of formula every 3 hours on the dot. The baby wasn't interested (turning her face away), but you could tell she just gave up and complied in the end. Poor thing.

Now that I think of it, I did one of those personality tests a while ago and I was an INFP. I have become more extroverted over the years though. But I was high on the feeling and perceiving...yes, I'm more flighty and go with the flow too...

Deanna - yes, I remember about your post about bulking up on the canned and dry good. I'm glad that you've been finding that it's working.

SonshineMama - one of the worst tasks I have is grocery shopping. I don't like walking the aisles of the megasuperstore we have. There is so much stuff and people and I don't enjoy it at all. I get overwhelmed with all the choices and the sheer vastness of the store. And because I "try" to read labels, it takes so much more time to find things that I really feel good about buying.

We do have some seasonal farmers markets that come during summer (maybe late spring). They set up shop in a few places around here. Not in walking distance though. I should try and go.

I wish I had a garden, but I'm not good at that, so I haven't tried. My dad though, does a garden. We do get some fresh veggies from him sometimes. I should make it more of a habit to go over and get some from him. He of course doesn't have a large selection, but usually tomatoes and green peppers, some hot peppers, zucchini.

[ArmsOfLove]

I'm thinking we can do:

$60 for baking/bulk
$40 for soy milk
$50 Costco/Walmart bulk
$100 TJ's ($25 weekly)
$200 produce ($50 weekly)

$450 total

[rosesnsnails]

I'm like that, but I don't like going to the grocery store. What I do is make a list of meals available and then I just pick whatever I'm in the mood for that day! Sometimes I denote meals that have highly perishable foods in them so that I will "get in the mood" for them sooner. :)

[Katherine]

very interesting... :think Eat/plan/cook in cooperation with your personality...

The last time I tested was YEARS ago, so I'm not sure exactly how I'd test now. I've changed a LOT. :O :shifty

[abbiroads]

how's it going?

[ArmsOfLove]

so far so good except because of the way we'd been doing things we ran out of several things all at once and had to outlay a bit more than we'd planned for the start of the month :shifty But I'm trying to make up for it budget wise by using more of the frozen foods/veggies we have right now. We had to buy cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, a 50 pd bulk bag of rice flour, and a few other things all the same week and that just adds up :doh

but yesterday my fresh veggie trip netted a variety of foods to eat with the tomato basil hummus I made so we have half packages of several veggies that we can eat raw or cooked this week :)

[Rabbit]

Nothing stresses me out more than schedules, routines, and worst of all, meal planning. If I plan every last detail on the menu for the week, I spend a month's worth of money for a single week, and most of it gets thrown out. I can't even describe my system right now, and it is so not working. We have tons of dry goods I don't want to eat, like couscous and pasta. Two bags of carrots rotted in the bottom of the fridge. Lemons are rotting on the counter. I could go on and on. I buy more and more frozen stuff, because at least it will hang around long enough for me to figure out what to do with it to get it eaten.

My personality? INFP.

[Katherine]

I'm having similar issues, but when I test (years ago) I *think* I was an ISFJ :scratch so not sure how to apply it to myself.

Besides which I can't walk to the grocery store. :shifty I honestly avoid going b/c it's labor intensive to take the kids. :O

[Mamatoto]

I am ISFJ, too, Palil.

Phlegmatic in the other test. I am very much go with the flow, go with the emotion of the day...if I am in a relaxed mood I will spend lots of time preparing the meal happily, if I am too stressed I can't even think about dinner and let dh help me figure it out when he gets home which never works out....if I have something on the list for that day I won't make it if I am not in the mood for it and it's not matching the mood of the day. I spend way too much money deciding that day what to eat and shopping the same day, but I also spend too much money if I decide on any given day what we will have for the next week dependent on what I am feeling that day. :shifty Dinnertime right now is not working whatsoever with this philosophy of life...so I am working on developing a simpler approach to my buying habits and being content with less even if my emotions are wanting something different.

I am definitely trying to buy more in bulk to reduce packaging waste (at least today :shifty ). The book "French Women Don't Get Fat" or something like that...was about what you are doing, Crystal. :yes I also like going on Rachael Ray's website to see what she has for dinner that day and then watch her prepare it...it motivates me....and adds some different things I might not normally make in my phlegmatic rut. :lol