I Found The Line

And what I mean by that is that I finally found the line (or a line) I will absolutely not cross in my quest to become a model cheapskate.

Occasionally the kitchen folk here will take the unsold items from the sandwich machine that are on the cusp of expiration, and leave them on a table in the cafeteria so that any daring soul can have them.  These items still have their original labels on them, complete with expiration date, so you always have a decent idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

But on Friday, I walked into the cafeteria at around 11:30AM to see what was doing when I noticed a tray that contained three plastic, unlabeled containers sitting by the sink.  One of the containers held one hamburger while the other two were tightly packed with two hamburgers.  I grabbed one of the latter and returned to my desk.

About a half an hour later, I was starving.  I grabbed a paper plate and opened the container so that I could remove the burger from its bun and heat it up a bit in the microwave, but the bread had fused to the meat and the two had become inseperable.  Furthermore, the bun was hard as a rock.  These free burgers were beyond inedible at this point, and I actually placed them back into their clear, plastic tomb and threw them out.  I threw out free food.

So How Much Money Am I Spending On Food?

One of the most challenging aspects of being a cheapskate is continually shaving away your food costs while staying happy and healthy.  I love to eat – a lot – and I lead an extremely active lifestyle that depends a lot on maintaining a decent diet.  That means shit like off-brand tuna from the dollar store is probably out of the question.

Tuesday of this week was a real banner day for eating cheap.  I am curious as to how cheap it was, though, so I’m going to attempt to break it down.

Tricking My Stomach In Anticipation Of Free Snacks

The sandwich machine mentioned yesterday offered up a respectable looking chicken pita today, so I caved and bought it.  It was only $1.50 and it looked infinitely better than the lunch I brought with me.  While the food ended up being better than I expected, it wasn’t much and I was already hungry again no more than ten minutes after finishing the thing.  That’s when I was presented with today’s cheapskate dilemma: In an hour and a half, there’s a going away party for our administrator.  There are signs for it all over the building, and at the bottom of the signs it says that “refreshments will be served.”  Cake and chips are usually standard for these types of events, but “refreshments” is sort of ambiguous.  That could mean anything!  Water can be refreshing.  Do I wait an hour and a half for what could end up being a small carton of locally produced fruit punch?  Or do I visit the gift shop for some peanut butter crackers?  Or do I dive into my bagged lunch and eat a yogurt?

Clearly the cheapest option here would be to wait until the going away party and risk being let down by my choices, so that’s what I ran with.  The only problem is that I’m far too hungry to hold out for an hour and a half.  So what do I do?  Rather than spend my money at gift shop ($.60) or eat my yogurt (10 for $5, or $.50,) I chose to try and trick my stomach with a free coffee from our office coffee machine.

Free Cone Day At Ben & Jerry’s

I’m lactose intolerant, so I’m posting this not as a reminder or a note to myself, but as a public service to those of you swimming in the lactase enzyme who also happen to love free shit.

Tomorrow, April 29th, is free cone day at all Ben & Jerry’s stores.  Stop by their site at http://www.benjerry.com to find the location nearest you.

Enjoy, assholes.

March Of The Hungry

There’s a cafeteria area directly next to my office at work.  There are a couple of soda machines, a sandwich machine, and your standard snack machine.  The sandwich machine can be, at times, an excellent source of cheap food.  A turkey sandwich will run you $1.25.  The only thing that keeps me from eating lunch from it every day is the fact that the quality and quantity of food available is completely unreliable.  One day it will include the aforementioned turkey sandwiches, maybe a tuna salad, crab cake platters, etc.  The very next, it’ll include fifteen liverwurst sandwiches and some milk.

The snack machine, when stocked, can include some decent chips and candy.  The biggest problem is that it is rarely stocked – maybe once a month at the most.  Another problem is that it’s not really cheapskate-friendly.  Candy will run you either $.85 or $1, while the chips cost either $.60 or $.75.

Most of the better candies found in the snack machine are also available in the gift shop, located at the entrance of the building roughly 100-110 feet away from my desk.  It’s maybe a two or three minute walk at most.

What I started doing about a year ago is, on the days that I either forgot to bring in or I’m out of store bought snacks from home, I’ll make the trek down to the gift shop to buy chips or candy.  Why?  Because everything is ten cents cheaper than the snack machine.  The extra exercise is a bonus and usually makes me feel minutely better about buying M&Ms.