T H E 6 T H F L O O R

Life in 6 Land

Save $3 a Day

It’s interesting the odds and ends you find around every corner of the Internet. You could be googling a specific word or looking for images and it’s strange to see just what the results are some time. Yesterday I infringed on someone’s site in search of an image to go along with my post, Eat on $3 a Day. Not really sure what I was looking for, but something catchy. I stumbled upon the three $1 bills clothes pinned to a line.

This piece is not so much about that image, even though I used it without consent, but it’s about the site it came from. The site belongs to Beth Kobliner and the image I “borrowed” was from a post she shared on December 29, 2011 titled, Introducing my motto for 2011: Save $3 Day!

I’ll be honest as a kid I was never good at saving money. I did my fair share, but more often then not I would run out and buy what I could, with what I had. My wife and I are working on getting our son in the habit of saving money. Soon the chores will start and he will see the “fruits of his labors!”

As for the story, Beth touts start the year “fresh” and while not setting a resolution to lose weight or learn a language, she wanted to help people save money. Admirable, really. I know I could use some tips on saving money for the future, be an emergency or vacation, but in her story it was for retirement. As it stands now I am 42 years old that leaves me with maybe 18 years left to work, which means when I leave BART I will be 60 years old with 22 years of service.

While I have not paid much attention to my retirement figures, this idea of saving $3 a day intrigues me. It seems a very simple and inexpensive way to put away money without really thinking about it. At the end of each year, she suggests investing it in an IRA. The example she uses, “If you start at age 35 and follow this plan every year, by age 70 you’ll have $129,342 waiting for you in retirement (assuming you earned an average 6% annual return).” Not a bad way to help supplement a retirement.

While it would have made a great resolution, it’s never too late to start saving. I am going to give it a shot and see just how easy $3 a day is to pocket and saving and invest at the end of the year. You can read more about Beth Kobliner at her web site.

Oatmeal Pancakes

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups water
1 ripe banana
2 tablespoons or less real maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon sea salt or none
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
Combined ingredients in a blender or food processor. Let stand for batter to thicken and heat griddle to 325 (or non-stick skillet). Spoon batter onto griddle. I was able to make 14 pancakes at about 4-5″ in diameter. Serve.

SOURCE: McDougall Message board from FruityGirl

Eat on $3 a Day

Back in October I was being introduced to just how made the American diet is when I viewed Forks Over Knives, Food Inc. and Food Matters. This led me to learn about a plant-based, whole food lifestyle, Dr. John McDougall and others leading the way when it comes to taking your health into your own hands. Since October I have lost 27 pounds and improved my blood work numbers, namely my total cholesterol by 64 points!

Since mid January I have become reacquainted with exercise and the added benefits to my healthy, now that I have my diet under control. Weekly exercise consists of 30-45 minutes of walking, daily. When I get home it’s been either weight lifting on our Bowflex Revolution or doing Beachbody’s Power 90 (yes, the original). Unlike seeing quick results with the diet portion of a healthy lifestyle, I figure it will be 6 weeks before I start to see physical changes in my appearance, outside of shedding pounds and looking thinner.

About 10 days ago I started keep track of my daily food intake. Back in 2003, when I first started Power 90, there was a recommendation to purchase the program, Fit Day, which allows you to track food, nutritional information, exercise, set goals such as activity and weight and track your progress.

I have taken it a step further. Using the online site, Spark Recipes, I can now entire all ingredients to any meal I plan and break that meal down into a ‘per serving’ size. For example, the Fit Day database, as extensive as it is doesn’t have my Potato Enchiladas. I built the recipe and I can now enter the nutritional data into Fit Day and see just how much I eat a day. A great little program that allows me to track all things food/exercise related to improve my health.

The next step…why…I don’t know is to start tracking the amount of money my wife and I spend a month on food. I can tell you right now it is down in the past few months since we have not spent a penny on any meat. Last time I opened our freezer in the garage there was a plethora of chicken, turkey, pork, beef and fish just waiting to be cook. Outside of the fish, I can’t see me preparing any of the other meat in the freezer.

Dr. McDougall, in his March, 2008 Newsletter discussed Cutting Food Costs in These Times of Economic Downturn. “On average women consume about 2000 calories daily and men 2500 calories…The cost of animal-food centered meals cooked at home for one person could easily be $10 a day or more,” says Dr. McDougall. For those individuals who favor dining out as opposed to eating in, “spending $14 for a full day’s worth of fast food meals would not be unusual.”

For those not following a plant-based, whole food lifestyle buying 20 pounds of brown rice or 25 pounds of pinto beans might seem extreme. When the numbers are broken down by unit cost and compared to the cost for 2500 calories you can see the extensive savings. For example, a Taco Bell Taco costs $.99 and for a man to get 2500 calories would require $14.56. By comparison 2o pounds of potatoes cost $6.99 and for a man to get 2500 calories would cost $1.75! Savings you can see and taste!

Being able to eat or feeding a family for $3 a day per person is possible, but will require a larger up front cost. That is a cost I am willing to make since I know I will use 25 pounds of brown rice or 20 pounds of potatoes. Dr. McDougall’s wife, Mary has recipes for her “Stove Top Stew cost $1.40 (fills up four adults) and the Pea Soup ingredients cost $1.80 (fills up 6 adults).” These days when money does matter and you are trying to better your budget, you might consider this as an option.

As Dr. McDougall sums it up, “A person spending $14 a day eating at fast food restaurants could be spending $3 by eating a starch-based diet at home. This translates into $11 per day savings. (This means $330 a month and $4015 per year saved, which happens to be enough to attend the McDougall 10-day live-in Program in Santa Rosa, CA—so you might consider the McDougall Program as a free program.)” Then again, a starch based diet is not widely accepted, but even minor changes can be positive.

Part-Time Effort

With all the things on my STD list to complete during my days off, I was not able to get my transceiver, the Yaesu, FT-1000MP boxed up and shipped off to Byron, WA4GEG in Tennessee. He is my source for all things concerning my radio, as it has been there two previous times. Unfortunately looking at the calendar there are some enjoyable contests on the horizon that I was hoping to participate in. Thankfully George, K6GT has loaned me his back up radio, which was unused until I get mine repaired and returned.

Next week is CQ WW WPX RTTY and while it was a very strong contest for me a few years back, it will only be a single band effort next weekend, depending on if I get both days off from work. This decision after speaking with SteppIR tech support last night on the phone only to realize I probably did more damage than I thought to the mechanical workings of my BigIR MkIII. So much for operating on the low bands (40M/80M). Much like my amp going out 2 years before prior to this contest, it could be a blessing in disguise.

Looking at the 2011 and 2010 results from WPX RTTY, this would give me the best chance to win some wallpaper (ham speak for an award). My best best will be 15M or 20M, depending on what the propagation is doing next weekend. This means I would operate about 2 hours before sunrise to about 2 hours after sunset. This could go longer depending on sort of activity I would get beaming JA/OC.

It doesn’t get much better as the following weekend is ARRL DX CW followed by NAQP RTTY the week after. I will need to get the “okay” from the XYL before I ask W6ZJH if I can guest op from his shack for this contest. Chances are it will be all of February and a part of March before I get my radio and antenna back from being repaired. Until then, I will have to pick and choose my efforts when it comes to contesting. With any luck, I could have everything back up and running by the time JIDX CW rolls around on April 14.

Sprouts & Taters

Outside of the wonderful benefits I am experience since I have changed my diet, which realistically is a lifestyle change as been the new foods I have started to eat. Before learning about Dr. John McDougall my vegetables were usually limited to a basic salad slathered in dressing. It was rare I would bake, broil or steam vegetables to accompany what meat dish I was creating.

Since my 2010 physical I thought we were eating better, passing on red meat and opting for chicken and pork. Little did I know…these were no better for my cholesterol. These past few months learning about food and researching nutrition has been an eye opening experience. Many of the “myths” I had about food have been dispelled and I am finding eating an entirely new experience.

This last week I tasted two foods I had never eating in 42 years. The first, Brussels sprouts, which were nothing more than steamed and served as a side to a cranberry gratin over fingerling potatoes. I had been looking for a recipe in order to serve there, but most commonly recipes included olive oil. The flavor of this food was outstanding just steamed.

The other food I cooked up after finding a recipe in a Sunset magazine was re-stuffed sweet potato with a creme sauce. The original recipe was using Mexican crema, orange juice, lemon juice and zest to create a orange crema, needless to say I didn’t make my crema that way. Still the flavor of the sweet potato was amazing! What was even more impressive was I was full after finishing off a large potato.

Last night gefore making more potato enchiladas for my wife and son, I popped a sweet potato in the oven with nothing on it, 45 minutes later when their dinner went in the oven I sat down to enjoy my hot sweet potato. I split it down the middle adding a little bit of cumin, some pepper and a sauce (consisting of water, cashews and nutritional yeast that was blended). Chances are good I needed none of these additional flavors to supplement what the sweet potato provided.

To date nothing has surpassed the flavor of the potato enchiladas for my wife. In the last 2 weeks I have made this dish no less than 4 times! I am still searching for another dish to add to our weekly menu that “has substance” and good flavor that will have my wife wanting more. I have been looking and bookmarking many different vegan/vegetarian recipe sites, as well as using recipes from Dr. McDougall’s message boards and past newsletters. Some of the recipes from the Internet might require some tweaking to prepare it without oil or dairy, but not much is lost by leaving these ingredients out.