Saturday SNAP Challenge

SATURDAY:

Breakfast consisted of  home made pancakes (Hubby's speciality) topped with maple syrup, jam, butter and cream.  The girls had a glass of milk each, Hubby had one, and I had two cups of instant coffee with milk and sugar.
Lunch - We made toasted sandwiches with ham and cheese. Hubby and I had another instant coffee with milk and sugar each.
Dinner was a disaster in terms of the SNAP challenge.  As if I weren't already "off the rails" so to say, at this point it became a total train wreck.  A friend of ours rang late afternoon to ask if we would like to go to his place and get takeaway for dinner and have a games night.  We hadn't seen this friend for a few weeks and knew he was a bit 'down', so Hubby and I agreed that we would pick up Indian takeaway and head to his house.  The cost for dinner was $50 even which included the cost of his dinner too.  He did offer to pay for his share but we refused payment.  We drank his drinks instead :)
Dessert was nothing.

Running Food Tally:  Monday 17th to Sunday 23rd September 2012
Weetbix (14 bics)	Rice Cakes (8)	Tea Bags (12)	Apple (4)
Milk (6.5L)	Grain Waves chips	Instant Coffee	Strawbs (2 pt)
Cream (280ml)	Crispbreads (9)	Milo	Lettuce (1/2)
Butter (180g)	Lindt Choc (140g)	Mayonnaise	Tomato (1)
Ham (200g)	Tortillas (12)	White Sugar	Avocado (1)
Cheese slices (11)	Arborio Rice	Vanilla essence	Onion (3)
Cheese block(300g)	Corn kernels	Cordial	Carrot (4)
Ice cream (2L)	Cannalini beans	Mineral Water	Zucchini (1)
Yoghurt (500ml)	Taco seasoning	Ginger powder	Mushrooms (500g)
Mince beef (300g)	Tomato Passata	Chilli powder	Garlic (3 cloves)
Chicken (150g)	Soy Sauce	Chicken stock	Celery (1/4 bunch)
Rump Steak (200g)	Rice vermicelli	Nutella spread
Egg (1)	Sliced bread	C&B Balls
	Noodles (2 pkts)	Raspberry Jam
	Mushroom soup	Tomato Paste
	Spiral pasta	Paprika
	Flour	Maple syrup
Other: Lunch order for Emily - $4.30; Lunch order for Emily - $3.30;
Takeaway fish and chips - $20; Takeaway Indian - $50

What I learned today was that if I were really restricted to $100 per week takeaway would not be an option.  It would also make it very hard to practice generosity because there is nothing extra to give.  True, you may be able to give in different ways, but it makes it very hard when others' expectations or realities are different to those of your circumstances.  Ok, so said friend who we shared dinner with tonight has bought the 4 of us dinner before, and I have made him dinner countless times, but he is a single guy with a decent paying job and no monetary commitments, so he is able to buy takeaway whenever he likes - us, not so much.  While we are not restricted to the $100 per week, we try to stick closely to that which means we do rarely eat out (we might average $10 per week on eating out).
I will also add at this point that this week was not a typical week for us.  Emily normally gets a lunch order once per fortnight, but this week being the last of term they had a special day Thursday which involved a second lunch order.  I could have said no and not given her one for the sake of this challenge but I decided not to deprive her of what I normally would have allowed anyway.  We also don't normally get 2 takeaways in one week (as mentioned above) but we decided to roll with it - actually my family has no idea I started this challenge, so I guess this is all just our normal (irregular) life.