A documentation of my journey to improve my life
Tag: Kelowna
My old roommate and good friend Ryan Majeau and I often debate, about pretty much everything (we’re both stubborn). One time we got into an argument (debate) about whether it was more expensive to buy your lunch out everyday or spend the time to make a bag lunch. His argument was always for eating out. He figured by the time he bought bread, lunch meat, cheese, and veggies to make a sandwich, then added a granola bar and maybe an...
Who’s Got What It Takes To Live Without? Of course living on $56 for food, gas, entertainment, and booze for a week is crazy; it’s ridiculous, drastic, and near impossible. That’s the point! This challenge is supposed to be an exercise in extreme budgeting practice. It’s meant to throw you in an uncomfortable situation and see how (and if) you handle it. What if $56 is all you had? What if your world changed in a second and you had no other choice...
Self Inflicted Pain My first day of this new challenge was by far the most difficult. Being so busy rushing around with the end of last months cooking challenge I didn’t get a chance to go grocery shopping for this month. This meant when I woke up day one I was somewhat limited on my food selection. From 6am when I woke up until after 8pm all I had to eat was two eggs and two granola bars, which I had to...
“Why only budget $250 for a month, that’s crazy!” Let me first begin with my motivation for this month’s budget challenge. I suck at budgeting This could be due to a lot of reasons but mostly because I am simply not a planner. Planning involves foresight, scheduling and attention to detail, all things I’m not naturally astute at (unless you look on my resume). I’m more of a spontaneous, adventurous kind of guy. I plan what I have to (the big stuff...
My name is Richard Groves. I’m 33 years old, a native of Kelowna, BC (one of the few who actually grew up here!) and I like long walks on the beach. I met Ryan about a year ago through the Kelowna Jaycees (Jr Chamber). I live a fairly frugal lifestyle. I walk to work so I won’t have any vehicle expenses to worry about this week (the 50cc scooter isn’t insured..yet!), I never really stopped eating like a Uni student...
THE CHALLENGE “In an effort to BE BETTERTM I’m going to challenge myself to live on $250 for the entire calendar month of March”. Ryan said it with a completely straight-face. I nodded and smiled and made all the right encouraging noises but in my head my initial reaction was ‘why would anyone actually want to do this?!’ My wife Lee and I, both being accountants, already run monthly family budget spreadsheets that we use to regiment our spending. We’re...
I had it all planned out. This was the last night of my 1 roast 3 meals challenge and I wasn’t going to let it kick my ass again. The first night was a marathon of beef cooking and the second was a chaotic pot pie experiment. Both nights I got distracted and both nights we ended up eating after 10 o’clock. But that wasn’t going to happen again. This time I had a plan. Step 1: Where did I go wrong?...
After making possibly the best roast I’ve ever had, I was feeling pretty confident with my cooking skills. I mean sure my friend Drew saved me from destroying my roast and dinners for the next 3 days but I was the one who slaved away to make it work. Thankfully Drew’s American Test Kitchen cook book had done most of the trial and error for us so I just got to follow along and look like a pro. Now it was...
Over the last few days my cooking challenge has really started to build some momentum. After investing into some essential meal planning hacks, I spent my evenings in cultural exploration. First I got to prepare Salt Fish and Ackee, the national dish of Jamaica with my friend Daniel who grew up there. Then Brittney and I were treated to an amazing authentic Chinese cooking night with our friends David and Sophia who went all out with cool Chinese robes, samples of traditional teas...
Cooking Reflections If this month’s cooking challenge has taught me anything its that I suck at planning ahead. I don’t know if it’s just a male thing or maybe something to do with my birth month (I’m a Libra if you were curious) but scheduling, and planning ahead are just not my areas of forte. This has really seemed to bite me in the ass this month as apparently cooking a good meal is only about 20% actual cooking and 80%...
