Day 65: My $30 at Fresh Thyme

Day 65 Vitals:

Weight:  271 lbs.
Mood:  Exhausted
Water Consumed:  2 Nalgenes
Breakfast: 2 Oranges
Lunch: Mixed veggies, pork chop
Dinner: Bean Casserole
Hangry Thought of the Day: I need a better happy place...

Week 10 is here.  It is time to shop at a relatively new store to the Twin Cities Market:  Fresh Thyme.  For those of you unfortunate enough NOT to have one of these little gems nearby should really take a trip to check one out.  They sort of have a feel of a Trader Joe's combined with a Whole Foods.  They have a smaller footprint, but have a much larger focus on fresh departments like bakery, meat and produce.  Perhaps my favorite thing about Fresh Thyme is their focus on locally made products.  You will find "Made in Minnesota" stickers scattered through out the store to help you identify those products.  So I took my $30 weekly budget and here is what I got:

Most of my shopping was focused on a bean casserole bake I wanted to make (and yes, that is what the chips are for).  I also needed to stock up on effs, and potatoes for the week.  For "luxury" buys I ended up with a 12 pack of sparkling water (cucumber melon!) and 2 packs of raspberries!  So here were my big wins:

• Raspberries $0.77 per package.  Fruit is by far the hardest of the food groups to come by on this limited budget.  These were a real treat, and the cheapest I have seen berries during the whole Project.
• Potatoes:  $1.50 for 5lbs.  You can't beat that price for name brand potatoes!
• Eggs $0.69.  While I think COSTCO has the best price per egg, this was the second, and the lowest I have seen a 12pk all project.

The swiss chard and the lime juice ate up a large portion of my budget this week, but I needed them for my bake.  I still felt I got plenty of food, and even had $10 to play with at the end of the week because I still have a fridge full of frozen veggies.  Overall I wish I would have had more room in the budget to play with, but I only have $30.  I should also give a shout out to the staff at the Bloomington, MN Fresh Thyme.  On more then one occasion they stopped what they were doing to ask if I needed help, and help they did.  They also have cucumber/melon sparkling water!

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