Life of a Single Married Lady

On Saturday I rode my bike to the farmer's market with my shopping list and my $40, ready to buy food for the week. I mean, where better to eat all summer than from the farmer's market? Madison has the largest producers-only market in the country, and boy, is it big - 1 mile long circling the Capitol Building. Being Wisconsin, there are typically at least four stalls selling cheese, but there is so much more in the treasure chest of the market! Breads, jams and jellies, honey, syrup, meat, a ridiculous amount of amazing produce, exotic jerky, herbs, plants, flowers...if you visit us, make sure your timeframe includes a Saturday morning! This week I got some assorted vegetables and leafy greens, a baguette, and half a turkey. I intended to buy a whole chicken to roast in the crock pot and use all week, but three-quarters of the way around I hadn't found a chicken! So I settled for half a turkey (and found the chickens about three stalls later), which I still felt was impre...

Here in Wisconsin, we've only had a few days of 70+ degree weather this year, and it's halfway through May! Yesterday, Maine broke its May snowfall records, and my mom sent me a picture of snow in Michigan last Sunday. Thankfully, this week looks like summer...maybe it'll stick around for good! In an effort to save money, eat healthier, and waste less food , I've begun to plan our meals out every week. I've tried this in the past and fallen off, but this time it's going to stick. We've been spending too much on food - both on groceries and at restaurants, coffee shops, etc. - and that's so easy to fix, I just need to make a better effort. I looked up best practices for saving money on food and proper meal planning, and found a very achievable goal: $100 per person per month, or $50 per week for us. We weren't spending too much more than that, but sometimes we'd have a bad month, and I don't want that to happen anymore. As an extra challen...