The Idea

As I cruised down the beautiful Columbia River Gorge from Vancouver, WA to meet a couple girlfriends in Walla Walla for a much needed "girls weekend", I got to thinking....I had been spending around $900 a month ($898 to be exact) on frequent trips to the grocery store to buy needed, and not needed, groceries and supplies for myself and my 2 daughters (ages 17 and 21.) Not only has this been a strain on my bank account, but somewhat risky due to the current COVID pandemic. I also thought to myself, I have been intermittent fasting for over a year now, surely this practice should cut down on my grocery bill since I'm not eating as much!

I presented my plan to my girlfriends and they thought it was a fantastic idea....my daughters, not so much. Here's the plan in a nutshell: give myself an allotment of $100 per week to spend on food and other items that I purchase ONLY from my local farmer's markets in Vancouver and stay out of the grocery stores for 30 days. After taking some time to think about it, one of my daughter's did say, "Maybe I'll try not to eat out at fast food restaurants for a month." I had my doubts about this, but loved that she was thinking about it and fully supported her. So today, one day before my little experiment is set to commence, I took stock of items that I knew I couldn't get at the farmer's markets such as toilet paper and coconut milk, pulled out $100 in cash from the bank, and put it in an envelope labeled, "Farmer's Market Fund"....I was ready to begin!