NO SPEND day 11 (with a little stop at Panera)

Well I've managed to do it again; a no spend cheat two days in a row. I had a big project at work today that was going to take more time than usual so my husband shooed me out the door first thing hoping I'd be home sooner than later. I hardly had time to get dressed with mr. grouchy moping around let alone make my morning coffee. But I had a plan. I grabbed two slices of my sourdough bread and a Panera gift card that I'd written $6.33 on with a sharpie and headed out. We got the gift card for Christmas and used it once to get our little family of three breakfast back in December.

When I gave birth to little Abe my husband catered to me for an entire week (the only time in my life that's happened). He ran out to Panera the morning after little Abe was born and brought me back a hot coffee and a breakfast souffle that I enjoyed immensely in the hospital while sitting in the bed with my fractured tail bone and my little bundle of awesome sleeping soundly away. I think it was the first time I'd had one and it seemed to be the most wonderful thing I'd ever eaten. During my baby daze of 2012 we had many a breakfast souffle from Panera (that was our backslide with the credit card debt year... in part thanks to those wonderful souffles). Needless to say I hardly ever have them now but they are a food with high sentimental value to me. There's a pretty big connection between those first few days of your little one's life and whatever went on during them.

I ordered a large coffee and a breakfast souffle this morning and quickly tried to do the math in my head. There is tax so I wasn't sure what the total would be but knew it was going to be very close to what I had on the gift card. The total this morning for my coffee and breakfast souffle came to $6.34. I showed the cashier what I'd written on my gift card ($6.33) and said, "I'm pretty sure that's the balance left. Do you have a penny?" She laughed and picked one off the counter behind the register. And with that NO SPEND day 11 is in the books and I had a wonderful breakfast on the way to work this morning. This will be the second time I've had food away from home/ anything not home cooked this month.

Average daily spending for 2015: $16.47

Last night we ate the steaks my hubby got from the butcher with the other gift card (I guess you can call this the week of gift cards), two half pound cuts of sirloin for $12 a pound. I was terrified to cook them because I cannot properly cook steak but I did the smartest thing I could think of. My husband has somewhat of a man crush on Alton Brown so I knew that if I googled what Alton would do and followed the directions to a T then I could blame Alton if they turned out poorly. Well, they turned out just great. As did the garlic bread I made from the sourdough, some corn, and the mashed potatoes and carrots (I always like to throw something orange in the potatoes; carrots or sweet potato because orange seems a healthier color than white; yep, it's an oddity I have). BUT I had at least three different nightmares last night about cooking disasters so apparently the fear of cooking the steaks improperly was ever present on my subconscious.