I've been in a cooking funk eating the same things all the time, so I decided to give myself a challenge!

2sday! So every Tuesday I will try to eat only 2 dollars worth of food, and have different meals than any previous 2sday! Figured I'd share my misadventures here.

Here is what I ate today and prices! (I used winco which has buckets of stuff you scoop into bags and sells a ton of things by pound.)

Breakfast:

1 cup of Instant Oats @ .98/Pound

small handful dried dates cooked into the oats @ 2.58 per pound

Spoonful of sugar

A biscuit! Made mostly for lunch, but had one here with margarine.

Dates tasted pretty good in the oatmeal! Honestly a cup of dried oats is a lot, but the goal is to get over 2000 calories today, so needed to start off strong!

Lunch:

Biscuits made with just salt, baking powder, and flour mixture, used 1 cup of flour, mix was .60/pound

Chicken gravy made with a table spoon of oil, flour, and broth from bouillon cube. The cubes I have are .28 cents each.

1/4 cup dried split peas that I cooked until tender the day before, then heated up into the gravy. @ .86 per pound

Small amount of fake butter from my fridge. IDK how much I paid for it, but it's a super cheap brand.

Ate 4 of the biscuits smothered in the gravy with butter, and turned out pretty good! Split peas didn't have the exact taste I was looking for since I'm used to sweet peas, but they still added something really good and I probably would just add more to give more heartiness and protein. They're super calorie dense for price so probably could have just used them as a soup along with the biscuits and had a much heartier meal. Or could have added more peas and ditched the bouillon cube in favor of just using salt/pepper for the gravy.

Dinner:

1 cup rice @ .78/pound 1/4 chickpeas @ 1.17/pound 1/2 can hunts seasoned tomato sauce @67 a can

Cooked rice, cooked dry chickpeas during the day, mixed with tomato sauce and salt. It tasted pretty good, nothing creative here.

So the primary goal was calories today! I've watched some youtubers rave about how "filling" budget meals are... that if you do the math are like 200 calories. So wanted to focus on calories. I don't have a digital scale so don't know if I hit the goal of 2 dollars exactly, but napkin math says I was pretty close on one side or the other.

Would love suggestions on any other meals that would be part of a 2k calorie diet and fit into 2 dollar budget!

If you can't find a good place to buy a specific ingredient for cheap near you, you can see if it's cheaper on amazon based on price per pound. Really nice if you can't find something local.

It's not perfect if the lister messed up the info, but it's a great place to start.

So imagine this:

you owe X amount of money, and fleeing the country makes it vanish

Or you accidentally are given X amount of money, and fleeing the country is only way to keep it

Inspired by: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/25/they-fled-the-country-to-escape-their-student-debt.html (Who left over 20k. Would not bounce.)

https://www.the-sun.com/news/5684480/worker-accidentally-paid-300-times-salary-vanishes/#:~:text=Instead%2C%20the%20lucky%20man%2C%20who,seen%20or%20heard%20from%20since. (I would bounce)

I want to work on complimenting other men more! Specifically my goal is to compliment people on things they clearly worked hard on or put in effort, cause it sucks if you work super hard or care about something and then don't feel like anyone notices.

So I'm going to try and compliment people who:

Have really well done and unique tattoos

Are older but super athletic (It's harder and more thankless, since when you're young and athletic you're usually in sports and get lots of praise. At least that was my experience)

Have super sharp outfits

Have really nice shoes (nice shoes are expensive and keeping them clean is legit hard)

what are other good compliments we should give each other?

EDIT: Oh and I still remember when I got a compliment on what I was getting while grocery shopping. So if I see like real good food in there I'll try to throw out a "looks like you're cooking up some good stuff"

Hi everyone!

Few months ago I asked about finding a good cheap escooter: https://lemmy.world/post/15970361

After watching this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsC8Fd7Hb1w&t=472s

I ended up buying this scooter!

https://gotrax.com/products/seated-electric-scooter

On Thursday did my longest trip with it and did nearly 13 miles, and it still had over 25% left. I weigh 140 pounds so me being light might be why it had such a good range.

Otherwise I use it a ton to go grocery shopping every couple days, get to dr appointments, and the like. It's wonderful for little me who works from home and is within 4 miles of most things I need.

Also I have a room mate who doesn't have a car for financial reasons, and they've fallen in love with it as well for running errands under 2 miles so they've mentioned they might get one once they get a bit more money so they don't have to borrow mine. Only complaint is I might try to make the basket bigger, as it's a tad small!

But yeah just wanted to throw out my experience for anyone else looking for a cheap escooter!

So these items are "kind of" cursed, where instead of them just being "using these are a bad idea" they are "using these are risky" these are potential gifts from the God of Chance, entertainment, gambling, and risk.

Any suggestions on these, or any new ones you think I should add?

Orb of random dragon! - Throwing this orb as a bonus action to the ground summons a draconic spirit from another dimension, roll to choose the color. It may or may not be hostile to you. The dragon can return to their plane at any time and vanishes back if slain. Single use.

Double or nothing - A magical coin with an X on one side and a winking dragon on the other. On taking damage, as a reaction flip a coin. Heads you take double damage, tails you take no damage. Single use.

Mirrored coin - On breaking this coin as a bonus action you let out an aura of bad luck that lasts for one minute. You have disadvantage on all saving throws, and any saving throws you force another creature to make they also have disadvantage. Single use.

Amulet of bloody good luck - Before making a saving throw you can activate this amulet as a reaction and roll a d10 and add the result to your saving throw. You take 5 force damage ignoring temp HP * the amount rolled on the d10.

Push your luck - On failing a saving throw as a reaction you may roll again using this bracelet, if you fail again you suffer the normal consequences as well as getting 2 levels of exhaustion.

Staff of odds - This magical staff with a laughing jester atop it has a -2 to hit on any spells cast from it, but crit on a 20 or 19

Call to the unknown - A golden wired diamond ear piece. Expend a spell slot as an action while targeting a creature. A spell of that level + 1 is randomly cast targeting that creature. Concentration is held by the Call to the Unknown and must be destroyed to end the effects early.

All on black - A necklace of a roulette wheel. As a bonus action activate the necklace by spinning it and roll a d10. On evens instantly have the benefits of a long rest. On odds, fall to 0 hp and become cursed for 12 hours. While cursed this way you are stable, can not regain HP, and this curse can not be removed except for Wish or act of god.

Dressed to kill - This wispy reaper like cloak means you no longer roll death saving throws, but die if you hit 0 hp as you are whisked into the cloak. Creatures you reduce to 0 hp instantly die even if they would normally stabilize or have death saving throws, as the soul is instantly brought into the shroud. The creature can not go to a clone or be revived until freed from the cloak.

So my mom has been saying for awhile how she wished she could play Hogwarts legacy, and my older sister just replaced her gaming PC. So my sister sent her old pc to my mom. Nothing crazy, but meets minimum system requirements! My mom is now kind of speed running learning about gaming and it's been amusing. I just think these are adorable.

1. She complained that she couldn't find the game for sale for PC anywhere, she could only find it for XBOX and PS. She was looking on amazon, and I had to point her towards steam, and help her setup an account for steam.

2. She happened to purchase it while it was on sale and she was super confused why it was randomly on sale! Had to explain how steam works. She's disabled and the $60 was the extent of her fun money for the month, so getting it on sale was a huge deal to her.

3. Complaining at how long it took to download the game off wifi when she was ready to play RIGHT NOW. She kept asking if we could use an Ethernet cable to make it go faster, but her PC was like 40 feet from the nearest jack and we didn't have a long enough ethernet cable (No I wasn't driving home to my house to look for one, and no I wasn't buying her one. Love you momma! You gotta wait!)

4. She realized she hates mouse and keyboard, so used the money she saved from the sale to buy a little controller from walmart.

5. She talked about how much she likes that because she's on "story mode" she can skip puzzles/challenges she thinks are stupid. Considering there are games I never beat as a kid because of a specific mini game/challenge I couldn't beat, I resonated with that. Back when we were kids if there was a quick time event you couldn't beat, we quit the game!

6. A few weeks later she talked about how she was super happy to finally find a youtuber that would give walk through/tips/advice on how to do things in a not annoying way. The one she likes are basically "Here is a 30 second clip of doing this specific thing in this room". She is not a fan of 30 minute lets plays with intros/outros.

7. Complaining about long load times between rooms, and quests that make her go through multiple loading zones. No comment, she's just right to complain.

All her revelations were super relatable and I just thought it was cute that at an older age she went through modern gaming transition in a few weeks, and hit on emotions we all basically hit.

Make black beans (Canned will be more expensive, but easier of course)

Smash the black beans up, and slowly add instant potato's while mixing until they are a meat ball texture, add salt to taste. Roll into ball then smash semi thin so they cook through.

Add to medium heat greased pan, cook until colored and sticking together.

For the biscuit I just did water + flour + salt + baking powder, so like 5 cents.

Add whatever you have handy to make taste good! I just do a little bit of margarine and it tasted really good.

Loved the texture, and I have a bunch of extra patties since I did a decently large batch.

She's super creative with instant mashed potato's and using them makes:

Potato patties

Black bean burgers

Shepard's pie

I actually made some black bean burgers using the recipe and they came out great!

Going to try out making a black bean burger like hers later!

TLDR: Looking for a 3+ wheeled vehicle that can be locked up like a bike and maybe taken on a bus.

So my sister has health issues that means she can't drive/get a license, and that she'd most likely fall over on a scooter. She mostly walks/busses around, but the bus system is closed on sundays and makes life difficult.

So yeah, wondering if there is anything that would be allowed on sidewalks/bike lanes with 3+ wheels and a bit more speed than walking so she can increase her range that she can get to, but like be able to be chained to a bike rack.

IDK bit of a stretch, but maybe you all know something!

BIOS version: 6332

Motherboard:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6FvZxr/asus-prime-a320m-k-micro-atx-am4-motherboard-prime-a320m-k

CPU:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Qk2bt6/amd-ryzen-9-5950x-34-ghz-16-core-processor-100-100000059wof

According to part picker the cpu should work with version 5862

So it seats nicely and machine powers on, but then the lights on my mouse/keyboard flash on, then off. Then after about a minute the PC turns off.

According to part picker my power supply can handle what I have attached with the new CPU, but I don't really know how to test that.

Already took out the cmos battery and reset.

Putting in my old cpu works just fine, so I didn't brick anything.

Any ideas?

I make gravy for potatoes/rice using bouillon cubes, but IDK what to put over my biscuits!

Any suggestions? (preferably on cheaper side so can eat it on the regular)

According to research ending every call with "Have I resolved all your issues?" Reduces how often people call back.

But yeah if you want to upgrade your product, it takes 5 inbound calls because of the steps. All but the last one could be automated.

I got yeeted.

That's all.

Today there was construction on the road and a ton of cars were stuck.

Then whenever there is an event at a nearby park I zoom on by them as all the cars get stuck.

Just realized how overly pleased I was when the person stopped all the cars, and I just was like... oh look, nothing is being done in my lane.

EDIT: Oh and I can get to my closet grocery store faster than a car by cutting through a parking lot cars can't get into simply because doing so avoids having to do a left turn onto a super busy road. Joyful, every time. More traffic at that light, the better I feel.

Glad to hear others are as petty as me!

She goes a bit over budget at 1.60 per day, but still a great source of inspiration and very well done! Sadly enough the main reason it looks like she goes so over budget is two eggs per day cost so much these days.

1 Cup Self rising flour (15 cents) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z7C6FVK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

1 Banana (15 cents)

Teaspoon of sugar (idk, 1 cent? 2?)

I blended a ripe banana in a cup of water, then mixed it into the self rising flour along with a bit of sugar.

Put in muffin pan with small amount of cooking spray.

Baked at 425 F for 13 minutes

4/10 plain, I would say a costco banana nut muffin is a 7/10. So obviously worse than any store bought banana muffin, but not offensive by any means. If I was craving muffins this would certainly count.

Hot with margarine and it was pretty good. I feel like cinnamon sugar butter would probably have gone well.