I feel kinda crappy so let's do some ranting!
Rant Part One:
I never get the "We eat off the dollar menus a lot because we don't have a lot of money. It's not good for us but we can't afford to eat better."
Um...WTF? Since when is paying 10-20 dollars for a dollar menu meal for your family (depending on the size of the family and appetites) a bargin? I can feed 3-5 people a whole week for not much more than that by /gasp cooking at HOME!!! It's not as quick or convient, but seriously, eating out even at McDonalds/BK/Wendy's is a luxury. If you are really hard up on cash cutting your eating out is a very quick and easy way to save money.
You can get ginormous bags of frozen chicken for 10-15 bucks depending on the store. Many times you can find them on sale buy one get one free (we recently found just that). So about 2 dozen chicken breasts for 10 dollars +tax. That's a lot of food for not much money. Now enter rice, vegetables, pasta and legumes! You can stretch 2-3 chicken pieces to feed 4-5 people with leftovers without them even reallizing they didn't get a whole breast or 2 for themselves. The food might not always be top notch zomg this is to die for, but it's generally pretty tasty (takes me a couple tries sometimes to get things right since I rarely follow recipes to the letter and many times don't even use a recipe, just make things from whatever we have around.
Pre-made stuff is more expensive too. Like the little microwave things of rice. Just buy a big bag of rice, it's what? 2 bucks? And a cup of it makes enough for my crew usually. The tiny pre-done packages cost nearly as much and are just for one meal.
Dried beans are your friend as well. Ate those a LOT growing up because we were didn't have a lot of money. Pot of pintos, batch of biscuits, an onion, a cucumber and a tomato can feed a lot of people hehe and didn't cost much at all (particularly when the vegetables came out of the garden). I didn't reallize it at the time because I never FELT like I was lacking. Poor kids were the ones who went hungry you know? And we never did. We always had good food and plenty of it. If you wanted seconds, it was there waiting.
We often eat what my husband calls "poor people food" now. But its good, I like it a hell of a lot better than I like ...well anything that's cooked with wine with fancy sauces. I hate wine...I really can't stand the stuff. Even in food /gag. But that's another rant. Even if you aren't into 'poor people food", that doesn't mean you have to eat out to eat well. Just doing some simple things at home is far more cost effective than eating the same meal out and recipes abound on the good ole interwebz. There's surely something out there that will tickle your taste buds and not cost you a mint.
Just because you are on a tight budget doesn't mean you have to eat dollar menu crap, ramen noodles and the cheapo mac & cheese. If you pay attention to the prices of what you buy and avoid 'pre made' as often as possible, you might be surprised at just how little it costs you to eat really good food.
Rant Part Two:
Ladies. Especially you pregnant ones out there. Don't be so hard on yourselves. People, women especially have such a screwed up view of 'the perfect body' . Here's some news! There IS NO PERFECT BODY!!! Your ideal weight is going to vary from the ideal weight of the woman next to you. It'll be different because of your genetics, your breast size, how athletic you are, and of course your height and how you are built.
Idolizing these celebrities and going crazy trying to look like them is a plague. Have you SEEN how some of these perfectly gorgeous folks look without their make-up and fabulous clothes? They look just like any other schmuck on the street, and many are just as bleah in the looks department. Few of them really look like they do in all the media. That takes a lot of preening.
Being so thin that one could hang coats from your clavicle is NOT pretty. It's not attractive and it is not sexy (yeah that's just my opinion but seriously who want's to f*9k Skeletor? Not ME!) Biggest thing it's not healthy. I grew up in the eighties and when we saw people like that we felt sorry for them and there were big groups of famous people doing songs to get money to help them...
I truly wish that every woman could look in the mirror and accept herself and see her particular beauty. See that it's not necessary to starve yourself and be a slave to trendy fashion to look good. This leads right into another rant.
The media and all going on about the 'plague of obesity' isn't helping anything either. Yeah there are a lot of fat people, but everyone is all BMI BMI BMI adhering to it like some religious fanatic. BMI is nothing but a guide. That alone is no accurate measure of the amount of body fat you actually have. Someone could have a normal BMI and still carry more fat than you'd think by looking only at the BMI. Someone can have a higher BMI and be very athletic. Its an indicator, a tool. Nothing more. There is nothing absolute about it.
I have my bad days like everyone else when I feel awful, feel like I look awful (seriously, what is up some days when you look like a zombie, cracked lips and bloodshot eyes and all without the fun night before to justify it) Days when the cloths I have just don't seem to fight right and my hair is completely uncooperative. I still fuss about my weight a bit. I jiggle my fat and sigh, thinking back to the body I had 10-15 years ago when I was ohhh so concerned with how it looked and even 6-7 years ago when I thought I'd gotten hugely fat and worried over how it looked. But these days I feel differently about the whole deal. I EARNED that big ole belly flap of flab. It's going to be there for me til the day I die unless I get a tummy tuck (which I won't do for personal reasons). All these stretch marks, which I would have been horrified by a few years ago are now badges, a little souvenir of something I will be highly unlikely to ever experience again. I'm comfortable in my body these days. I know it's not gorgeous and I'll never be a magazine model, but I am just fine with how I look. If I manage to lose another 10 or even goodness help me 20 pounds that will be fantastic. But if I don't it no longer matters image wise to me. I wish that for every woman. It's a shame so many women spend the years of their life when they actually do look fantastic hating themselves and their older years reallizing what they had when they were younger and trying to recapture it in vain with surgery.
I never get the "We eat off the dollar menus a lot because we don't have a lot of money. It's not good for us but we can't afford to eat better."
Um...WTF? Since when is paying 10-20 dollars for a dollar menu meal for your family (depending on the size of the family and appetites) a bargin? I can feed 3-5 people a whole week for not much more than that by /gasp cooking at HOME!!! It's not as quick or convient, but seriously, eating out even at McDonalds/BK/Wendy's is a luxury. If you are really hard up on cash cutting your eating out is a very quick and easy way to save money.
You can get ginormous bags of frozen chicken for 10-15 bucks depending on the store. Many times you can find them on sale buy one get one free (we recently found just that). So about 2 dozen chicken breasts for 10 dollars +tax. That's a lot of food for not much money. Now enter rice, vegetables, pasta and legumes! You can stretch 2-3 chicken pieces to feed 4-5 people with leftovers without them even reallizing they didn't get a whole breast or 2 for themselves. The food might not always be top notch zomg this is to die for, but it's generally pretty tasty (takes me a couple tries sometimes to get things right since I rarely follow recipes to the letter and many times don't even use a recipe, just make things from whatever we have around.
Pre-made stuff is more expensive too. Like the little microwave things of rice. Just buy a big bag of rice, it's what? 2 bucks? And a cup of it makes enough for my crew usually. The tiny pre-done packages cost nearly as much and are just for one meal.
Dried beans are your friend as well. Ate those a LOT growing up because we were didn't have a lot of money. Pot of pintos, batch of biscuits, an onion, a cucumber and a tomato can feed a lot of people hehe and didn't cost much at all (particularly when the vegetables came out of the garden). I didn't reallize it at the time because I never FELT like I was lacking. Poor kids were the ones who went hungry you know? And we never did. We always had good food and plenty of it. If you wanted seconds, it was there waiting.
We often eat what my husband calls "poor people food" now. But its good, I like it a hell of a lot better than I like ...well anything that's cooked with wine with fancy sauces. I hate wine...I really can't stand the stuff. Even in food /gag. But that's another rant. Even if you aren't into 'poor people food", that doesn't mean you have to eat out to eat well. Just doing some simple things at home is far more cost effective than eating the same meal out and recipes abound on the good ole interwebz. There's surely something out there that will tickle your taste buds and not cost you a mint.
Just because you are on a tight budget doesn't mean you have to eat dollar menu crap, ramen noodles and the cheapo mac & cheese. If you pay attention to the prices of what you buy and avoid 'pre made' as often as possible, you might be surprised at just how little it costs you to eat really good food.
Rant Part Two:
Ladies. Especially you pregnant ones out there. Don't be so hard on yourselves. People, women especially have such a screwed up view of 'the perfect body' . Here's some news! There IS NO PERFECT BODY!!! Your ideal weight is going to vary from the ideal weight of the woman next to you. It'll be different because of your genetics, your breast size, how athletic you are, and of course your height and how you are built.
Idolizing these celebrities and going crazy trying to look like them is a plague. Have you SEEN how some of these perfectly gorgeous folks look without their make-up and fabulous clothes? They look just like any other schmuck on the street, and many are just as bleah in the looks department. Few of them really look like they do in all the media. That takes a lot of preening.
Being so thin that one could hang coats from your clavicle is NOT pretty. It's not attractive and it is not sexy (yeah that's just my opinion but seriously who want's to f*9k Skeletor? Not ME!) Biggest thing it's not healthy. I grew up in the eighties and when we saw people like that we felt sorry for them and there were big groups of famous people doing songs to get money to help them...
I truly wish that every woman could look in the mirror and accept herself and see her particular beauty. See that it's not necessary to starve yourself and be a slave to trendy fashion to look good. This leads right into another rant.
The media and all going on about the 'plague of obesity' isn't helping anything either. Yeah there are a lot of fat people, but everyone is all BMI BMI BMI adhering to it like some religious fanatic. BMI is nothing but a guide. That alone is no accurate measure of the amount of body fat you actually have. Someone could have a normal BMI and still carry more fat than you'd think by looking only at the BMI. Someone can have a higher BMI and be very athletic. Its an indicator, a tool. Nothing more. There is nothing absolute about it.
I have my bad days like everyone else when I feel awful, feel like I look awful (seriously, what is up some days when you look like a zombie, cracked lips and bloodshot eyes and all without the fun night before to justify it) Days when the cloths I have just don't seem to fight right and my hair is completely uncooperative. I still fuss about my weight a bit. I jiggle my fat and sigh, thinking back to the body I had 10-15 years ago when I was ohhh so concerned with how it looked and even 6-7 years ago when I thought I'd gotten hugely fat and worried over how it looked. But these days I feel differently about the whole deal. I EARNED that big ole belly flap of flab. It's going to be there for me til the day I die unless I get a tummy tuck (which I won't do for personal reasons). All these stretch marks, which I would have been horrified by a few years ago are now badges, a little souvenir of something I will be highly unlikely to ever experience again. I'm comfortable in my body these days. I know it's not gorgeous and I'll never be a magazine model, but I am just fine with how I look. If I manage to lose another 10 or even goodness help me 20 pounds that will be fantastic. But if I don't it no longer matters image wise to me. I wish that for every woman. It's a shame so many women spend the years of their life when they actually do look fantastic hating themselves and their older years reallizing what they had when they were younger and trying to recapture it in vain with surgery.