The Lunch-eater's Solution

Remember when I wrote about buying lunch? I oh-so-wittily called it the "lunch-eater's dilemma?"

Here at NPB headquarters, we've come up with a pretty good plan to tackle that problem. Now if only the G20 leaders converging on my city can do as much for the financial crisis!

What we did was this: Made a metric ton of food on Sunday. Dishes we made: a bunch of rice, chicken stir-fry, veggie stir-fry, teriyaki sauce and curry sauce. We put them in the refrigerator and each morning before heading to school/work, we made ourselves a lunch with the ingredients. It's worked out pretty well so far, with each of us remembering to bring food for the day. I like having the two sauces to choose from -- Monday wasn't a very curry kind of day, so I brought the teriyaki. Crisis averted.

It takes some time, but saving money and planning ahead always does. Now we just have to think of which sauces we're going to make in the future...

Obligatory About Me

Hi, everyone. I'm the Nonprofit Breadwinner, or NPB for short.

I live in Pittsburgh, and my spouse is a Full-Time Student, or FTS for short. We're in our mid-twenties. I don't make a lot of money, since I work at a small nonprofit organization. In fact, they just cut my pay. I make under $30,000 a year. FTS is in a demanding graduate program and, prior to August, worked full-time (not at a nonprofit). However, FTS will still be able to work about ten hours a week for that company, providing much-needed income.

We have two cats, a mortgage, student loan debt (mine), and the will to make this work.

We've lived pretty frugally for the past few years, both because it suits us and because we don't want to spend our money on crap. We garden, can and pickle the produce we grow, rarely eat out, and don't buy things on credit. Still, we've had to make some adjustments to our budget, and hopefully this blog will help keep me honest about what in our plan is working, what isn't, and everything in between.

I hope you enjoy our chronicles.