The Final Day – Day 100: Eating Well On $1 A Day
It is hard to believe that I have reached the 100 day milestone. Even more surprising is that the eating well on $1 a day has gone so well that I don’t feel any desire to immediately change the way that I have been eating (or that my cooking didn’t result in mt poisoning myself in some way). It has become a routine and the fact that it has tells me that it is possible to do this long term if I had the desire. After thinking long and hard about all the comments that readers have made, I have decided to stop the current challenge at 100 days and focus instead on buying as much food as possible for food banks with the $1 a day. There are a number of reasons for this decision:
I Think I Succeeded: I think that even my sister will now admit that I was able to make meals that others would eat (at least from time to time) while staying under the $1 a day goal. I don’t need to do this another year to make the point that it can be done.
Change Of Focus: While the last 100 days have been focused on me and how I was able to do this, I would like to see future posts focused more how anyone that reads this blog can save a lot of money over what they are currently spending on food while still getting exactly what they want and also being able to give excess to their local food banks. I already know that I can do it — I am now interested in showing anyone that wants to learn that they can also do it.
I’m Not A Foodie: No matter how much I would like to be one, I am not a foodie. I still do not enjoy cooking much. Even though it has been a great experience and I have learned a lot (I would like to sincerely thank everyone that took the time to pass along suggestions and recipes), and my cooking skills have slowly but surely improved, I don’t think that I have much more to offer in this area. I would still be perfectly satisfied eating the same thing over and over again, but that certainly doesn’t make for very interesting reading.
So from now on I will be using the $1 a day (and the excess that I have accumulated from the first 100 days) to buy food for local food banks. In addition I will be detailing exactly how I approach couponing and what I have learned about it over these last 3 months. I’m hoping that this will help answer many of the questions that people have had about how I was able to do this and encourage them to do the same.
Yellow Cherry Plum Smoothie
I couldn’t begin the last day of this challenge with anything other than a morning smoothie. I gathered up the rest of the yellow cherry plums that I had:
added a frozen banana and a few cubes of ice to make another delicious start to the morning.
This is definitely one of the things that I will continue to do on a daily basis as it has really made the start of my days a lot easier and given me more energy and focus in the mornings.
The afternoon was busy as usual and I went with the usual afternoon sandwich.
Roasted Stuffed Peppers
I decided to use the last two halves of the green and red peppers I had to make stuffed roasted peppers. I took leftover brown long grain rice I had and mixed in salsa:
Then added shredded cheddar Monterrey Jack cheese mix as well:
To prepare the peppers, I boiled them for 5 minutes and placed a light coating of vegetable oil on the outside. I then filled them with the rice, salsa and cheese mixture:
I placed them in the oven and roasted them for about 40 minutes:
The green roasted pepper came out delicious:
I was planning to save the red roasted pepper, but I couldn’t resist and had it as well:
Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream
To celebrate, I thought that for a final treat, I would go out and buy myself a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream since I failed to get it when I completed the first month, but when I thought about it a bit more, I knew the perfect way to end the 100 days. I took the rest of the frozen bananas and began to blend them, then added a large spoonful of peanut butter:
And when I finished I had the perfect dessert, this is what it looked like:
Of course, I had to give my sister a taste of it and of course, she thought it was awful — I’m starting to think that she may be the one who is palate challenged since I find it hard to believe that anyone finds the peanut butter and banana combination anything but delicious.
I thank all of you that have followed along for the last 100 days and hope that you enjoyed reading about the experience as I had going through it (Time Magazine recently did an interview with me) and hope that the next phase focusing on how I was able to do it will be helpful and worth reading as well.
I would love to hear what all of you have thought about this adventure 
Final Numbers
Goal: 100 days eating on $1 a day
Money Spent: $76.11
Retail Value of Everything Purchased: $1473.94
The Beginning – links to all 100 days of the challenge ::: Introduction to Lazy Couponing
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Congrats for making it 100 days. Quite an accomplishment.
I’ve read several other blogs that tried to do the dollar a day thing, but I got really tired of “listening” to the whining about lack of motivation and being tired and blahblahblah. So thank you for not being whiny, even when your evil sister was prodding you with her pitchfork. (Anyone who doesn’t like PB and bananas has to be evil. Heh.) (I really hope you know that I am only teasing.)
Thanks for the adventure, and I wish you luck in the future.
Julie of the Plastic Bag Omelet