Condiments Economy by Castugi

Condiments Economy

"How embarrassing, a fridge full of condiments and no food" - Tyler Durden. Food isn't expensive in it's own right, what makes it expensive, is it's flavoring. Back in my days of comfortable poverty, my flat mates would give me a hard time for eating plain pasta, because adding pasta sauce to the meal at the time, was too expensive. Plain pasta was a luxury to me (luxury = cost over $1 to have it for lunch) and was very fulling.

My budget for food was roughly $35 a week, and 2 / 3s of that would go towards 1 dinner. The way we operated was, we would each cook once a week and pay for t. meal - there were 6 of us living under one roof - and we'd have an easy dinner on Sunday. Food was inexpensive, simply, I wasn't buying condiments or junk food, I was literally buying bare necessities and eating the same meals. Breakfast: weetbix (plain cereal), milk and bananas - $7 a week. Lunch: two loaves of bread and boysenberry jam - $5 a week. Dinner: 1kg of mince, pasta sauce x2, 1kg of pasta, veges - $21 a week to feed six. The rest of my dinners, paid and cooked for by my flatmates under the arrangement, as I would do the same on Saturday. I'd sometimes change it up for lunch, but everything else was consistent for budgeting sake.

Food is almost symbolic of the blurring lines between want and need. Sure a condiment gives the food flavor, but it adds nothing of value, not nutrition or substance that will full you up - quite like consumerism in general. My poverty was comfortable: I knew it was temporary (less than 10 years) and that I was free (self-employed).

Castugi
('cah-sta-gee')