During the beginning of the month, it always seems that money is tight. The freedom of living in my own place and belonging to a gym among various things, has a price. My new strategy is to stretch money out with my food budget to cut the funds spent on eating out. To attempt to alliviate associated stress, I find clever grocery shopping and cooking skills to be a major blessing, and a must. In the past three months I've discovered skills that I forgot I had. You know, how to make something good with a little this and that in the fridge and some dried pasta. Recently, I thought I didn't have anything in the kitchen, but I boiled some noodles, added some vodka marinara, capers, feta cheese, onions, and salami. Wha-la! Two meals worth of some totally decent pasta dish, and I still haven't had to go to the store.

For my next trick, egg salad on crackers! But, I also want to get a little better and cooking great food from scratch for cheap. A quick google revealed this seemingly awesome website, which I'm going to go read right now. Happy cooking!