Pictured here is some tuna salad with a secret ingredient (psst – it’s apples!) that one of our employees had for lunch today. We’ve noticed a number of people opting for tuna this week for their protein, as it can be purchased very inexpensively, especially when you have coupons! We noticed some other popular food items: rice, eggs, beans, and apples. The trend we’re noticing is that we kept our healthiest food and cut out all the candy, chocolate, soda and other junk we used to snack on so often throughout the day. Doing this challenge has made us all realize how much we really spend on food and drink without giving it a second thought. At Target the other day, I had to put a soda back in the little fridge near the checkout – I had grabbed it almost as a reflex!

This challenge has certainly been difficult and equally as eye-opening. We’ve been discussing making permanent changes to how we eat based on our challenge experiences. Think of how much money we could save if we made a habit out of bringing our lunches everyday and planning out meals for the week? No more last minute “Well, let’s just order a pizza” nights or $5 coffee drinks each afternoon. We’re not sure we could sustain the $4.06/day budget, but we would certainly be a lot closer to it if we cut out outside meals and drinks more often. That should be the Food Bank’s next challenge – Put $5 in a jar for a month when you would’ve purchased a coffee drink and at the end of the month, donate that money to the Food Bank! I wonder if they have a suggestion box…

Stay tuned tomorrow for our final update and thoughts about the FNS challenge!