Why the switch? Well, there are a couple of reasons.

1. Health

Young has been trying to gradually wean me off of my high fat, high meat, high salt diet. (And she’s mostly succeeded.) This is merely one more step in the program.

The interesting thing is that even though I still prefer whole milk, the more soy I drink, the more I like it.

2. Frugality

Surprisingly, despite the fact that soy milk is more expensive, it turns out to be the cheaper option for me.

My problem was that though I preferred whole milk, I didn’t actually use it all that often. At most, I’d have two bowls of cereal a week, and I rarely cooked with it. As a consequence, the milk would always spoil before I’d manged to use even half of it. But soy milk can last a very long time. In fact, since I’ve switched to soy, I haven’t had a single spoiled container.

I estimate that I save at least $2 each time I buy soy.

Are there any “expensive” items you buy which actually end up saving money?

Photo by monkeyone

Under current circumstances, there are only a couple of expenses that can really be controlled. First among those is food.

As in most areas, I would previously spend money on what I wanted without giving it a second thought. To help save money, as well as to help me be more conscious about spending, I’m trying to keep my food expenses under $100/month. I’ve never actually tracked my food expenses before, but I know that in the past it has been more than that. (Primarily due to fast food.)

So, with a goal of $100 a month, that means I can average a little over a dollar per meal, though less than that is good.

One of my standard breakfasts recently has consisted of one bagel, one apple, and one orange. Let’s see how that adds up.

Oranges are $0.33 each. Apples are $4.88 for a bag of 13. Bagels from the sale rack are about $1.15 for a bag of 4 or 5. So…

$0.33 = Orange
$0.38 = Apple
$0.29 = Bagel (assuming 4 per bag)

That brings the grand total for my standard breakfast to exactly $1.