January 15 - Halfway there! I made Indian coconut curry and we stayed in watched a movie and ate popcorn. I made sure we stocked up so much we wouldn't run out of popcorn! In other news, the Black Hearts Ball site launched today and I'm very excited! Get tickets if you want to come see what I've been working on for this Valentine's day :)

January 16 - Work night - Tory paints and I sew.

January 17 - Adam and McCall willingly drove to our place for chili dinner and we played a few intense rounds of Dutch Blitz.

January 18 - Tory breaks into the old dried goods: soaking beans overnight and using dried rice noodles to get creative with a new Thai dish. I had a sleepover with Melissa at Jo's house next door... just tromped a few feet through the snow drifts to get home!

January 19 - Anneke stopped by for tea and good talks. Tory's car is still at half a tank since he switched up his carpool, so we took that one to Solomon's Porch in south Minneapolis and then continued on to Bloomington for dinner and games with Tory's family.

January 20 - My car continues to have battery issues and won't start. My first time taking the bus again in at least a year is quite successful and I get to work in about 35 minutes instead of the typical 20 in the snow by car, which isn't bad at all. I was excited and ready to give up the car entirely until the my route home proved much less invigorating as it was dark already which made it cold, and the transfer was longer downtown.

January 21 - 24 - I took the bus successfully a few other sub zero days this week, interspersed with driving Tory to carpool and taking our jetta, which has a broken connection in the exhaust and is becoming painful to drive. We are realizing that cars are a pretty massive expense over time. I also had a work meeting downtown this week and had to park far away and walk because I realized I couldn't pay the 50 cents for the meter. It's all a good reminder of how my former, frugal-by-necessity self made it work and that public transit is both a good resource and also the norm for a lot of people.

We made sure this month to budget enough gas to go to Saint Paul for our Free book club meeting. Tory had a crazy day at work and didn't get a chance to stop and eat lunch (this is not the way we prefer to save meals!). I took the bus in the morning and worked late until a very hungry Tory picked me up. I got a call from him around 6:30 saying he was crossing the bridge on 35W into NE minneapolis... which is how to get to my work's old building. Tory's internal autopilot had failed to recognize that my work is now located on eat street so he looped back and we headed onward to Saint Paul. Neither of us quite remembered where our friends lived but had a general idea and figured we would remember when we got close. Needless to say, we got lost on the side streets, roaming around. We were wasting gas (our most precious resource at this point) and feeling the exhaust fumes so Tory pulled over and turned the car off and I finally found a phone number and got directions. Armed with that, and ready to be warm and at our destination, we went to start the car with no success. Tory flagged down a kind stranger pretty quickly and he brought is car around to give us a jump.


All these things together added up to kind of a rough night but after we got a jump we were welcomed into our friend's home with open arms, a lovely dinner and unending supply of popcorn. It made for good discussion, since our book club is all about finances, time, and relationships.

It was the first time our experiment was truly challenging since our typical fixes weren't there for us to fall back on:
- getting the exhaust repaired
- stopping to buy something to eat on the go
- idling the car / not worrying about conserving gas
So we had to deal with them and ask for the help of friends and strangers. A good practice in relying on the goodness of others and provisions of God to get through even small challenges.

Nearing the end of the third week of the experiment, we budgeted out our meals for the rest of the month just to make sure we were rationing properly and would have enough resources to make 24 more meals (not including breakfast). Looking good!