As always I am fine with balancing the outing money. I spent most of my money on the grocery shopping. I like to eat healthy, Organic and raw ingredients for my food. I never buy pre made food or food with poor nutrition content. I am simply not attracted to it. For instance last week I spent $93, two weeks ago $85.23, three weeks ago it was 98.21, then a month ago it was 94.79.
For the past four weeks my average expense on food is $92.8.
Almost $20 above my income per week.
Obviously my Personal Account- hence my wife- is supporting this level of expenditure.
She is always saying that if I were a company I would have to declare failure... this is the right way of putting it. I might choose to go to cheaper store for grocery shopping... perhaps it would be best for me to go the local cheaper supermarket. You know when it comes to food cheaper is never synonymous with healthier. Beside I tried it and still spent $90 on really bad food.
I tried once and then never after that.
There was no Newspaper today, I went to the Swain Center and Sara- the activity coordinator- had a few Scientific American magazines at hand. I selected one for reading to the audience.
It was a good article about the food supply and what to select at the food store.
I liked it very much it is along the lines I am already doing anyway.It says that whenever possible we should buy Organic food as it is grown without the use of any pesticide. The cultivation methods used are sustainable and in tune with the environment.
Nowadays the biggest food waste is the house food supply meaning people do buy too much and waste the food.
The article was going to to suggest the limiting of the food purchase to the amount one can use for the week. Also it recommends checking on the expiration day. Normally food has to be sold by the expiration date, it is good anyway when used within a couple of days from its expiration.
Another magazine was talking about climate. It resonated with me, my wife being a Professor of Atmospheric and Environmental Science at Caltech.
Anyway the flower's from today are beautiful and always a great subject for my daily pictures.
It is a cloudy day and while coming here at my work program it was sprinkling.
It is cloudy and not raining outside.
My brother Francesco in Italy has two house cats.
It is Merlino and his sister Mago'.
They are very blessed animals.
Here is one of them in a funny sleeping pose.
My standard Organic breakfast is always a welcome healthy and Organic meal for the morning
A large variety: warm Oat meal with peanut butter and honey, then chia seeds with Organic yogurt, cold cereal with blueberry and Organic Trek Mix
Yesterday evening I came back to the apartment after therapy.
Of course I prepared dinner. I made a great fusilli pasta with a Quinoa pasta sauce I made earlier.
Actually it was supposed to be the zucchini squash filling. I made a mistake and defrosted the wrong container. Nevertheless it worked for the pasta sauce.
I added some red pepper flakes and paprika to it.
I used a bit of Basil and then simmered the cooked fusilli pasta with the sauce.
I turned off the burner, then added Parmesan cheese, Olive Oil
Et voila'
A great pasta is done. I also made a salad with a lot of green to it.
I partition it into two meal. The first one was for yesterday dinner, the second meal is for today's lunch.
At 5:45 pm I was driven to the gym by an NRS. Yesterday I had body pump with Ellie and Zumba with Alex.
Body pump is when I am working out my body, focusing on range of motion and repetition.
I am not the type of man to use heavy weight. My body will refuse to sustain me in the endeavor.
Flexibility and agility is my goal. I am getting better at handling this effort, my body is clearly getting stronger or I am understanding how to do things. My head is not heavy after the effort. In a way this means my blood pressure is not increasing that much.
Finally at 7:00pm it was time for me to go back to the apartment and Angie- an NRS from CNS was waiting for me outside the parking lot.
Before leaving I greeted Wayne a good person that I met many time at the gym.
He is the person standing next to me.
We took this picture as another souvenir
Wayne gave me his email address to sent him this picture however it did not work and the email bounced back.
So I went back and signed back in at 7:25 pm.
My evening routine resulted afterward.
I checked on line about options for rechargeable debit card.
It is a market that is not really conveniently served by banks.
It is unfortunate because it shows that there is no really offering for such a product.
As I am forced to deal with cash at CNS, I am thinking that the current world is moving toward a future where cash is unsafe to use, toward a cashless future. Here is an interesting article on the matter.
Just to invite you to read here is a quote from the same
The rise of prepaid cards is undeniable. It's the fastest growing non-cash method of payment. Prepaid debit and payroll active cards will grow from 9.7 million in 2010 to a projected 29.2 million in 2016, a compound annual growth rate of of 19.7%. U.S. gross dollar volume loaded onto these cards will increase from $56.6 billion in 2010 to a projected US$168.7 billion in 2016
But the prepaid card industry is still a relatively young segment of finance and the rules and fees are not always clear. The fees range widely and they can include anything from point of sale fees (literally, a fee is charged to the consumer when the card is swiped), reloading fees, monthly maintenance fees and even in-network ATM fees.
Here is a breakdown from the same article of those cards
Here is the important point of this matter.
But there's a long way to go because no prepared card was given a high score--even the Bluebird card scored an 80.
"Consumer protections for prepaid cards are not yet on par with debit cards linked to bank accounts. Without them, consumers, who rely on prepaid cards to purchase everyday necessities for important individual and household uses, are left vulnerable to losing these valuable funds," the report notes.
Before living the apartment this morning I have been pondering on setting the slow cooker up. Then I decided it was not the day.
It will be for another day.
