Frugal or Broke?

This was my day today. Get up at 5:30, make coffee, take pills, shower, get dressed. Spend a bit of time on trapperman, Fox News, Newsmax. Check my work route for the day while nuking a breakfast biscuit I made a couple of weeks ago. Give the lady some love and encourougement and head out to work. End of work day, come home and pull pork butts out of fridge, cube up and season. Grind 15# of breakfast sausage while making biscuits from a can. Thaw burger, pick tomatoes and cukes for side with dinner. Fire up the flat top and cook eggs for sausage/egg/cheese biscuits. Cook burgers, bacon and onions for dinner. Eat dinner and vac seal breakfast biscuits for next week. Polish off dishes and resume beer drinking. Oh, wait, I forgot the first beer when I finished the knife work on the pork butts. Anyway, that's about how today went for this privileged, Caucasian American. Well, at least, I eat better than most!

I guess, I was just curious how y'all live on an average day. Big breakfast at home, no breakfast, fast food breakfast? How about lunch? I make a sammich and maybe throw in some chips. Splurge a bit at dinner.

Wake up anywhere from 3-6 an enjoy my morning coffee, then take shower an off to the shop to meet the crew. Crew an I wait until we get done pouring cement or forming to grab breakfast or lunch. Hard to work on your head when full. Breakfast or lunch can be anywhere from 9-2 for us we don’t eat both. So for me I have breakfast or lunch, then come home an 99% of the time I cook supper at home. Usually an late eater about 8-10 after I enjoy a few beers

up at 00:00 to take a call for work
up at 03:00 to take a call for work

get up an take shower at 05:00

get the coffee made and wake up the wife 06:00

left over chicken and coffee for breakfast
start work at 07:00
cheap reduced price pork steak for lunch
more coffee

finish work
run some errands with the wife to the pharmacy and cheese store.
chill with the wife
clean up the kitchen some
pick zucchini , chard , green pepper , us the last few strips of bacon and the other half of my lunch pork steak to make stir fri
have that with a beer and type this

a day in the life

I also eat pretty well.

frugal or broke? have to be frugal if I don't want to be totally broke

Sunday evening I make a week's worth of overnight oats for breakfast at work in the mornings. I usually skip lunch and work straight through. Dinner is at home almost always cooked by my wife. I'd consider it frugal overall. My employees order lunch almost everyday. Nothing wrong with that but I'd rather spend my money on other things. Every now and then my wife will get Chick-fil-A and bring it to the office with the kids and we will have lunch together. That's always fun, getting to see the kids in the middle of the day and it's rare enough that it's a big treat for them (and me).

You can afford beer?

Me?.... I like beer an yes I can “afford” beer.

Times are hard.

I was being a smart alec to Keck, he said he does all that and then enjoys a beer.

^ no worries.

Two cups of coffee every morning...egg sandwich on toast...maybe lunch, tomatoes from the garden, another sandwich. Meanwhile, doing the work of 3 ordinary men (the kind that work). Supper has been scrounged from the garden, and I am down to pork or venison ribs and roasts in the freezer, and it's nice that cooler weather lends itself to crock pot cooking.

Squash, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes and carrots are in supply now.

middle of the night over time money right there gets me 2 cases a month of the best Miller Lite on the shelf , in bottle even.

they call me when ever they have middle of the night or early morning stuff they want done.

Miller lite because it doesn't mess up my blood sugar. I used to drink real beer.

Where is the "lady" while you are doing all this?

I have no routine. Working 12 to 16 hr shifts days one week nights the next out of town while working. My eating and sleeping is always messed up. Probably spend 4k a year or more on eating out and on junk food while traveling. When I was off 4 month for long covid or Ms? Never determined I lost 15lb just from not eating the junk. It will be an premature death for me if I don't make some changes

3 ordinary men les?

That explains how you maintain your Greek God stature.

Y’all rich folks not sounds like, lol.

Up at 0515.
At gym by 0535.
Home by 0715.
Shower.
Pull up jobs on computer if I have any.
Call or text coworker to discuss work.
Leave house by 0800.
Home for lunch between 11 or 12. Lunch is either leftovers or a sandwich…all depends on what wife has planned for dinner.
Home by 1600.
In the woods by 1700. May just be riding, feeding, moving cameras, or even sitting in the stand.
Back home by 2000-2030.
Shower.
Eat something light.
Bed by 2200-2215.

Repeat…I’m not a big eater. Lunch is generally my big meal so I can work it off. If I eat breakfast the wife has me something by the time I get him from the gym. Drink nothing but water. Occasionally I’ll treat myself to a Mt.Dew if it’s been a rough day.

Not a breakfast person usually lunch and light supper maybe a few beers. I never eat desert or candy I hate sweets

Must be nice, lol. I could eat a dozen chocolate covered Krispy Kreme doughnuts with 3 20oz Mt.Dews and not bat an eye!!! Sweets are my downfall!!

The woman makes me a good breakfast every day without fail. One in a million!!

I must have the two out of a million woman. Probably five or six days out of the year she doesn't get up and fix me breakfast (the days I'm home, I'm gone quite often and probably only sleep at home a couple hundred days a year). On those handful of days she isn't up to fix me breakfast I usually make myself some Top Ramen or oatmeal. Used to cook steak and eggs or sausage and eggs most mornings for breakfast when I was single, but I so rarely fix my own at home any more that quick and easy usually does it.
I am usually up somewhere between 3 and 5 am, start coffee, get dressed, get ready for the day while the lady fixes breakfast, almost never eat lunch, just a big breakfast (I like to eat when I get up, not later) and a good dinner. I like milk and have it with breakfast and dinner if we've been to the store recent enough to have it in the fridge, otherwise all I ever used to drink was coffee, the wife has been on me since I got married to drink water. I used to tell her that coffee contained water, but I find myself drinking more water than I ever used to. Back when I was single I might not make it to the grocery store all winter and would go weeks at time with drinking nothing but coffee, now I seldom go a day without drinking water and/or milk. Have maybe five or six beers a year, and maybe a drink of something harder once a year. Got most of my drinking done back in the days before I was old enough to buy it legally.

No breakfast, usually, during the week. Sometimes I'll make some muffins for breakfast during the week. Lunch is almost always a sandwich I pack with me to work. I am one of just a few that packs a lunch. Most of my coworkers eat take out for lunch every day. I come home and make supper most days. Usually once every 2 weeks I'll bring home fast food for supper.

Weekends I usually eat breakfast... might be eggs, oatmeal, english muffin with cream cheese, cinnamon roll... anything really. Lunch is still usually a sandwich.

Breakfast every morning about 6:00, it's the most important meal of the day don't you know?

My usual breakfast is a mushroom/cheese omelet using fresh eggs from our chickens and cooked in my eighty-year-old Griswald Iron Mountain #8 skillet.

It sounds like a lot of folks on here do real good for themselves. Many don't and can't appreciate our lives and our life skills.

It appears many eat good and put up good food like we learned.

I am the cook and designated home maker in our home. Sorta of a roll reversal here the last 9 years. The wife is an invalid now so she is not able to function.

Up at 5-5:30 most days sometimes earlier. Clean the house up a bit, make the wife a fruit dish. Some canned fresh peaches, blueberries some whipped cream and few Maraschino cherries on top. Eggs bacon, toast and sliced fresh garden tomatoes for her once she has finished her fruit bowl.

I never used to eat breakfast for many years. Always got up and got going right away. I would take sandwiches and a couple drinks with me. Then I would eat on the road while checking ADC jobs or traps.

I laid out 7# or so of ground venison the nite before and made 4 venison meat loaves. Will eat that for a couple days with some home grown green beans on the side with some mashed garden potatoes.and gravy.

Here are 3 of the 4 meat loaves. Already had one cut up for dinner and put the other half in the fridge. I vacuum sealed all the other halves for other meals or sandwiches this fall or winter.



Going to clean / blanch and vacuum seal 1/2 bushel of green beans tomorrow for the freezer. The last batch for the season it appears. Dang deer helped themselves to a mess of them a few days ago. Buggers Got thru the electric fence some how and broke a post off.

Headed to the shop for grinding G -hog glands, check our gland inventory for what may need attention. Stirring, grinding again or stopping the aging on those that have reached their peak. Bottle 15-20 gal of bait for the coming season.Check buckets for flies/eggs or larvae.

Mowed 4 acres around the property. Grass still growing, grrr...

Just another day.

Up at 6. Switch on 12 volt light. Unplug freezer and refrigerator. Turn on inverter. Pour cup of yesterdays luke warm coffee. Fill coffee pot and put on stove. Start fire in wood stove to warm house. Relax in front of computer. make coffee and have fresh coffee. Wake wife in warm house and give fresh cup of coffee in bed. Walk out to Generator shed and pour gas in generator and start generator and throw breaker for house. Haul more firewood in house on way back. Plug in freezer and refrigerator. Sit down to relax at computer. Internut down. Phone rings. Nobody can hear me. Go to back porch where I get 1 bar and call back and stand in cold outside talking on phone. Generator dies. Unplug refrigerator and freezer. Go back and fix generators issue or switch to other generator. Come back to house and plug in freezer and refrigerator. Drink more coffee and relax.

Day in the life of a college athlete at an engineering school (during heck semester)

0530 - Wake up get dressed rush out the door no breakfast
0600 - Conditioning/ Lift
0730 - Quick shower and change, chug protein shake enrute to class
0800 - Geotechnical Engineering 1
0900 - Structural Theory (work on film review)
1000 - Mechanics of Materials (finish last nights film review)
1100 - Calculus 3
1200 - Head over to mess hall for lunch
1300 - Geotech Lab (2-3 hours of experiments)
1530 - Position Meeting with Offensive Line (Film Review)
1630 - Make way down to locker room to gear up for practice
1700 - Fully geared up on field 30 mins before practice for "non-mandatory" pre practice.
1930 - Practice ends (O - line extra conditioning for missed assignments or bad snaps)
2000 - Made it home start up dinner, quick shower
2045 - Clean up dinner and start on homework and self film review
2345 - Push off excess homework and film review till tomorrow because I'm exhausted
2400 - Hopefully fall asleep quick

Broke lol. We are in the “struggle” part of my career. Sucks now but worth it later type of deal.

Yesterday was an oddball day. Up at 4:00 am, make a cup of coffee, no breakfast, wake up 3 year old and get her dressed, stick 4month old in car seat, drive 2.5 hours to Reno. 3 year old got put under to have $5k worth of dental work done (but don’t worry, insurance is gonna pay $1,500 of that lol) drive loopy 3 year old and baby 2.5 hours, home around noon. Do some laundry, take 15 minute nap. Get a call at 3:30pm that a stop sign has been hit, high priority so I go in to work to fix it. Get home at 5, grab some eggs and head to my dads house for homemade chili and jalapeño cornbread. Head home, in bed at 8:30.

Normal day monday-Thursday, up at 4:45, make coffee, no breakfast, make lunch out of whatever leftovers the fridge has to offer that day. At work by 5:30, BS with boss till shift starts at 6. Take lunch whenever we can fit it in to the day. Go home at 4:30, cook dinner with whatever we have on hand. Take oldest boy to soccer practice. Bathe kids, brush toddlers teeth and hair. Shower, watch a little tv. In bed by 8:30 (hopefully) sprinkle in a generous amount of diaper changes and everything else that goes with having a toddler and an infant, and repeat. Our saving grace is that our 3 oldest are pretty much self sufficient as far as doin their own laundry, dishes, etc.

Fri-sun, sleep in as long as the little ones allow, make breakfast for everyone. Do whatever chores fell behind through the the week. Eat some lunch, usually leftovers. Putter around the house and watch tv. Take care of various plants. Go help my mom and dad with whatever projects they have going on. Sometimes go to a nearby canyon and hike, or go to a pond down the road and fish. Make dinner, in bed by 9.

this morning breakfast

a few strips of bacon the cheap fatty stuff that was 2 for 5 on clearance it's ok I am using it mostly for fat

swiss chard , green pepper , zucchini and cabbage sauté that up with a little butter and some garlic

Usually up by 10;00 or so.
Domino's pizza should be delivered by noon, so should be dressed by then
1:00, time to get something done. Maybe a little mowing, or shoveling
4;00 No sense in killing myself. A short nap is in order.

Well, you get the idea. That is part of my half-baked plan for retirement, if I ever get around to it.

My suggestion is take good care of yourself and develop good eating habits when you are young I was always very active into my 40
s & 50's And I tried to eat healthy and maintain a good weight . People would often say I was too thin As I got older I found that if I was not careful about how much and what I ate I would gain weight because I was not as active .And I also learned how quickly that would happen And it is alot harder to lose weight than gain it .It does not always turn out that you will not have health problems by taking good care of yourself when you are younger But your physical body can only take so much neglect until it starts to have problems

I like your style. You be livin large!

Decided to redact my reply
Don't want prying eyes to find out my schedule

So you watched my weight loss video?

My typical workday looks like this:

Wake up at 4:00 am. Drink 2 cups of coffee, get dressed, pack lunch.
Leave for work at 5:15
Work, 6-3.
Usually have to stop at a store so get home around 4:30
Relax for about an hour
Make supper
Shower
1 hour of TV
Try to be in bed by 10.

Well I am a spoiled man. I get up when I feel like it. My wife cooks me a big breakfast. Chore around the place or go hunting or fishing. My bride feeds me a big lunch. All of our meals are something we grew or killed or caught. She has a big garden a vineyard and a big orchard. 3or 4 beers in the evening sitting around enjoying her company is my supper. ,She used to cook a big supper everyday also but I finally told her to stop before I weighed 300lbs.