Living the M2M Principle

One of my creative-foodie friends, Carolyn, a travel writer for Lonely Planet, prompted me to share some thoughts on living the Market to Mouth principle, that is, grocery shopping and eating well on a budget.

Based in Chile, Carolyn has stayed with me on numerous occasions while on assignment in the U.S. We have much in common; in particular, we've both been trying to eek out a living as writers.

Writing romantic comedy, and now food blogging (me) and writing for one of the most successful budget-travel publications (Carolyn) -- is wonderfully creative and challenging and so on, but living the Artist's Way has meant forgoing a steady & regular paycheck.

However, Carolyn and I do it anyway because we love it!

When you follow your passion and work at what you love, oftentimes you have to make sacrifices. And out of necessity to our craft, C and I have consciously chosen to live thrifty lives because we've had to.

This means pre-recession, we were living on a budget, counting our pennies while grocery shopping, and still eating well despite our thrift.

Because we both love our food and because we're both creatives, we've learned the art of whipping up stone soup (minus the stones) again, because necessity is the mother of invention.

The conversation amongst my friends these days is the economy, and that conversation is tinged with fear. We are indeed living in interesting times necessitating that we all tap our inner resourcefulness and inventiveness.

Whether you're already counting pennies or realizing that you need to be, follow me as I walk my talk, grocery shopping on a budget, and managing my food for the week, cooking up delicious and nutritious meals applying my no fuss, no waste approach to simple-gourmet cooking.

Really, If Carolyn and I can do it, you can too!