u/No-Ad8127

Not pictured: International Delight Cinnabon coffee at $0.99 per can and sausage and cheese curds combo snack packs at $1.29 each.

Pork Tenderloin to be exact, cured and dried in the fridge. didn’t use curing salt, just regular fine grain salt. That’s why it’s mostly brown. It took about 3 weeks from start to finish.

My mom cured the pork belly with a spice mix in the fridge for weeks and then steamed it in a bamboo steamer basket. The fat is rendered and translucent. We’re going to eat it with savory sticky rice.

Based on the hourly rates I’ve seen shared on this sub, I already know that $15.42 is definitely NOT the lowest.

There’s also a side by side comparison of what it roughly would have cost if it was weighed correctly.

Warning: full context is long winded. It’s going to be my birthday in exactly 2 weeks. I’ll be 29 years old. I’ve been unemployed for over 3 years and I got a job offer today as a medical assistant for $22 an hour. I told her while I’m extremely grateful to start working, I’m not looking forward to the 1 hour commute to and back and that the 9-5 job is actually 10 to 12 hours depending on traffic. And most jobs don’t pay enough to live on our own on top of it. Especially in California.

She starts telling me how I’m lucky I am and what she had to deal with when she was younger, and spoiler alert, I had heard it all before. Repeatedly. Since I was a kid. I can already tell where this was going, and I don’t want to hear it anymore. Especially the emotional guilt tripping and invalidating my feelings and telling me that she is more qualified to complain more than I will ever be.

I get it. She came from communist China. A single mother too. She had to support her whole family and do absolutely everything. This has been drilled into my head since I can ever remember.

For years, I absorbed her frustrations and her negativity. I only recently come to the realization that all of her trauma dumping, emotional outbursts, and negativity has an unacceptably high emotional cost to me. And don’t get me wrong, she does deserve to vent and complain since she has had an admittedly harsh life.

I’ve been extremely lucky that she financially supported me throughout my childhood and adult life. But this has given her the impression that she can be emotionally unstable all she wants in front of her family.

I’ve told her to go talk to a therapist in the past but she always says that it’s all bullshit and scams, and then proceeds to tell me that venting to me is enough. But that venting always turns into criticizing me and the family and blaming us for what’s going on in her life.

She’s politically conservative and hates California. Well, what does she want me to do about it? Agree with her all the time? She claims I don’t have to, but she clearly wants me to and is upset when I don’t. She’s also way more religious now because COVID threw her into a tailspin (Grandma’s Alzheimer’s and Dementia also got way worse and she had to deal with it daily, but not like grandpa who was there 24/7) and she never recovered while I never was really religious from the start.

She wants to move to a red state and I told her that wages are comparatively lower in these places for my line of work and cost of living is not reflective of the lower pay. COL has gone up significantly everywhere. Also racism is a thing since we’re of Chinese descent. You would think that she would be wary of McCarthyism (which she ironically champions without consideration of what she looks like) and anti-Chinese sentiment.

I hit a breaking point last night and it came back this morning. I told her what I felt and then she predictably told me that I’m ungrateful because she pays for everything and that I have no right to speak to her that way because I don’t. (She also tells me that the devil has replaced me and said these things in my stead.)

But the fact of the matter is, everybody pays. Not just her. I’m not exempt from it either and won’t be. She won’t be able to work forever. Her selling point of telling me that I should shut up and deal with her because she pays is overused and overrated.

Am I really ungrateful and spoiled? I never asked for anything for myself. No makeup, no new clothes, no electronics. She’s the one who insisted on getting me an iPhone in high school. She paid for 2 years of university tuition until I elected to go to a CC and worked to pay for myself. I don’t drive and I choose to either walk or use public transportation to lessen her financial burden. I stay out of her way and don’t create any unnecessary trouble. I’ve been her emotional punching bag for years and whenever she’s in a bad mood I either stay away or take the full brunt.

I’m so done. If you don’t remember anything from this post, remember this: you can never be financially compensated enough to deal with someone else’s emotions, not even your own family’s.

The final price includes doubling up on the eggs, pinto beans, and frozen vegetables. This does not take into account dietary restrictions, availability, or price restrictions. This budget is done assuming you already have cooking essentials such as seasonings and cooking oil/butter on hand.

The Tyson pork hocks are $1.99 a lb which is sold in packages around $6.50, which is what I put in the total.

If you have a dollar more and some change, you can add in a loaf of Old Home Wheat Bread for $1.39 or a box of Mac and Cheese for $0.99.

I hope this helps someone!

The final price includes doubling up on the eggs, pinto beans, frozen vegetables, cheese, and spaghetti. I purposefully did this so there could potentially be leftovers that can carry through to the next week.

The Tyson ham hocks that are $1.99 a lb are sold in packages that are around $6.50, which is what I put in the final price.

This budget is done assuming you already have seasonings, cooking oil/butter, and other cooking essentials on hand. It does not take into account dietary restrictions, availability, and price variations.

I hope this helps someone! have another budget that is under $30 that I will also post.

Click or tap on the photos to show all items.
The total cost includes doubling up on the Mac & Cheese, eggs, pinto beans, and frozen vegetables. Additionally, the Tyson chicken legs that are advertised for $0.99 a lb are sold in packages averaging 4.5 lbs, which I put in as $4.50 in the calculations. This sample budget haul does not take into account dietary restrictions, availability, and price variations. This was done assuming seasonings and other cooking essentials are already on hand.

I hope this helps someone!

Edit: I just noticed that there’s two kinds of spaghetti in there. I’m an idiot lol.😅 You can omit the more expensive one and double up on the cheaper one. So the total with this revision is $29.44.

A Costco rare ribeye served with mustard for dipping. Just generously salted and peppered with olive oil.