No-Kill Finance

I was going to sign on and write the first in a [long] series of posts about my weaknesses when it comes to saving and spending…but instead, I decided I’d found a trick for efficient use of money and resources.

See, the weakness that cost me $8 cash today is the same one that costs me $8 cash at least once every other week (though usually more often than that).  That weakness is Thai carry-out.  I’m absolutely insane about Thai food…favorite ethnic cuisine, hands down.  And I’m a loyalist to one restaurant, too…have been for five years now:  Thai Avenue in Uptown Chicago.

Now, I share a common suspicion about independently owned foreign cuisine restaurants:  that we open-minded, curious, yuppie and/or hipster and/or college-aged urban professionals aren’t trusted with the total experience of cuisine.  The lamb brains at the Indian place aren’t offered on the menu written in English; waitresses make sure you understand what you’re getting when you order lengua at a Mexican place; and, slightly more relevant to the post, Thai restaurants take it very easy on you when you order an already-hot dish “extra spicy.”

Having dined at and ordered from Thai Avenue regularly enough over a long enough period of time, the woman running the place (who I assume is the owner, though I’ve never clarified) has come to known me by name and to know my tastes in food.  Perhaps I’m imagining that there’s a steady pattern, but it seems that, over the last six months or so, my “Extra Spicy” pad kee mao has been getting progressively hotter and hotter, to the point where I might actually be getting the same thing a Thai transplant might get if he were to order the same thing.

Anyway, that’s a circuitous route to share a basic discovery I’ve made about myself:  spicy food is difficult to eat in large quantities.  I’m a bit of an over-eater.  I’ve been known to eat until I absolutely can’t fit another bite into my stomach, wait fifteen minutes, and have dessert.  This is particularly an issue with delicious and amazing food, such as that from Thai Avenue.  So, when I get my usual carry-out order of pad kee mao that could easily feed three people, I devour it in entirety over a small portion of my half-hour lunch break.

But it’s so easy to stretch one $8 meal into three or four when said meal is rapidly melting your tongue out of your intensely painful mouth.  One’s stomach fills quite quickly in such a situation, which extends the value of the food and limits the calorie intake.  (Note that I do not harbor any delusions that even a small amount of Thai food fits within the parameters of my diet.)

So, my advice for the next time you’re blowing ten bucks on Mexican instead of making a one-dollar sandwich at home:  order it spicy.  And the real spicy, not the sympathy-for-the-naive-white-guy kind of spicy.  You might get several [uncomfortable, painful, or even exruciating] meals for the price of one!