Thank you very much!! And I’ll see if I can get that addressed…haha

Yeah I recall when I was looking to move out to Oregon/Washington before I accepted this job that the rent was considerably higher, especially in cities like Portland and Oregon. For how nice our place is, I think we got a great deal.

And I do like lentils, I’ll be sure to check out that website! I’m in the process of trying out tons of new recipes to see what works and what doesn’t, so I’ll be sure to reference that site. Thanks for the helpful info as always! 🙂

I’ll definitely pick up some of these ingredients on my next grocery trip and I’ll let you know when I have mastered the rice cooker and am ready for more potential recipes to try! Thanks so much for all the helpful info 🙂

Awesome that you guys got a 2-bedroom place in a nice area of town for $1400. I think 2-BR apartments in desirable areas of Portland are in the $2000-$3000 range.

Can’t wait to read about your learning experiences with managing monthly expenses.

Do you like lentils? They are a very affordable nutrition powerhouse. Mr. G and I like to use them in salads and stir fries. Here’s a website with nutrition info if you’re interested:
http://www.lentils.org/health-nutrition/

Some “quick” dishes

Basic ingredients for making rice-based dishes
Rice cooking: if your cooker is a standard one (with buttons show white rice, brown rice, warm, etc) the best way to make restaurant quality rice is 1 cup of white rice (usually regular size, not the skinny pointy kind) with 1 1/2 cup water. My favorite is the Korean rice which is hardy and filling – you can get a 40lb bag Koren rice for $35 here.

Soy sauce
Garlic
Scallion
Egg (optional)
Roast chicken – you can roast this yourself or get the whole one from one of the grocery stores (it’s about $3-5 a whole roasted chicken here).

Mix all the ingredients together(after rice is cooked, of course) – you got chicken fried rice. Change up the category of the meat (pork, ham, ground beef, etc ), you get different kind of fried rice.

That’s how we Asians do it.
Drop me a line if you need more recipes.

Thank you, Krystal! I find that the minimalist layout is all around low stress and low maintenance. It’s what works best for me 🙂

Thanks, Matt! It’s pretty rare to meet other Mavs fans, it’s good to hear from another one!

My desk actually was L-shaped but I cut off the other half of it because it didn’t fit in the room. And the sliding door leads to a little patio that overlooks a parking lot…it doesn’t offer much of a view, which is why I didn’t include it haha. Thanks for the feedback! 🙂

Thank you Tiffany! I have heard that rice is a key ingredient in many cheap/bulk food preparation recipes so I plan on using it frequently. My apartment is actually in one of the nicer areas of town which is why the rent is a bit steep. Luckily splitting it with my roommate allows me to save a significant chunk of money each month. Thanks for all the tips 🙂