In Food Money Sex, we ask anonymous Washingtonians to diary the food they ate, the money they spent, and the sex they had over the course of their weekends. Then we put it on the internet. Want to share your weekend? Email Mimi Montgomery at mmontgomery@washingtonian.com. This week:
Does: Program officer and graduate student, 23
Lives: Old Town Alexandria
Is: Female, bisexual
Makes: $65,000 a year, or about $1,700 every two weeks after tax
Married: No, but in an open relationship, with a primary and occasional secondary partner
Food
Friday:
It’s been a long week. Between having papers due in all my grad school classes, early-morning overtime at work, and just general exhaustion from the never-ending month of January, I’m in need of caffeine. Oh, and there’s no coffee at home, because my primary partner (Guy A) finished it and neither of us have been grocery shopping. We currently have a bit of an odd-couple situation going on, where I’m renting a spare bedroom in his condo from him for a couple months during the gap between my old (and now very expensive, thanks to a rent hike) lease ending and moving into my new, affordable apartment. Living in the same space definitely has blurred the lines a little on who is picking up grocery essentials we both use, namely coffee. So once I hop off the Metro at work, I swing into Starbucks for my caffeine fix, since I’m also out of coffee at work. I’m feeling adventurous, and my paycheck just hit, so I pick up an Almond Milk Honey Flat White. It’s OK. I should have just stuck with my usual Caramel Macchiato. At work, I make a packet of apple cinnamon oatmeal to complete my world-class breakfast. Lunch is a couple hours later. I make mason jar salads for lunch every day. It’s cut down on my decision fatigue and saved me money and time over the month or so I’ve been prepping them on Sunday night and taking them in with me. Costco sells big bags of pre-made salad mix in like, six flavors, and one bag lasts five salads, so I just rotate through types so I don’t get bored. After work, I hang out with my other sweet boyfriend, Guy B, and his friends. He picks up my dinner of a burger and fries, and I stay over at his place. The boys know about one another and my primary partner, Guy A, encourages me to have fun with it. We both enjoy the dynamic of being able to get to know other people, but having someone to lean on with big problems. Neither of us are ready to settle down, and we communicate with a lot of honesty. I don’t think it would work without the honesty.
Saturday:
February is a low-spend month for me, because I somehow went way over budget in January despite tracking my spending pretty closely. My eating out is limited to once a week on this plan, so I eat at home today. I normally skip breakfast on Saturdays and sleep in, but Guy B headed home early this morning and woke me up. By the time I’m actually out of bed, Guy A was cooking breakfast. He offers me some of the steak and scrambled eggs, and I take it without any hesitation because he is a damn good cook. We lounge around for a couple hours alternating between watching TV and playing Xbox. I grab a Vito at Jimmy John’s before I do my grocery shopping that afternoon so I’m not entirely starving in the store. Since I stole some of Guy A’s breakfast and we’re both at the condo that night, I make a lemon asparagus alfredo dish for the both of us. It turns out awesome—flavorful and creamy—and what can I say other than I’m a damn good cook, too.
Sunday:
Sunday is my time-with-friends day, so when I manage to pull myself out of bed, I head off to brunch with one of my girlfriends. We go to the Riggsby around 11 AM, where I have an amazingly creamy mushroom toast followed by a spicy chicken sandwich that rivals the one from Popeyes. I stick to black coffee, because cutting down on alcohol while eating out is one of my low-spend goals. I don’t drink a lot, maybe once a week at a happy hour or with food, but drinking while out is expensive, and a bottle of wine from Aldi is $2.99. I don’t eat again until dinner, when I have more of those pulled pork tacos. I made a whole crockpot full of spicy orange pulled pork and still have half left, but I’m getting sick of tacos and will probably turn it into a stir-fry for dinner this coming week. Before I hit the hay, I do nip into the freezer for a cup of cookie dough ice cream to finish off the day.
Money
Friday:
I stretched my budget thin during January between paying the deposit on my new apartment and going over my grocery limit, so I keep my spending low even though my paycheck hit my account today. I spend $3.67 on my coffee from Starbucks before work. I don’t spend any more money until that night, when I pay for parking. I drove myself and Guy B to dinner because I just bought my first car in December and he’s teaching me to parallel park. After a successful (!) and easy parallel parking job, I pay $2.50 on the ParkMobile app.
Saturday:
I pay for Guy B’s Uber home ($16.18) since I drove us the night before, I don’t really want to get dressed at 7 AM, and he paid for dinner. Lunch at Jimmy John’s is $11.40 with a drink and chips, and I spend $24.55 on groceries for the upcoming week at Giant. Costco is a mad house on Saturdays, so even though I usually go there, I decided to stick to Giant. Two boxes of pasta, two small bags of salad, four tomatoes, asparagus, heavy cream, garlic, and a couple apples should feed me for the week, especially with the few leftovers I have in the fridge.
Sunday:
I broke one of the rules of my low buy on Sunday after brunch (which cost $25.01, oof). I bought a household good. The apartment I’m moving into will be my first time ever living alone and entirely on my own, where I foot the bill for everything. No splitting rent and utilities with roommates, no having my parents cover my car insurance or float me money for groceries when I was between paychecks like they did in college. So I’ve gone a little overboard with acquiring stuff to fill my new place. While I own a couch and coffee tables from a thrift store and an outlet store, a proper bed and mattress I bought for myself from Walmart with part of my signing bonus, and a TV I spent three months saving up for last year, I’ve started scouring Facebook Marketplace for fillers. I find a set of perfect Crate and Barrel placemats (originally $40) for only $10, so I bought them. I’ll do better on my low-buy tomorrow.
Total: $93.31
Sex
Friday:
My primary partner and I discussed living together when my lease ended, but aren’t ready for that stage yet. However, since I’m temporarily living in a room at his place, we make an effort to only sleep in the same bed one or two work-nights a week. I’m also an earlier riser and he’s on vacation and getting to sleep in this week, so no sex Friday morning. That night, after giving him a heads up, Guy B comes back with me. My primary partner isn’t there when we get in, but Guy B and I go to my room anyway for TV and cuddles. I go down on him before we get down to business for a good, long while before showering and heading to sleep. I have a text from Guy A before I get in the shower, who I heard get home halfway through sex, that just says “sounds hot in there 😉 when he leaves, come find me.” Before I know it, I’m wet again.
Saturday:
Guy B goes home stupidly early. After another hour or so of sleep, I go slip into Guy A’s room. When he feels me get into bed, it’s game on. He loves hearing about when I have fun with Guy B. We’re both pretty kinky and open-minded, which is a big part of why we opened up our relationship, so it’s hot, heavy, and steamy. We immediately fall back asleep for a few more hours, and when we wake up again, we take turns going down on one another before going for round two.
Sunday:
After two days of sex, I need a rest day. When I get home that night and am making dinner, Guy A comes up behinds me and squeezes my ass my holding onto me for a minute or two. That’s the closest I got to sex on Sunday, and that’s just fine with me.
Mimi Montgomery joined Washingtonian in 2018. She’s written for The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, Outside Magazine, Washington City Paper, DCist, and PoPVille. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Del Ray.
