I'm looking at every aspect of my backpacking. Some things I've already changed. Got rid of 7 pounds of weight thanks to a postage scale and various suggestions. Other things, I'll keep the same.

On the last trip, I didn't pay much attention to cost. A simple solution is to buy a bunch of Mountain House stuff and go. Once or twice a year, that is fine. But to get 3,000 calories a day costs about $36. Multiply that by 2 and it's $72. For that, I could stay home and take up eating in good restaurants for a hobby.

I set a goal of eating 3,000 calories for less than $5.00 a day and having it weigh 1.5 pounds. I can cut it more just by getting rid of the three convenience items. $3.00 a day is in easy reach.

I'm trying to get rid of all convenience items so I can buy in bulk. Plus it makes the menu scalable. Surprisingly, I'm finding I actually LIKE eating this way and I'm eating a lot of it at home and saving money there, too.

I've written an excel program to plan meals which makes it alot simpler. I just have a list of items and doubleclick on the one I want to add to a meal. I plan it for 3,000 calories, and then click a button to change the measurements to however may calories I want.