For the first time in 14 years, I no longer live alone. All my adult life, I have chosen to spend a little more for much-needed introvert privacy than deal with roommates.

For the last three months, I have been living with my mother. It’s weird but it’s working, even if I joke that I’m a proper millennial now since I’ve moved “into my mother’s basement” (which, to be fair, is technically our basement, since my name is on the deed). We thankfully get a long quite well and are content to give each other space, as needed.

But I’m still not used to opening up the fridge and having no idea what’s in there.

For 14 years, I was the sole fridge-provider. I was the only one who bought the groceries. I always knew what was in there (well, almost always knew, since invariably there’d be a forgotten fruit or vegetable or container of leftovers that would be shoved to the back until it started to become a science experiment).

But for half my life, I was the one who put food into the refrigerator.

Now, when I open, it is full of things that I didn’t purchase! And I don’t know what to do with them!

Mum is still adjusting to my eating habits, which are very different from my father’s. She buys meat by the truckload, it seems, which shocks my starving artist sensibilities since fresh meat is so very expensive! Heck, it was a treat sometimes to even buy eggs! I am not a vegetarian, but my pocketbook was.

So now our freezer is full of the meat that we couldn’t possibly eat in a timely manner.

Honestly, it’s just a shock seeing the fridge full, period. I rarely purchased in bulk, preferring to buy a few things here and there on a weekly basis because I knew they’d go to waste before I could it it all. The most items in my fridge were the bottles of condiments and a few random drinks here and there.

But now, not only are there many bottles of condiments, lots of which I would never use, but there is an entire shelf dedicated to the soda that I gave up years ago (and have been tempted again into drinking since it’s so accessible now), and another shelf dedicated to fresh produce, and another to meats and cheeses, and butter, and eggs, and bread.

When I finally finish emptying my apartment, the only things I will really add to our shared food storage is a freezer full of tortillas, a case of ramen, and containers of rice. All those key staples for an underpaid idealist.

Mum and I agree that we’ll have to sit down and figure out a better budget for our groceries. Not just monetarily, since we won’t be making as much money as she’s used to, but also physically and nutritionally. We don’t have the space she’s used to. Somewhere in storage there is a freezer that she plans to put in the garage, but we don’t have the large fridge she had overseas.

And we don’t need to keep eating the easy-but-comforting junk food we’ve been relying on the past few months.

Now that I have my mother’s grocery budget, I want to cook more. I want to learn recipes that go beyond dumping something on a bowl of rice.

I want to be healthier than relying on a package of ramen to get me through the day.

I want to stop relying on restaurant leftovers to get the more bang for my buck.

I want to provide Mum a sense of home, a place where we can share the meals we couldn’t for the past 14 years. Where can bond together again over something delicious and homemade.

But first, I have to figure out just what’s in that fridge…