Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Pantry Challenge - I ACCEPT!!!

Money Saving Mom (my frugal hero) has a challenge she is doing to eat only from the pantry in the month of January 2010 and has encouraged us to join in. Well... I ACCEPT!

This is what I'm going to do -

1. Go to the grocery store no more than 3 times in the month of January.

2. Not spend more than $75 and try to only get the essentials.

3. Pay a little more in our fast offerings.

4. Blog here about what I do, and different things that I create just using the food I already have.

Here are some pictures of some of the food I already have (I have food stashed in other places too but I didn't think we needed to see every little thing) . I'll take some photos at the end of the month just to see how much we ended up using. This is a fun challenge for me as well as a way to get creative, save some money and use what we already have. As you can see my fridge is bursting at the seams and probably couldn't handle anymore anyway.



I did want to point out a truly AMAZING site that I just discovered tonight. This woman built up her food storage and then her family of seven had to live off of it for almost 2 years. She rarely goes shopping. I have never thought eating from food storage could be wonderful, amazing or delicious but she has proved me wrong. She has several beautiful and delicious recipes of food she makes from her storage. Check out HER SITE and be shocked and amazed.
P.S. Money Saving Mom has has a goal to pay for a house with 100% of it in cash. I've been following her this past year as she worked toward her goal and she finally met the 100% mark and will be buying her first home the beginning of this year. I literally shed a proud tear for her.

5 comments:

Jamie said...

I see that gluten free cookie mix. My heart goes out. I can't wait to see how your pantry challenge goes. My goal this year is to start our food storage. James and I have NO excuses now. So if anyone has some good food storage ideas I would love to hear what you have to say. Remember, I plan on not storing anything with gluten in it. Maybe in the future if we have children who can eat wheat but right now, if something happened James could be on a gluten free diet with me (poor guy).

Alicia @ The Creative Vault said...

I would suggest only getting the things that you will actually eat. I get those suggestions to stoe like 50 pounds of wheat and stuff. 50 pounds of wheat?! I don't even know what to do with 50 spoonfulls of wheat. Another thing I would suggest is just getting a few extra of whatever you usually get each month. Like if you usually buy 10 cans of broth each month buy thirteen or something and add gradually. For me it is less scary that way. :)

Jill said...

Great ideas Alicia. I agree not to buy things you won't eat (we don't have any wheat in our house because I would never use it). My suggestion is to stock up when there are sales. Case lot sales are a good way to get started (canned fruit and vegetables). I also really love my deep freeze. It has been a good investment and allowed me to buy things on sale (like my turkey for next years Canadian Thanksgiving).

Alicia @ The Creative Vault said...

Oooh I wish I had a deep freeze.

The Prudent Homemaker said...

I'm glad you like my site!

To Jamie and anyone else who cannot tolerate gluten--

food storage tools can save you money. If you are buying rice flour (for the crazy expensive price that it is) you can grind it in a wheat grinder and make your own flour. Wheat grinders are not just for wheat! A good grinder will also grind corn, beans etc. into flour.

Try buying 50 pounds of rice at Sam's Club for $17 for starters. Get a 6gallon bucket with a gamma lid to put it into, since you'll be getting into it often.

Write down the meals that you can make from panry items, and go from there.

I've learned to use wheat, but I also like all-puspose flour and bread flour, so those are in my storage as well. But if you're allergic to gluten, then it's even more important that you have what you can eat on your shelves.