Wow! I can't believe the month is over! (Well, actually I can....this last week seemed to drag out a bit.) WE DID IT!!!! We survived on our food storage!!! Well, truthfully, we didn't survive solely on our food storage but I DID accomplish what I set out to do at the beginning of January.
Why did I do it?
*to save money-At the beginning of January we went to Baltimore/DC for a long weekend. Right before we left I got the gas bill (heat) and Ouch!
*While we were gone I decided that I was going to try an experiment....I was going to use up all the food lurking in the pantry, refrigerator, and freezer in order to save on our grocery bill for Jan. (I did allow myself to buy milk, eggs, and yogurt and the occasional fresh produce item.)
*to see how adequate my food storage supply was
I have to admit that it got tough a few times but overall I was really surprised at how easy it was. I am already accustomed to making my own bread, pancakes, cookies, etc. so I already had the ingredients on hand for those things. Of course it helped that I had made a trip to Sams right before Christmas to stock up on several necessities (butter, cheddar cheese, and frozen chicken breasts--couldn't have done it without these!).
This is what I bought in January:
8 gallons of milk 28.99
54 eggs 6.84
20 containers yogurt 9.83
20 bananas 4.20
bag carrots 3.28
3 cucumbers 2.04
bag spinach 2.28
baking powder 0.98
pepper 1.00
...for a whopping $59.44!! WOW! This is most definitely much less than I usually spend on groceries! :)
So what did we eat? Well we didn't start until Jan. 5th (since we were out of town) but this is what we ate the rest of the month:
5- Sante Fe Soup (leftover), Trev-pbj
6- Tuna Casserole, raw carrots and broccoli
7- leftovers (soup &/or tuna cass.)
8- Puffy oven pancakes
9- Spaghetti, salad
10- kids-fish sticks, peas; M&D-blueberry protein smoothies
11- pinto beans and cornbread
12- taquitos, salad
13- homemade BBQ chicken pizza, carrots
14- grilled cheese, carrots
15- Chicken vegetable rotini soup
16- popcorn & a movie (Snow Day)
17- Pizza @ a birthday party
18- Black bean chicken salsa soup
19- homemade mac n cheese, peas
20- chili, cheddar cheese sticks
21- scrambled eggs and biscuits
22- leftover soups &/or spaghetti-o's
23- out to eat :) w/ friends
24- baked chicken, rice, steamed broccoli
25- homemade pizza
26- Buttered Garlic spaghetti noodles, green beans, Texas toast
27- Cheddar Chicken Broccoli Casserole
28- Ramen noodles or leftover ch. broccoli casserole
29- homemade mac n cheese, green beans or peas
30- (I'm getting tired of this.....) we went out to eat! :)
31- Veg/Fruit smoothies
What else did we eat? For breakfast....we ate up all the dry cereal in less than a week so we mostly ate toast, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, and eggs, with an occasional green smoothie. For lunch.....we ate pbjs, pasta salad, ham/cheese tortillas, and tuna with canned fruit and carrots or cucumbers. I made one batch (4 loaves) of homemade wheat bread after we ate all the store-bought bread I was storing in the freezer and I made Hope's wheat tortillas which were super yummy.
So what did I learn?
*We ate a lot of soup. Soup is a good budget-stretcher. That said, I think we're all sick of soup.
*Beans are also a cheap food source. I need to store more of these, especially dried beans. My kids aren't huge bean fans (and neither am I really) but they will eat them. I just wish we liked them more.
*I need to store more salsa. I don't know why I never thought of it as a pantry item.
*I need to add dry cereal to my food storage (especially after my sil teaches me all the couponing tricks so that I can buy them really cheap). We LOVE cereal but I won't buy the sugary stuff. Our favorite is Corn Flakes or Bran Flakes with my homemade granola. I've never stored a lot of cereal (mostly because if we have it, we will eat it and nothing else) but I really missed my granola and Corn Flakes this month.
*Leftovers are my friends. We have always been good about eating leftovers. Don't throw away food! And it's even better if you can use your leftovers in a different way....for example, the night I made baked chicken we had 1/2 chicken breast left. It wasn't much but I chopped it up and used it the next night on our homemade pizza.
*My family are such good sports! They were all supportive of my idea and no one complained too much. With just a week to go, Kyler says, "Mom, why can't we do this for 2 months?" Are you serious? I was so ready to go to the store by that point.
I learned a lot more things this month, too. Mostly though I (re)learned the importance of having food storage that your family will actually eat. I think I'm storing the right stuff. I just need to store more of it. My next goal.......work on my 3 month pantry. Alisha has already done all the work for me. Now I'm just going to copy. :)
6 comments:
So very very super unbelievably impressed! And jealous...but I'll get over it. ;)
Between you and Alisha, I am crazy motivated to do a serious food-budget overhaul. Thanks for the ideas and info. If I can do this...Steve will be so thrilled, he'll probably be sending you flowers. So give Kelly a heads-up. :)
I do NOT know how you did it. AMAZING! I think Adam would had been the first to bail... well, unless I cheated and prepared myself before starting the process. :) Maybe I can get motivated enough to do something similar.
Victory! I have never done this for a whole month. I do it for one week each month though. It really helps 'use up' those little tid bits of items that get lost on the back of pantry shelves and in the freezer. Of course, any one who knows me, I am a massive purger, so this feeds my obsession and keeps me sane. Congrats!!
Wow! So Impressed! I really want to try to do this three month pantry and get my 'ducks' in a row. I need to be mroe organized! But, if I had all this stuff on hand, when I am busy or just don't really want to cook, my kids, even down to H and M could help make dinners with little help. That could be a huge help at our house!
Great post, I think I may need to give this a try, just to see... I am so impressed with you!
Good job Jen. I thought about what you are doing and I don't know if we could do it? We are close to live out of food storage. you are a great inspiration for me.
Post a Comment