Friday, January 1, 2010

Eating From The Pantry Challenge

Several day ago while reading Money Saving Mom's blog, I came across this new challenge. The challenge is to eat from your pantry for the month of January. At first I thought it was neat, but not what I would be interested in.

The more I thought about it, I realized this would be a great idea for me. After taking inventory of my pantry/freezer, I saw that I have enough food to feed a whole army for a month. So, here I go on this new challenge!

Now, I am setting my own rules, ones that work for us!
1. I will be going to the store primarily for milk and produce...things that you can't stockpile!

2. I will keep my weekly budget to $20-25 a week this month!

3. We will still be eating out 1-2 times a week (that comes from our entertainment budget)

Our normal grocery budget is $40 a week. If I follow as planned I should be able to save $60-80 minimum over the course of the month! I will tell you soon what we intend to do with that saved money!

10 comments:

Misty said...

What a great idea! BUT, I have a question... What if you are just getting started or are new to couponing and are working on building your stockpile, does anyone have any ideas of some "challenges" we could do??? :) Just curious...

Anonymous said...

I am trying to build a stockpile so that I can do this! I will try to focus on "collecting" things we use a lot of over the next few months. I don't think a stockpile is an overnight thing, over time I will get there.

Katie said...

Misty,

Please set your own challenges. I don't want anyone to feel like we all should have the same goals and challenges.

I would love to hear everyones goals!

Katie

Anonymous said...

Amazing as always

Misty said...

I agree, a stockpile is definitely not an overnight thing... wish it was though. :) My biggest problem with stockpiling the things my kids like is they eat it! Cereal, oh my, it would take Costco's supply to stockpile in my house... haha. :)

My goal for the "eat from the pantry challenge" is to offset the cost of the copay of my son's speech therapy this month through savings. It is totally able to be done, I figured it out and it would mean cutting my weekly budget to $65.00 a week. I should be able to still stockpile too...

It can be done! Woo Hoo! I'm excited! Thanks Katie for such a great idea!

Heather said...

I know what you mean about stockpilling the things your kids like,like cereal. My kids do the same thng especially if I have a variety of cereals...they think we should open all of them and eat out of all of them at once. I HIDE FOOD from them. If I get a good deal on yogurt I will buy a lot and I think they would eat it for breafast,lunch, dinner and snack. It's like Mommy brought home treats so we need to eat it all before someone else does....haha.

Katie said...

Misty and Heather,

Something that has helped me is to really concentrate on stockpiling the things you use a lot of. If it is cereal, then when a deal comes up again maybe order coupons off ebay. You can get a large quantity on the cheap. Then I guess the biggest challenge for you is to hide your goods!!!

We eat a lot of vegetables so last year they had a deal where Green Giant Steamers were free after coupons. I ordered 40 for maybe
$2or3.

Also, I don't buy that much cereal, so I can always share my coupons with you. Just ask!

Katie said...

Misty,

I think that is awesome for you to offset his speech therapy cost. I really believe you can do the $65 a week.

If you need help or ideas don't hesitate to ask...I would love to help.

Laurie said...

I set my goal at cleaning out my pantry and freezer this month. Means i will start stock piling again in Feb, though. I am also donating my saved money to the church, above and beyond what we would normally give. I have to admit I was surprised at how much I actually already had stockpiled. Just taking inventory was an eye opener!

Katie said...

Laurie,
That is a great goal. I am excited to eat all my stockpile. I too, need to get rid of what i have.

Wow...what a great way to give to the Lord!

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