Pantry Challenge: Day 29 update

Well, my $170 budget is busted. I ended up buying diapers, a big bag of coffee, and disposable razor cartridges, and suddenly I'd spent $89 this week, almost as much as the rest of the month combined!

We are still under the original $200 budget I set for this month, though. Once the full 31 days is over, I'm going to break down our spending by category. I have a feeling that our actual food spending was quite low, probably around $70-80.

What did we eat this week? Turkey! I bought a smoked turkey on Dec. 26 and put it in the freezer, and we've been eating that with various side dishes. We also finished the leftover pasta e fagiole.

Frugal Finds and Having "Enough"

Even in the midst of the Pantry Challenge, this week I bought 10 lb of boneless pork sirloin chops ($.99 a lb) and 6 boxes of fruit snacks ($.10 each after sale, coupons, and Catalina). Today I planned to go to another store and stock up on $.99 Campbell's Chunky soup ($.74 each after coupons). Then I took a good hard look at our pantry. We have at least 15 cans of soup left. Do we really need more?

The logical answer is that no, we don't need more. Campbell's usually only goes on a really good sale like this once or twice a year, and odds are good that the other grocery store I shop at will have this same sale in a few weeks. However, the regular price at Target is $1.50. While $.50 each is a great savings, how much is it worth to have it taking up space in my house? We generally reserve canned soup for episodes of illness or quick lunches at work on days we forget to pack a heartier meal.

As the still quite full pantry and the $130 I've spent on groceries this month attests, we have "enough." In fact, we have probably too much.

Next time you're tempted to stock up on a great deal, ask yourself: Will I use this?Do I have room for this? Will I run out of this item before it goes on sale again? Is this really the lowest price? Do I have money in my budget?

If you can genuinely answer yes, buy it and revel in your frugal find.

Pantry Challenge: Day 22

After three weeks, we have spent $106.58 of our $200 budget. Part of this is due to using a $30 Dominick's gift card, but most of it is simply eating what we have.

What did we eat this week?
Breakfast: toast, eggs, bacon, cereal, oatmeal, and blueberry-clementine muffins
Lunch: leftovers, canned soup
Dinner: leftover clementine pork chops, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, pasta e fagiole (from the freezer), gnocchi with smoked sausage sauce
Snacks: chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, hot chocolate, cheese crackers, cheese, frozen blueberries

For the most part, we ate as we normally would. Yesterday I considered buying real Italian sausage to go in the pasta sauce, and then decided to experiment and use the Italian-style smoked sausage I had in the freezer. It worked just fine. Perhaps not the tastiest sauce I've ever made, but definitely edible. My deeply suspicious toddler ate some.

Due to the $30 gift card we received, I've decided to reduce our overall budget goal for the month to $170. Given that I still have $15 left on the gift card and $63.42 left in the budget with 9 days remaining in January, that shouldn't be a problem. The only hiccup will be if daycare sends more a snack list today.

I have a smoked turkey defrosting in the refrigerator, and that will make several meals for us this week, supplemented in part by some of the pantry extras I acquired at Thanksgiving (using Catalinas).

So what does the pantry look like now? I've been able to condense a few boxes, and there is slightly more room in the garage freezer than there was, but three weeks of pantry cooking has barely put a dent in our supplies. I'll take some new pictures at the end of the month, but I think that it would be worthwhile for us to have a pantry cooking week each month for awhile to make sure items are getting rotated regularly.

Pantry Challenge: Day 15

When I started the pantry challenge, I had three goals. The biggest goal was to use up some of our pantry stockpile, which had begun to take over the house. After two weeks, we've hardly made a dent. There are some items we're totally out of (breakfast bars) that I considered buying after finding a deal for $.75 a box this week, but the truth is that homemade mini-muffins are healthier and I already have all the ingredients handy.

This week my budget was $31.84. I spent $24.30, bringing my total for the month to $92.46. To be honest, I planned to spend more, but mysteriously Target has stopped carrying my beloved Pledge dusting cloths and apparently Jewel has Dobie pads on sale this week cheaper than Target, so I need to make another trip over there.

What did we eat?

Breakfast: cereal, oatmeal with granola, Eggo freezer pastries, eggs and toast with marmalade
Lunch: leftovers, raviolis
Dinner: pizza, turkey soup, Pioneer Woman's pot roast with carrots and mashed potatoes, clementine pork chops with rice and green beans
Snacks: slab apple pie with brown sugar cinnamon ice cream, crackers, cheese, Oreos, fruit

Pantry Challenge: Clean Out Your Kitchen, Not Just Your Pantry

Do you ever look through old cookbooks or browser bookmarks and notice that some old favorites have fallen by the wayside? The way we cook changes over the years, but our kitchens often don't. We move in, set up our cupboards and shelves, and that's how they stay. The breadmaker you were sure you'd use takes up space in a cupboard, the toaster you use twice a month gets dusty on the counter, and it just blends in.

As we clean out our pantries, take a good hard look at your kitchen. Start with the one thing that will give you the most bang for your buck: your countertops. Do you really use everything on your counters or are they just pretty? Are they pretty enough to stay? If you're not sure, move something off the counter, out of the way, and see if you need it before February rolls around. If you don't, maybe it doesn't need to be out on the counter.

Do you have a drawer under your oven? Do you know what's in it? How about that drawer full of kitchen gadgets? This is a great time of year to take stock. Set aside the things you don't use often and consider storing them out of the kitchen or donating them to someone who can use them.

One last check: what's on your refrigerator? Clear off the schedules for last year's soccer practice and the coupons for pizza that expired in October. Every little bit makes a difference.

Pantry Challenge: Week 1 Update

As I detailed in my Week 1 Grocery post, we had a big FAIL here for grocery spending, overspending our $50 budget by $18.16. That leaves me with $31.84 for this week. My plan is to keep to that. I just bought milk, we have eggs, and barring unforeseen issues all we need this week is coffee, frozen peas, and Target diapers. Between Target and Sam's, that should run me $20.

Why did I overspend? Well, the diapers were a big culprit. I also splurged on two pot roasts I didn't need but were great deals, as well as 5 boxes of crackers. The crackers were $.60 a box, about half what I'd pay at Aldi, because of sales and coupons. Ordinarily I might have resisted, but my husband bought a three-pack of cheese spread awhile ago and we had no good crackers left to put it on. Rather than waste $7 of cheese, I paid the $3 for crackers.

For new readers, we are a family of three. Myself, my husband, and our two-year-old. Our son eats breakfast and lunch at daycare, and we bring our lunches to work every day.

What have we been eating?
Breakfasts: homemade biscuit donuts, toast with pumpkin butter, bacon, cereal, steel-cut oats, apples, juice and coffee
Lunches: dinner leftovers, raviolis, yogurt
Dinners: pizza (two nights), chicken pot pie (two nights), potato soup (two nights), turkey soup (tonight)
Snacks: crackers, fruit, cheese, cookies, cake balls

I normally wouldn't make soup on back to back nights, but the little man and I both have stuffy noses and he has a nasty cough. He has asthma, so we try to nip these things in the bud as soon as we can. We are snowbound today, so I have plenty of time to attend to the soup. A lot of people find soup-making intimidating, but all it really requires is patience. While the turkey stock is cooking, I've got a big pan of homemade bread crumbs drying out in the oven. I made these this morning by tossing a gallon-bag worth of bread loaf ends into the food processor. Some of these will probably end up in a meatloaf this week.

I also made a small batch of clementine marmalade, adapting and messing up Alton Brown's orange marmalade recipe in the process (I put the sugar in way too soon). We'll crack one open this week and I'll share if it turned out. It tasted good, but I'm not sure it will gel. (Marmalade can take up to two weeks to gel.) This is my fourth batch of jam/preserves and only the first one really turned out. The second never set and the third was overcooked.

Pantry Challenge: Day 4

Well, I'm already over budget for the week thanks to irresistible sales and a clearance on diapers. I'm only over $7, so I'm just going to stay out of the stores until Friday, then assess where we're at.

What have we been eating? So far we had two nights of pizza (one $5 take-n-bake at Dominick's on sale) and one night of chicken pot pie. We'll have the pot pie again tonight.

Why I'm Doing the Freezer/Pantry Cooking Challenge

In the last five months, I've found and taken advantage of a lot of good deals. But my house is not big, I have no basement, and the stockpile is taking over. Here's my stockpile. It's not pretty.



This is my "pantry," a Rubbermaid cabinet purchased years ago when we lived in a garden apartment near campus. And that stuff down next to it? That's baking supplies, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.



In the playroom, we also have this Rubbermaid tub full of cereal, cookies, crackers, and a case of tomato paste.



In the "dining room," which actually has a bookcase and a desk in it, we have all this. A tub of Halloween Oreos, juice, crackers, and pasta.



Box of cereal, flour, cake mix, and stuffing cubes.



Box of Progresso soups and a jug of peanut oil.



Beef and chicken broth, soup mix, and fruit snacks.



Box of more soups, canned green beans (the only canned veg I buy), and canned fruit.



And then there's the kitchen freezer.



And the garage freezer. That big bag on the second shelf is a smoked turkey.

January Challenge: Eating from the Pantry and Freezer

The deal-seeking and coupon-cutting I've done the last few months has left us with food bursting out of our kitchen and currently taking up space in our playroom and dining room. In addition, both our freezer and full-size stand-up freezer are full. I defrosted the stand-up in November and took an inventory, which helps a lot. As a result, our family is joining Money Saving Mom and Fish Mama's Freezer and Pantry Cooking month.

For this challenge, I have three goals.

1. Spend $200 on groceries.
2. Organize our food stockpile so I can see what we have more easily.
3. Post more recipes! 

We spent $230 on groceries in September with far less food in our stockpile, so I think goal 1 is doable. It will also probably drive up our grocery spending in February, but the point is to rotate goods so things don't go bad. The recipes are needed because I have a terrible habit of throwing things together without measuring the seasonings or paying attention to cooking times. I'd like to be able to replicate dishes we liked and fix dishes that aren't quite up to scratch.

I flipped through the freezer inventory and looked in our cupboards. Here are some of the meals we can make from the items we already have. For sides we have plenty of rice, potatoes, couscous, and canned green beans. I'll need to add more veggies as we go.

1. smoked turkey
2. chicken pot pie
3. macaroni and cheese
4. pasta with meat sauce
5. meatloaf
6. pasta e fagiole with ham
7. pancakes or French toast 
8. crockpot beef and mashed potatoes
9. clementine pork roast
10. kielbasa rice skillet
11. pizza
12. ribs
13. turkey soup
14. duck
15. breakfast burritos
16. crockpot chicken with 40 cloves of garlic
17. gnocchi
18. potato soup
    

Since several of these entrees will last more than one night, I think we'll be in good shape. We're definitely not afraid of leftovers in our house, and I rarely need to disguise things to serve them again. Often changing up the side dishes is enough.