Eat-From-the-Pantry Challenge
December 31st, 2009 | 
Author: 
What?
The photo upload capabilities of my blogging software have gone the way of my energy–away. I have a very talented man that can fix these things, but the blogging frenzy of a woman with a mission can wait for no man, not even the near-genius who will have this quirk eliminated about thirty seconds after downing his first cup of java.
December is nearly over. I over-spent. Part of me would love to bid farewell to Legos and babydolls and new slippers on Christmas, much as the Voskamp family has done, thus maintaining an even clearer focus and eliminating overspending. The other part of me, however, loves watching my children thoughtfully plan, budget, sew, shop, wrap, relate the story behind the gift, and delight in the recipient’s joy, all in conjunction with Christ’s birth. I don’t doubt that God similarly loves watching our delight in receiving The Ultimate Christmas Gift.
Regardless, December once again has seen me exceeding the budget by just a hair…or a hair ball, to be truthful. Therefore, January is a perfect time to jump on board the Eat-From-the-Pantry Challenge sponsored by Crystal and FishMama.
The premise behind the challenge stems from the wealth of food most of us have stored up which we forget about and eventually toss. No matter how inexpensively the goods were obtained, tossed food is a waste in more ways than one. While we buy on sale, stock up, and rotate our supply, it is the latter part, the rotating, that will be heavily exercised this month.
My goal is to spend no more than $250 on groceries for eight people this month, while eating through our supplies. Why so much? We eat heavily from fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables. Our garden supplies nothing, and our freezer is not currently loaded with enough produce to get us through the month. While I could rely on our canned supply, I simply do not want to. (Pout, stomp foot.) I should have enough in that budget to buy produce, milk, eggs, and cheese–hey, I’m from Wisconsin, and cheese is its own food group dontchaknow.
This cleansing will allow me a fresh start in February, as well as the chance to scrub out the freezer. (Thanking God for the ability to scrub a freezer!) It will also free up a bit of the grocery money for debt reduction.
Normally something like this would tempt me to stock up in advance, but the purpose is not to merely succeed in January, but to succeed as wise financial stewards in general all the time. So…no cheating (Stern look, slapping ruler into palm of hand.)
If you wish to join this challenge, hop on board. I think you’d be surprised how long you can go without really shopping. Of course, this will require a bit of creativity, some exercise for the ol’ noggin, but we’re all up for that, aren’t we?
Look at that: he’s only halfway through his first cup of joe and he’s got the photo bug fixed already. Let’s see if I can fix the budget as well as he can fix everything else. Feel free to hold me accountable! In fact, please do.
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I’d join you, except we’d be living off the leftover popcorn & cat food. Yeah, we shop/eat/shop again ~ realistically, we ought to be ‘stocking up’ more – I do have a cubby with soups & such that I picked up through some great sales not long ago, but hubby won’t touch ‘em. I used the words ‘squash’ and ‘soup’ in the same sentence the other day and he twitched.
[adorable pic!]
That’s so funny! My husband literally cannot swallow lima beans.
Ha! Why is it that our cameras and their related equipment always fail us right when we are ready to post or upload or share pics?? Mine does the same. I can never find the silly connector cords and flail around the house until my husband – inevitably – tracks them down in the most obvious of places. So, all that to say, I know what you mean. And I’m glad you found yours – because – that picture – priceless!
[...] to stop feasting. Christy a new member of the High Calling Network talked about this in her post: Eat from the Pantry Challenge. She has aptly categorized this post under “frugal family [...]
Hi Christy — Found you through High Calling and just about laughed to see that other people actually have a name for what I have been trying to do: eat through to the bottom of my pantry and freezer before splurging and spending on my cravings and desires again. I haven’t put rules to the project, per se, but it is helping to foster a greater sense of gratitude that I have more food just going stale in the cabinet than most people have to eat at all. Thanks for putting words to this discipline.
Found you through High Calling as well and tremendously enjoyed your humorous and relevant post. Thanks for giving lots of food from the panty for thought!
Christy, mostly signing in to say nicely done!
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I enjoyed reading this post about Eat-From-the-Pantry Challenge. Really interesting. I will come back to visit this blog again.
This is a great post Christy, gave me a chuckle. I’m definitely going to try this, I hate to think how much food we throw away in our house. We ignore so many boxes of stuff we have already bought. My husband is the worst culprit.
If you can spend only $250 in grocery for 8 people per month that would be amazing! Its only me and my boyfriend and we spend about that much just the two of us.
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