Tomorrow is the final day of my pantry challenge. Since I'm not headed to the grocery store today or tomorrow, I decided to tally everything up and see how I did. I spent $96.41 on groceries this month!!

Now keep in mind that I am currently eating different food than my family right now, as I lose weight, and my meal plan changes every week. So I didn't count that food since I couldn't plan for the changes or just eat whatever we already had. So I technically spent more than that, but it was on stuff just for me.

But with that being said I bought TONS of stuff in that $96 that we didn't NEED, but they were simply on sale for a great price and I had a coupon: cookies, Rhodes rolls, fruit snacks, oatmeal, candy, Sobe drinks, Skinny Cows, soda, etc. I also bought things that I could have made: bread, milk (we have powdered milk), yogurt.

Here's the best part too... aside from being in need of some dairy and produce, my pantry, freezer, and food storage looks the exact same as before. It doesn't look like we lived off of it for a month, at all. Cool.

So I know that if we had NO money to spend on food I could feed my family, no problem. We'd miss the cheese, yogurt, and fresh produce the most. But we would have have milk still to help cover the need for dairy. And we have plenty of frozen and canned produce.

This was a fun little experiment to try. I think that I'll informally continue to do it. I plan to continue to pull from our storage regularly, but I won't be keeping track of my spending like before. I do plan to continue to buy the things that I can get a great deal on, rather than whatever my heart desires.

P.S. Ryan noticed a HUGE change in our credit card bill this month too. (We put everything on our credit card --paying it off each month, of course-- so we can see all of our expenses at a glance...and to earn lots and lots of American Express points...) Because I wasn't going to the store as often, I wasn't picking up a little extra something here and there. Apparently all those little things add up to big dollars. Oops.

So I have one week left on my pantry challenge. I have been to the store several times and bought a TON of junk I didn't need, but only because I got such a screaming deal on it. So far I have spent $71.15 this month, including all the things we didn't need.

However, it was good to know what things that I didn't have in my pantry/freezer/food storage in case we ever needed to rely on that storage completely. For the most part, I needed milk, cheese, yogurt, produce, and bread. Everything else I bought wasn't immediately needed: water bottles, steak (for Valentine's dinner), cereal, candy, oatmeal, Skinny Cows, Goldfish, salsa, etc.

I still have $30 for this next week and that will be plenty. I might even try this again next month because I still have TONS of food that I would like to move through, especially in my freezer.

So just a quick update on the challenge. I need to total how much I've spent so far this month, but I think I'm at about $45, and I'm half way there. The funny thing is that most of it has been stuff that we didn't really need yet, but I could get it for such a great price that I was willing to sacrifice some of my $100 to buy it.

This was totally the case when I went to the store on Friday night. Here is a picture of all the stuff I bought:

Here's the best part. It was $57.76 worth of groceries but I paid $0.79 for all of it. Yes, I walked away with a grocery cart full of food and paid less than a dollar. Here's the receipt to prove it:


The cashier seemed to be bugged that I got so much for so little -- like it was coming out of his pay check or something. When he told me the final price, I said, "FOR REAL?! That's SO cool." And he responded, "Uh, ya." Well, I was excited!

One of my favorite bloggers did an "Eat from the Pantry Challenge" where she participated in a month-long stint with virtually no grocery shopping. The object of the challenge is to use up items you have in your pantry while saving money at the same time.

I have decided that I want to try this, just for fun. Looking at my food storage, freezers and pantry, I'd say it's going to be fairly easy. They are full, to say the least. I know better though- eating out of our food storage meal after meal, week after week is tough. Having food on hand is one thing, but creating healthy meals from it all is quite a different story!

Here are some ground rules I've placed for myself:

1. I start on Monday. (And no, I'm not spending $500 today on groceries to get by. Although I do plan to go get some bread to freeze. I don't mind making it, but don't always have the time.)
2. I will spend $100 or less on groceries for the next 30 days.
   
3. I will try to only buy dairy {milk, eggs, cheese, etc.} and produce {fruits/vegetables}.
4. Eat out a maximum of 3 times during the challenge. I don't want my savings to be negated by dinners out. Even then, I would prefer to eat all meals at home and see how we do. But I wanted an "escape route" in case a really bad day needed a meal out of the house.
5. I'm currently seeing a nutritionist to finish my weight loss/exercise goals. If he tells me to purchase things that I won't be serving my family and are just for me (protein powder, etc.) those items will not be included in my $100.
   

So wish me luck! I'll be keeping you all posted about what items I buy and how much I'm spending. I'm looking forward to cleaning out my pantry a bit!

Anyone wanna join me?