Pantry Challenge

Lifeasmom is hosting a Pantry Challenge for the month of January.  Amazingly I had already started this last week as we had the time and resources to re-evaluate our budget.

January is always a hard month to jump back into:

• You're catching up on your spending/savings (from those last minute Christmas gift purchases). That credit card bill is always a shocker.  
• You've ate way too much junk over the holidays.
• For my family - we've been off work for over a week and half (mini-vacation) which means no routine, no schedule - so coming back to work and a schedule is overwhelming.
• Usually the snow is dirty and not ‘pretty’ anymore.  This year surprisingly we have no snow but everything is still brown and muddy right now. 

Last week was spent cooking and freezing meals for the entire month of January.  My goal for January is to cut our grocery budget in half.  I am ignoring all sales (gasp I know).  Our pantry is overflowing right now – for example we have 24 boxes of pasta, 19 bottles of salad dressing, 9 boxes of aluminum foil, 15 cookie mix pouches, 34 boxes of frozen veggies, 20 bags of frozen corn... you get the idea - way too much stuff! I do not need to grocery shop for awhile that's for sure.

So my personal January Challenge:

• Use up many of the extras in our pantry.
• Because we already have our meals made and froze, the only items that are ‘allowed’ to be purchased this month include – milk, eggs, bread, fresh fruits and veggies.  
• Which includes on Sundays spending an hour pre-washing and cutting all my veggies and fruits for the week to encourage 1) more snacking on healthy foods and 2) to save more time and make dinner prep less stressful and rushed. 
• Save as much of my $300 grocery budget as possible (I’ll explain later what I’m doing with the left-over money). 
• Enjoy the extra time I have with my family because I'm not slaving away in the kitchen for hours in the evening.  *Very excited about this one*