Eat from the Pantry Challenge

A glimpse at part of my basement storage

Here it is, January 1, 2010, and it seems all the blogosphere is setting goals for the new year. I don't usually proclaim my goals to the world, but there's an interesting challenge I decided to try this month, the Eat from the Pantry Challenge from Life as Mom and Money Saving Mom.

The idea is to try to eat from your stockpile as much as possible this month, but the parameters of the challenge are individual. Now, since I started couponing in August, I've built up quite a stockpile, but I've always had that tendency. When you can and freeze in the summer, you naturally end up with quite a stash of food to see you through the winter. I have home-frozen corn and green beans, tomato sauces, pesto, strawberries and blueberries. I have home-canned tomatoes, salsa, dill pickles and dilly-green beans, two bushels of potatoes (grown at a friend's house), sweet potatoes and beets.

Since I've started paying attention to sales, I also have more cereal, flour, canned fruits and veggies, sugar, spices, cleaning products, laundry soap, etc., than I could possibly use up in one month.

I'm going to keep the rules for myself relatively simple. I'll continue to buy fresh fruits and veggies, though opting for the best prices when I shop. If there's an incredible "deal" I'll likely still stock up, though I'm going to try to spend only $200 for the rest of January on food/grocery store items for my family.

For example, Hy-Vee is having a one-day sale tomorrow and I plan to stock up on grated cheese ($1 a bag) and milk at 88 cents a half gallon. By stocking up on grated cheeses when the price hits $1 a pound, I know I save a ton. We simply freeze the cheese and pull it out when ready to use it. Also, we drink a lot of milk. I prefer to buy my milk from the local dairy, but since deciding to hit our debt with everything we've got, I decided to choose price over preference, at least for the time-being.

I typically make homemade breads, but rarely manage to do so exclusively. For this challenge, I will try to make all our breads from scratch for the entire month. I'm off to a good start today, making 3 loaves of cranberry-orange bread, three-grain bread, and pumpkin bars.