Pantry Challenge Week #3 & 4

Week three and four of the pantry challenge were pretty routine. My grocery bills for those two weeks were $43.88 and $32.08 respectively, and my total food cost for the month of January (plus the week after Christmas) was $145.45. Now, for us, that was a savings of $254.55 to $354.55; an inspiring savings.

The savings was put toward my hubby's birthday gift. He has now reached the level of Honored Citizen, and I felt it was time he move into the 21st century. His work has allowed him to use a "company" laptop, but their way of respecting a PE teacher who travels to three schools and works with 900 kids was to allow him to use a VERY old Macbook. The laptop demonstrated its age by randomly shutting down about every hour, making it very difficult for hubby to do serious work. My inspiring grocery savings, plus various other savings from the month, allowed me to purchase a refurbished Macbook Pro for hubs, and he is thrilled.

As I sit down to plan the week's meals this morning, it appears we still have plenty of pantry items to continue a modified challenge for at least one more week. The modifications will be to purchase some soda pop and a few essentials we tried to do without, Bisquick for example. Additionally, Sunday is the Super Bowl and we are having a small gathering of friends for the game. I want to keep a close eye on those purchases, so they will be made separate from the general shopping and made on Friday of this week.

Making such a grand purchase for hubby's birthday was so fun, but having dear son request recipes and ideas for saving on his own grocery budget has been just as rewarding. We made a date to go purchase a crockpot and stockpot (probably second hand) so that he can begin to make economical meals, in quantity, which saves money and time for him.

While reducing the monthly grocery money allotment was not a main goal, I am motivated to do just that. A reduction of $100 a month seems very doable, and if it can be reduced by $200 every other month, I might just be able to make that Kitchenaid Stand Mixer purchase sometime before summer.

Pantry Challenge Week #2

Week Two's greatest success was that I only spent $38 at the grocery store. I love that groceries can be brought into the house in one trip and spending less time at the grocery store is a bonus as well. The week was filled with common meals; things I have made before. Friday's meal was enjoyed the most, but that had more to do with the company and conversation than the food.

• Monday's rib eye steak, marinated in Yoshida sauce was yum, but the Suddenly Salad creamy ranch and bacon was blah. We deemed it not even worthy of leftovers.
• Tuesday's meal was to be fish—fish I found in the freezer but couldn't remember purchasing. I did remember that it wasn't well liked the last time I made it, who knows how long ago. I just couldn't bring myself to fix the fish, so we opted for a frozen bag meal of orange chicken with jasmine rice. This provided enough for lunches the next day.
• Wednesday I faced the fish again, and again just couldn't do it, so the fish got pitched and we opted for Saturday's meal, which was eggs, hash browns, and sausage. Meh—and that is all I have to say about that meal.
• Thursday, we had simple ham sandwichs. Both the ham and buns were leftover from sometime around Christmas, and although not a glamorous meal, it was tasty. 
• Friday was the "fanciest" meal of the week because that is the day that our son often comes to dinner. When it is just hubs and I, we can get away with pancakes or waffles. What a treat to have son thrilled to see me making stuffed shells, as that is exactly what he had been craving. Plenty leftover for lunch the next day.
• Saturday was a boxed pizza that had been in the fridge a while and . . .
• Sunday was simply pancakes, made from a box of oatmeal pancake mix I found shoved to the back of the cupboard.

Dessert for the week was a version of my multiple choice bars that had pretzels for the crust, ice cream caramel sauce, dark chocolate chips, pecans, and cinnamon chex. These were not nearly as good as the first version of multiple choice bars I made two weeks ago, but they did disappear. Yesterday, I rounded up the last sleeve of ritz crackers, some peanut butter, leftover semi-sweet chips, and white chocolate bark to pull together chocolate covered Ritz peanut butter cookies. If you have never had these simple cookies, you are missing out on a great, simple treat.

As we look to next week, it seems we have plenty of fixin's for all sorts of soup, but I don't desire soup every night. With a little extra head scratching, I have come up with some good variety and we will be trying at least two new recipes. For dessert, I have made our favorite brownies, pictured here. They probably won't last all week. I have a new recipe ready for dessert back-up, and the best part, I have all the ingredients on hand.

What to do with all the money I am saving? Well, you will have to wait at least another week to see what I am planning on purchasing.

Pantry Challenge Week #1

Week one of our pantry challenge is complete and we claim it a success. My grocery bill of the week was $31.13; a savings of $50-$100 for the week. On the official first day we had sausage & olive pizza and it was great. We used Greek pita flatbread as the crust and I used up some vegan sausage mixed with regular sausage. I admit I had purchased the flatbread to make pizza a week earlier, and when we finally got around to having pizza, it was a good thin crust.

I have made two pans of Multiple Choice Bars with the first pan being tastier than the second. Don't misunderstand, the second pan is disappearing quite fast, but we preferred the semi-sweet chocolate over the milk chocolate/semi-sweet combination on the second pan.

Another great success this week was the meatball sandwiches. Instead of using pizza sauce, I used up some Buster's BBQ mild sauce leftover from dear daughter's wedding. Hubby has requested all meatball sandwiches be made this way in the future.

One of my favorite from the week was a lunch I made just for myself. I used two thin slices French bread (left over from the wedding), turkey deli meat, whipped cream cheese, and cherry habanero pepper jelly. Spread the cream cheese and jelly on the bread, lay on the turkey, butter the outside of the bread and grill for a great warm sandwich. I am so tempted to purchase more deli meat just so I can have more! This sandwich did cause me to tighten up my pantry challenge "rules". They are as follows:

1. Vegetables and fruit can be purchased so we are trying to eat healthy.
2. Milk, eggs, and cheese can also be purchased although the cheese in limited quantity.
3. Ingredients for desserts can be purchased, but only one or two small ingredients per week and no more than $4 spent on the ingredients. Once I run out of the main ingredients desserts are out.
4. Cereal will stay on the weekly list.**
5. No soda pop.
6. I am going to hold off on buying meat for as long as I can.

(**I am not a morning person, dislike "making breakfast" at o'dark thirty, and cereal is what hubby and I like on work days. That said, I want it noted I made muffins on Sunday in an effort to stretch the cereal for the week, but hubby is eating them as a snack and they are disappearing fast.)

Today's list for the grocery store is very short. I am anxious to see the total cost. I am already making plans how to use all the money I save this month.