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The Eating from the Pantry & Freezer Challenge: Week 4

August 27, 2012 By Taya K 3 Comments

Welcome to the fourth week of the Eating from The Pantry & Freezer Challenge!  Here’s what it’s all about or you can read the post from Week 3.

For those of you who have been doing this challenge all along, way to go!  You’ve reached the end!  And to those of you who have joined in at some point, even for a week, thank you!

I’m sure that by this point you’ve seen some significant savings or you’ve even noticed that you’ve been shopping less often.  Even just a week or two of eating what you already have can make a big difference and help you put extra money towards larger grocery purchases, debt payments, or simply to help save up for something you’d like to buy!

Here’s my update from last week

There’s actually a bit more room in our freezers!  Enough room that my father-in-law was able to store some stuff while he was looking for a new fridge/freezer after his broke.

But, as I suspected, I can keep going on this challenge for a while yet since we’ve still got plenty of food!

In total I spent about $20 this week on milk, eggs, produce and yogurt.  I’m quite pleased that I’ve been able to stay under my $25 limit for the week!

I’ve still got plenty of chicken, ground beef, and a few already made freezer meals.  So, we’ll be having some chicken dishes, and most likely some beef dishes! :P

Here’s what we’ll be eating this week:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

  • Breakfast:  cereal, fruit
  • Lunch: Egg salad sandwich
  • Dinner:  Roast beef, roasted potatoes, steamed veggies

Friday:

  • Breakfast:  Banana chocolate chip muffins, fruit, yogurt
  • Lunch:  Tomato soup
  • Dinner:  Black Bean, Corn and Rice salad burritos (recipe coming)

Saturday:

Sunday:

  • Brunch:  Waffles
  • Dinner:  At my Parents again!

Now it’s your turn, what will you be eating this week?

Now that the challenge is coming to a close, has the challenge been difficult for you?  What types of meals have frequented your table?  Would you be interested in doing another challenge later this year or early next year?

And most importantly, did you get things cleaned out and meet your goals?

The Eating from the Pantry & Freezer Challenge: Week 3

August 20, 2012 By Taya K 5 Comments

Welcome to the third week of the Eating from The Pantry & Freezer Challenge!  Here’s what it’s all about or you can read the post from Week 2.

Here’s my update from last week

Well, this is a bit embarrassing, but not many of the meals I had planned for last week got made. :(   We had family in town for the week so many of our dinners/lunches were thrown out the window because we were all over the place.  Many meals at the in-laws and a couple out of town at a cousin’s house!

The meals we managed to eat were breakfast every morning, egg salad sandwiches, waffles, tacos, and fettuccine Alfredo.  Needless to say, we still have quite a bit of stuff in our pantry and freezer!

This week should be different.  We don’t have any company (until Saturday!) so I anticipate eating through quite a bit of our stuff!

I also picked a whole bunch of cucumbers, tomatoes and blackberries (yum!) from my Mom’s garden.  I can see some tasty salads in our future!

Getting creative with what you have left

At this point in the challenge you may have come to a point where you need to be creative when it comes to using up what you have an abundance of and filling the spaces of those things you wish you could go out and buy.

There are a few great websites out there that will come up with some recipes for the ingredients you already have on hand.  All Recipes is one of them.  Simply input the ingredients you have and the ingredients you don’t have and it will pull up a list of recipes you could make!  Recipe Matcher and Food.com (find the recipe sifter in the top right hand corner, orange button) are also good resources!

Can you provide some examples of how you use ingredients that you have an abundance of?  Or even some examples of what some ingredients you can use in place of other ingredients?

Here’s what we’ll be eating this week:

Since not many of my planned meal got made last week, you’ll see some recycled meals on this week’s menu.   To complete my meals this week, I spent about $17 on yogurt, produce, milk and eggs.

Monday:

  • Breakfast:  Refrigerator oatmeal (recipe still coming!)
  • Lunch:  Smoothies
  • Dinner:  Black Bean, Corn and Rice salad burritos (recipe coming)

Tuesday:

  • Brunch: Waffles or pancakes
  • Dinner: Marinated steak, pasta salad. grilled veggies

Wednesday:

  • Breakfast:  Banana chocolate chip muffins, yogurt, fruit
  • Lunch:  Leftovers
  • Dinner:  Perogies and Sausage, steamed veggies (needs to be a quick dinner)

Thursday:

  • Breakfast:  refrigerated oatmeal
  • Lunch:  Potato soup
  • Dinner:  Out for a BBQ at a friend’s house

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

Now it’s your turn, what’s your update and what will you be eating this week?

The Eating from the Pantry & Freezer Challenge: Week 2

August 13, 2012 By Taya K 2 Comments

Welcome to the second week of the Eating from The Pantry & Freezer Challenge!  Here’s what it’s all about or you can read the post from Week 1.

Here’s my update:

As it seems with all my weeks, not every meal I had planned got made.  Things just come up or we have more leftovers than we thought!  For example, this weekend, Jesse was in a soccer tournament and the game I went to watch was right at dinner time, so I grabbed a hot dog from the concession.  We also have family in town this week so Sunday dinner was at my in-law’s.

But I did manage to rid our freezer of a few things!  Some chicken is gone (BBQ chicken salad, Chicken in basil cream sauce), a container  of chicken noodle soup is gone, along with quite a bit of produce.

I added up my receipts from my groceries last week and I ended up spending $21.19.  Milk, yogurt, whipping cream, watermelon (first of the summer!), grapes, nectarines and bananas is what I bought.

Here’s what we’ll be eating this week:

Monday:

  • Breakfast:  Bran muffin, yogurt, fruit
  • Lunch:  Egg Salad sandwich
  • Dinner:  We will be be out of town for the day visiting family

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

  • Breakfast:  Refrigerator Oatmeal (recipe coming)
  • Lunch:  Potato soup
  • Dinner:  Beef tacos

Thursday:

  • Breakfast: Banana chocolate chip muffins, yogurt, fruit
  • Lunch:  leftovers
  • Dinner: Black Bean, Corn and Rice salad burritos (recipe coming)

Friday:

  • Breakfast: Refrigerator oatmeal
  • Lunch:  Smoothies
  • Dinner:  out to eat with family

Saturday:

  • Brunch:  French Toast
  • Dinner:  Appies

Sunday:

  • Breakfast:  Muffin, yogurt, fruit
  • Lunch:  Egg salad sandwich
  • Dinner:  Marinated steak, pasta salad. grilled veggies

Now it’s your turn to share your menu plan with the rest of us!  We’d also love to hear your progress and saving report!

The Eating from the Pantry & Freezer Challenge Starts! Week 1

August 8, 2012 By Taya K 7 Comments

It’s time to start the Eating from the Pantry & Freezer Challenge!

I told you last week that I’d be sharing my goals and plans, so here’s what I’ve got in mind:

My number one goal is to clean out the pantry and freezers, especially the freezers!  It seems like we’re always throwing stuff out because it gets lost for far too long. :(

Secondly, I’d like to spend only $25 each week on the items I decided to keep buying (dairy, eggs and produce).  I think this is going to be very feasible, especially since my Mom’s garden is starting to produce a lot of veggies!

It’s important to decide on an amount you’d like to spend during the challenge.  By not setting an amount, you could be setting yourself up for spending too much!  Determine how little you think you can get by on.

Also, I think it’s important to say to make this challenge your own.  Decide what will work best for you to help you clear out your pantry and freezer while still making it a challenge.  Maybe this means you won’t be buying any household items (toilet paper, toothpaste..etc) because you really do have enough to get you through until the end of the challenge.  Or maybe you realize that you have a ton of stuff to go through so you can actually do the challenge for 5 weeks.  Make it yours!

Now, how am I going to make this happen?

I took inventory of our pantry and freezers (and discovered I had a lot more than I thought)!  Here’s what I’ll be working with:

  • Lots of chicken breasts
  • Quite a bit of beef (ground, a roast and a few steaks)
  • One package of ground turkey (will make two meals)
  • Plenty of flour, bran, oatmeal, rice, pasta, quinoa
  • Lots of frozen fruit (peaches, strawberries)
  • A bunch of freezer meals I prepared before Sienna was born (Shepard’s pie, shredded beef, potato and chicken noodle soup, Cheesy beef & rice)
  • Plenty of produce from my Mom’s garden, especially cucumbers, tomatoes and beans right now

I’m actually quite shocked at how much I found and I’m sure I could do this challenge for longer than the three and bit weeks I have planned!

Here’s what we’ll be eating until next Monday (when I’ll have our next menu plan posted)

Wednesday:

  • Breakfast:  Refrigerator oatmeal (recipe coming)
  • Lunch:  leftover rice and black bean burritos
  • Dinner: Perogies and Sausage, steamed veggies (needs to be a quick dinner)

Thursday:

  • Breakfast:  Refrigerator oatmeal
  • Lunch:  Chicken noodle soup
  • Dinner: BBQ Chicken Salad

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

  • Brunch:  Waffles with peach sauce and whipping cream
  • Dinner:  Possibly at my parents, or we’ll have marinated steak, pasta salad, grilled veggies

The only thing I have to buy for this week is whipping cream!   Yay!

On Monday, August 13, I’ll be back with my next menu plan and how much I actually ended up spending on groceries to get through this week’s menu!

Now, it’s your turn to share your menu plan, goals and plan of attack with the rest of us!

 

Join in on the Eating from the Pantry/Freezer Challenge!

August 2, 2012 By Taya K 9 Comments

Do you find your pantry and freezer overflowing with food, yet you keep buying more food?

Would you like to join me this month in possibly saving hundreds of dollars on your grocery bill by eating out of your pantry and freezer?

We’ve been feeling lately, in the Simply Frugal household, as though we’ve got way too much food just hanging around not leaving the pantry and freezers. (umm, except for the ice cream, that mysteriously disappears ;) !)

Since I’d like to use up what we have in the freezer and pantry to eventually replenish our supplies with fresher items and maybe give our deep freeze a good cleaning, I thought a challenge would get me motivated!  Maybe it will help you as well?

Here’s the plan:

Starting on Wednesday, August 8, the Eating from the Pantry/Freezer challenge will officially start!

I’ll be sharing my menu plan and goals next Wednesday and would love to hear your plans and goals as well!

What you’ll need to do before August 8:

  • Do a complete inventory of your pantry, freezer and fridge
  • Decide what your goals will be for the challenge (how much do you want to save, how long do you think you’ll be doing the challenge for…etc)
  • Write up a meal plan for at least the first five days of the challenge (Wednesday  – Sunday)
  • Make a list of the items you’ll need to buy to complete your meals.  (I’ll still be buying produce and dairy and eggs)

Every Monday following (August 13, 20, and 27) I’ll be sharing my menu plans and progress.  This would be a great time for those of you joining in on the challenge to share or link to your menus and progress in the comment section!  I’ll also be tracking how much I’m spending on groceries for the duration of this challenge and sharing my totals.

Does this makes sense?  Any questions? :)

Here are some useful resources to help you out with the challenge:

Will you be joining me as we eat from the pantry and freezer?