last week, i went to the grocery store and spent almost $200.
i felt sick to my stomach. so much money sucked out of our bank account. even with my menus carefully planned out, list in-hand, i still spent way more than i anticipated.
i know groceries are a necessity. it's not like i'm getting my nails done. we must have groceries. but still. i'm still spending too much.
driving home, i began to think how nice it would be if I could just take one week off from grocery shopping.
it's not like my cupboards are bare except for the things i'm putting in each week. they are still stocked with rice and beans and cans of soup and pastas and..... there are the odd cuts of meat in my freezer. i have flour. and sugar. and yeast. and butter.
it's just that i often ignore those things in my pantry for what i feel like making that week.
i'm not using what i have.
so my challenge: i'm not going to the grocery store next week (except for milk). i'm going to make do with what i have in my cupboards and freezer. i'm going to get creative. i'm going to do my best to put together some meals with what i have on hand. i'm going to save a little money this week.
sometimes my best meals are the ones created when i think "I have nothing to make for dinner".
anyone brave enough to join me?
4 comments:
As part of my trying to "simplify" more this past year or so, we decided to do this or at least a variation of it. We decided to use up all the food that was in our cupboards and only buy essentials such as fresh fruit, veg, bread and milk. We ended up getting about 2 months worth of meals from our cupboards!!!! (and we don't have a pantry or huge food cupboards) - though I must say by the end of the 2 months some of the meals were pretty random combinations!! :)
I think it's a great idea, I was so surprised to discover what I had in the cupboard and how often I bought stuff I already had in the cupboard. Looking forward to hear how it goes.
i have had to do that a few times on our shoe string budget (while we are self employed) the past few months. it really is amazing what i was able to do with the basics i had. and having a meatless meal or two a week was great! rice and beans can be done in so many yummy ways! you can do it!
I did this a few weeks ago and it was GREAT! (I'd never done it before, or at least not for *years*.) I realized that we are just in the habit of heading to the grocery store every 2 weeks (payday) and then frequently in between, but- like you said: there's still food in the house. And lots of it. So we're going for stocking up, basically.
We were able to go two whole weeks without a trip (other than milk/bread/cheese/flour, once, I think). It was such a great feeling and also... made me really creative in the kitchen!
good luck! the other day i was just going to have a bowl of cereal but then i remembered the zucchini and squash in the fridge and made that instead so it wouldn't go bad. i am soo guilty of giving in to convenience (and i *hate* seeing a high food bill!)
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