How much of this can we eat in one month?!
After posting my embarrassing pantry inventory, a reader asked
“I have a question… if you eat out of your pantry for a month (which is probably a good idea), won’t you deplete your stores so badly that you need to spend a lot of money building them back up? Just curious.”
Great question!
Although the (very noble) goal of some pantry challenge participants may be to eat exclusively from their larder, that’s not going to work for my family. Higher on my priorities list than a cleaned out freezer and pantry is for my family to eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies, milk and eggs. I don’t have a month’s worth of those items on hand.
When setting goals and participating in any challenge, it’s important to know what works for you and follow your own rules for success. Here are my self-imposed pantry challenge criteria.
- Clean out and inventory my freezers and pantries so I know what I have and what needs to be used up. Done!
- Eat up, donate, or toss food remnants and junk (read: candy) I didn’t even know I had. (Working on it!)
- Plan a month’s worth of meals around what I already have, supplementing with fresh produce and dairy as needed. (The heart of my challenge.) Will I reduce this month’s grocery bill? Probably, but that’s not my sole focus.
- Instead of reaching for our favorites, and thus having to keep certain ingredients on hand, get creative with what we already have.
- Reduce the vast amount of zucchini and tomatoes in my freezer!
- Control my food clutter. (I’m on a mission, folks!)
My goals may look different than yours, and that’s okay. We can still cheer each other on! What does your pantry challenge look like?
My goals are detailed here. Mostly I’m still going to buy plenty of produce and dairy but very few other groceries. I’ve always thought the bulk of our grocery budget goes to produce and dairy because of the way I stock up at yearly sales and buying meat from farms. We’ll see if that’s really true.
This is a great challenge I am going to impose upon myself. With my children grown up and out of the house, it is hard to stop stocking up! So for the next few months, I too, will use your great guidelines, as I am bound and determined to eat healthy!
Good luck to you. I know you will do great. Idea for using up your frozen zukes and tomatoes, Soup! Maybe a ratatouille.
I know I still have tons in my freezer as well.
Mine looks pretty much like yours…and I will add, “reduce waste”. In the past I have wasted way too much food…which in turn is a waste of money. So using what I have is important to me and to my stewardship of our finances.
I created a menu plan based on what we have in our pantry and things in our freezer that we can eat up. We’re going to reduce our spending at the grocery store but continue to buy things for the pantry or freezer that are free or less than a dollar after coupons and sales. We want to spend less than $30 a week between fresh produce, milk & eggs and other essentials. I hope it’s doable. So far so good. I’ve been able to use up some overriped bananas from the freezer and make Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (healthified them with whole wheat flour) and the chocolate chips came from the pantry. Also made some Pumpkin Muffins using some canned pumpkin I didn’t realize we had until pantry inventory was conducted last week. Now we have healthy snacks and breakfasts for us this month. I hope you reach your goals. We also trying to implement the “envelope budget” system.
My goal is to reduce the amount of waste. We will more than likely be buying only bread, dairy, and produce. Trying to use up what we have and build around that.
One of my main goals is to use up older items. I have a lot of brown rice, cornmeal, homecanned applesauce and homecanned meats that I want to use so they don’t go bad. The recipes for the month will be centered around them. I’m also looking at getting my pantry better organized so I can build on it…towards my (big)goal of a one year food supply.
A most excellent and thought provoking question. I have committed to this, been posting on my FB every day for accountability, just completed my final inventory of all the pantries and fridge, freezers. Condensed back down to one fridge and 2 freezers after having fired up the garage fridge for birthdays, and holidays. I have meticulously organized garage and house pantries I’m in the middle of creating my checklists to tick off items used and menu plans for the month. And, all the while, I have wondered what my parameters for this challenge would be, what would I continue to purchase on a weekly basis, if anything, or would I go on a complete spending freeze, and how would I measure any success in the goals. I just got done explaining to my kids this afternoon on an unrelated matter, that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I have some specific spiritual goals in mind in regards to this challenge, which I laughed when the Lord confirmed were a good idea during this mornings sermon at church. Further than this, I have not ventured. I just knew I was definitely feeling called to participate and was very grateful for the opportunity. I’ve been spurred on to good works by you twice now, once to initiate the challenge and now to really focus myself on the purpose, parameters and goals. Thanks!
Those are great rules:-)
I am also going to work on eating from my pantry this month. if I see good deals will buy but mainly just buy produce dairy and meat. I have a limited amount of meat at any time. Love your site. found you tonight. Hope that you will visit my site some day. grace
Thanks, grace. I’m with you on the really good deals. Can’t pass those by!
While I probably am not going to follow the eating from the pantry for a month to a T..I think I will partially. What good is having found a really great deal on something that is already in my freezer, only to have it get “lost”, freezer burned and then having to throw it away? There will always be a great deal on something each week to restock. The same goes for canned goods or pasta. Try to use what I have before I purchase anymore.
Exactly. I think everyone has different “rules” and that is perfectly fine! I hate wasted food.
haha! This is basically the same list I have been going through the past month, the difference being that I am doing it to the big commercial kitchen I recently took charge of. I hope to start serving much more fresh food and condiments very soon.
hi
i’m doing this shelf by shelf. 2 weeks ago i cleaned up one shelf from the pantry & one from the freezer. made week worth of diff food but ended up eating for 10 days . i only bought milk, egg & salad greens my husband is like we didn’t go to grocery shopping or did we? this week i’m taking upother 2 shelvs & buying some veggis & fish to round up things
Good for you! Sounds like the clean out is going well.