1/8/10

Eat from the Pantry Challenge, week 1 update


Last Friday, January 1st, we started participating in the Eat from your Pantry Challange co-hosted by Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom . We had inventoried our Pantry and our freezers as well. We have 3 freezers in this house.


This is freezer #1, in the main kitchen (we also have 2 kitchens in this house). It really doesn't have a lot of room in it as it is the skinny side of the side by side fridge.

I like to keep the convenience foods in it, like the frozen pizzas, toaster strudels etc., as well as items that I know I will be using in the next few days for meals.


This is the "main" freezer and is used primarily just for meat. It was due for a good cleaning out and we lucked out with the weather. It was cold enough outside to empty it, inventory it and store the food in a cooler for a couple days while the freezer was defrosting.

The top shelf is beef, the 2nd shelf is pork, the 3rd shelf is fish and sausage, and the bottom shelf is poultry.


The last freezer is in the second kitchen and used for produce, bread, dairy and those containers are full of Maryann's Baked Beans (I still haven't gotten around to asking her if I could share the recipe - these are the best Baked Beans on the planet!) And there is also a couple containers of Chicken Chili, which is also an easy and cheap pantry dinner.

It was good going through the freezers to see what all was there. I had lost track of it for a while and it really needed to be done, and was essential to being able to commit to this challenge as well. I am quite confident that we are going to make it through a good chunk of this month, if not the whole thing.

We are also on track with the $30.00 budget this week. We only need to get some milk today and thankfully it is on sale at Yokes today for $1.88 a gallon. That will put us at $24.65 spent this week and gives us an additional $5.35 for next week, which is good because we are perilously low on Ketchup, Oil, Sugar and Coffee. We could probably go with out the Oil and Sugar but there will be hell to pay around here if we run out of Ketchup and Coffee :(

2 comments:

mom2priceboys said...

We are ying and yang, my house would emplode without the sugar and oil.HAHAHA.
OMGosh, That seems like so much meat I was in awe. WTHeck would I even know what to do with all that!!! I have a generous side by side. I got the one with the biggest freezer capacity (I got to buy new when we bought house)
Still working on the links I am trying and it is going to take me a few more efforts lol.....Julie

Leah said...

It is the blessing and curse of being the butcher's wife. If even one shelf starts looking skinny, he freaks.

And, I grew up in the mid-west and most of those years we did not live in a town, so stockpiling is second nature to me.