I just got back from my grocery trip and for a change I am super excited with how much I spent! I have to thank Erin at $5 Dinners and my nifty new crock pot!
Shea at Will Jackson Eat Dinner? and myself tried the Pantry Challenge approach with our shopping this week. The idea is to use what you have, really dig in to that pantry, freezer and fridge and look for recipes to use it up and save on your grocery trip. That combined with crock pot meals which go farther saved me $118 on this trip! WAHOO! I do my grocery shopping every two weeks so I spent $132 for two weeks of three meals a day for a family of three! Shea shops weekly and saved $80!!
We only bought the items we needed to complete the recipes, using what is in our pantries already. We also used coupons...gotta love them, and deals the stores were running (Shea stocked up on pasta sauce at Target for .83 cents! Add to that the necessities (tp, etc) and we still did great!
I did shift my thinking on what I bought and that helped too! I have to admit it, I love convenience foods...packages of cookies, Easy Mac, you get the idea. So this time I did not spend the $12-$15 I normally do on packages of cookies (that's two weeks and my husband is the cookie monster!), instead I will be baking my own. I also skipped the Easy Mac which costs $3 and opted for the boxed cook it type for only $1.
The lesson here? There is always something to be learned and just when you think you can't trim your budget any further God blesses you with a money saving friend who teaches you that you can!
Are you up for the challenge? Try to clean out the pantry at least once a month and shift that saved money to boost your savings account!
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