Eat From the Pantry Challenge - January 2010

As a HUGE fan of OAMC (Once a Month Cooking), when I saw Money Saving Mom's January Challenge to Eat From the Pantry, I was intrigued.

I am going to join in on the Eat From the Pantry Challenge and use up what we have in our freezer and pantry for the month of January and make room for my Once a Month Cooking day at the beginning of February.

I will use the money saved on groceries from January to purchase the items needed for my OAMC in February....good plan huh?

Here is how I plan to get ready for the Challenge (this week)

thanks to the great ideas at Life As a Mom:

1. Take stock of what I have in the freezer & ditch what is no longer good.

2. Set aside the money we will be using to grocery shop in my "Grocery" Envelope so I can keep track of what cash I have left as the month progresses.

3. Make a meal plan based on what I have, not what's on sale. This one is going to take a little more planning than usual for me as I tend to meal plan by the grocery flyer's loss leaders each week (ie. what's on sale).

So here are my goals for the Challenge:

1. To spend no more than $200 on groceries for the month of January. This will save us $300 as our monthly budget is $500.

2. To only spend the $200 budgeted on fruits/vegetables/dairy

3. To use up all the frozen meat/seafood/poultry in our freezer to make room for February's OAMC menu items.

4. To use the $300 saved from January on February's groceries for my OAMC menu (thus saving us more $$$$$ since I won't use the $500 budgeted in February) woooohooo!

I hope you will consider joining us - you can sign up at Money Saving Mom's blog.