Pantry Challenge Progress-Week 3
We’ve finished week 3 of the pantry challenge and only have 1 more week to go! I’ve had to be a little more creative with my cooking but it still isn’t to hard!
Just to remind you, here are my “rules”:
1. I can purchase milk, eggs, cheese, sour cream & produce.
2. Spend $50 or less during the month of January.
3. Put the remaining $110 of our grocery budget into our home improvement fund!
Here are the meals I put together last week from the pantry:
Monday Beans, Green and Cornbread!
I’m not a huge fan of greens so here are my Beans and Cornbread! Yum!
Tuesday Lemon Pepper Chicken with Boiled Carrots and Broccoli and Cheese Rice
Wednesday I made Cheesy Broccoli Rice Soup to use up the leftover Broccoli and Cheese Rice! It was an experimental dish, I based it off of my Creamy Broccoli Soup recipe which has cream cheese and Velveeta in it. I kept the cream cheese, substituted cheddar for Velveeta and added the rice! Amazingly it turned out really good, my husband even liked it!!
Thursday Chicken Casserole and Hashbrown Casserole. I brought dinner to our neighbors who had a baby last Monday and made us the same dinner! This was the night of my casserole mishap but everybody got their dinner and it turned out delicious!
Friday Baked Country Style Ribs in Barbecue Sauce and Cheesy Smashed Potatoes! A delicious dinner, although baking the ribs in a vinegar based barbecue sauce made them turn out more like pork chops than ribs!
Saturday This pizza was our lunch on Saturday! I had a 4 pack of crescent rolls that I used for the crust…the triangle shapes are perfect pizza size! I topped with spaghetti sauce, cheese and pepperoni for quick pizzas! They turned out pretty good but the crescent rolls were a little sweet tasting and didn’t make a wonderful pizza crust however, I was using what I had!! Our dinner was Double Breaded Chicken and leftover Cheesy Smashed Potatoes from Friday!
Sunday We had our guest worship leader and his family over for lunch after church! We had tacos! There were plenty of leftovers so we had tacos for dinner tonight!
We started this week with $24.31 left in the grocery budget (I was shooting for spending $50 this month instead of $160). I went to Aldi last Tuesday and picked up these groceries:
I did “break” my rules a little bit purchasing green beans, cream of chicken soup and hashbrowns since I fixed dinner for the neighbors but I don’t feel bad at all about that! I spent $14.61 on these groceries which left me with $9.70 in the budget!
Well, we went back to Aldi last night to pick up stuff for tacos (including ground beef which we didn’t have) and we spent $23.62 which put us $13.92 over the goal budget but I don’t feel bad at all going over $13.92 and fixing dinner for neighbors and having company over…I think I’ve done really well! We should be set to not spent anymore on groceries for the remainder of January and if we can then we will be able to put $96.08 in our home improvement fund, which isn’t too shabby!!
Welcome to my blog! It's is a glimpse into my life as a wife, soon-to-be mom & follower of Christ. I share about my family, frugality, sewing, cooking, and all things related to living a simple life!
that’s pretty thrify. and the meals looked great.
You did great!
Rachel,
I thought I might share with you how we do things a bit around here. John and I have been married for 9 1/2 years. His two daughters friom a previous marriage have lived with us since they were 10 and 12. They are now 18 and 20-and they still live at home. We have a four year old daughter together, who will obviously be here for a while. I quit working to stay at home with the two older girls when they came to live us. They needed extra guidance and love,so we thought it was best. We were used to spending money whenever(with plenty left in savings) and had to change gears when I quit working. We also had a part time business.Since I quit, we’ve added the last child & my husband quit his full-time job to go full time with our business. The only debt we have is our mortgage. We live quite comfortabley and even have a pool!!! People wonder how we do it……We simply explain……lot’s of prayer and guidance from God.
Here is how we look a the grocery side of things……
I used to buy a lot of prepacked stuff like frozen fries, creamed soups, burritos, corn dogs, etc. My two oldest girls are not gifted in cooking and they need quick foods to pop in the micro. Our grocery bill was low, but we had sickly folks in the house from all the yucky things we ate. I then began researching the best way to live frugally and eat healthy. Here’s what I do…..I shop the walls of the store. That would be the dairy, some meats(chicken and fish-we have our hogs and beef processed by the mennonites), and produce. We purchase beans, rice, flours, assorted sugars, etc. for homemeade cooking. Because we have a large garden every year, our produce budget evens out. Sometimes We can spend quite a bit on groceries during the winter months. But over all things even out. We leave little room for illness due to only eating freshly made food items. So that cuts the illness budget to save more room for the grocery budget-if you see what I’m getting at. Remember, My husband works from home, I stay at home, we homeschool two girls, only eat the best for us,have minimal debt(mortgage), have retirement savings, a college fund for the Reagan, all with FIVE people residing in our home. I applaud you for taking part in the pantry challenge. I think you are doing an awesome job. We are all here to inspire and be inspired. Therefore, I though I might share what I’ve learned over the years……
God Bless and we’ll continue to keep you guys in our prayers!!!!
Christina
Great work….the pizza looked really good…I did a similar move with the crust, but used pre-made crescent rolls, we thought they were a little sweet too. One week to go!
A couple of hints…
Yes, I admit, I get my giggles from faking them out.
When making Spaghetti, always serve the sauce separate from the noodles. The preplanned leftover sauce (I do ground beef rather than meatballs) can then be used later in the week as the sauce for the pizza. When you use cresent rolls (or from scratch pizza dough) pat out on the pizza or jelly roll pan, (cresents pinch together the seams–it makes for a rectangle pizza, but who cares–my kids thought that a rectangle pizza was the only “real” homemade pizza, even if I made a round pizza from scratch!). On the dough BEFORE adding the sauce and baking…sprinkle parmasean cheese OR melt a tablespoon of butter, add a bit of garlic powder and brush on the dough…bake this (yes, without toppings) for 7-8 minutes in a 350 degree oven. This creates a partially baked pizza crust that you put the left over spaghetti sauce on (adding cheese and any other toppings you like–read clean out the veggie drawer). Bake the now topped dough for the remaining 10-15 minutes (I eyeball it) and your crust will not be soggy in the center like homemade pizza sometimes can be. Next spaghetti week I am going to try a bit of ranch salad dressing mix in the pizza crust mix (I got a pizza dough mix on sale for 50 cents)…several pizza parlors are now advertising Ranch crust…and the wheels began to turn…
Preplanning leftovers like this is a great timesaver on busy evenings. My family only THINKS they don’t eat leftovers
Great job on the shopping! My husband is a huge fan of greens and would absolutely love that first meal! On the other hand, I, like you, would eat the meal minus the greens!
Those meals do look great! Sometimes something like a pantry challenge inspires us to push our creativity. Yay for the building fund!
At the beginning of the month I really thought I wasn’t going to be able to make it and still eat well! I’ve been almost shocked at how much food we had in our freezer and pantry! I also have been amazed at my creativity during the past month…it’s been fun to see what I can make using just what I have on hand!
Thanks for visiting my blog! I like your new title and look! I’m bookmarking your blog!
You’re meals looks so delicious. You’re making me hungry!