Last week was a very long and emotionally exhausting week; It also brought my family closer together and has changed my perspective on some things for the better, more on that later though...

One positive thing is that my deep freezer is not broken. The outlet is a GFI type (the kind with the reset button in the middle) - but it doesn't look like it is. It is paired with another outlet on the other side of the patio that we don't use. Something happened, a power surge maybe, to trip the outlet and shut off the freezer.

So while we didn't lose everything in the freezer, we lost a lot. There is also ice that melted and settled in the bottom of the freezer that refroze, so it may end up staying there until its close to the time we move.

I have yet to get back into the groove of things, so I didn't go to the store yet - hopefully that will happen tomorrow, but I did get my menu plans for the week done though:

Breakfast:
Cereal
Waffles with homemade syrup
Yogurt
Fruit

Lunch:
PB&J's
Macaroni and cheese
Soup
Chicken nuggets
Green beans
Broccoli
Bread
Fruit

Dinner:
Slow cooker salsa chicken
Spaghetti
Grilled Cheese
Italian Chicken
Fettuccine Alfredo
Salmon
Leftovers
Rice
Veggies
Bread

Snacks:
Granola Bars
Rice Cakes
Fruit
Cheese
Crackers

Tomorrow I plan to go to the store to pick up a couple things we need - if for some reason I don't get there, I can tweak the menu and we could get through the week, but it will probably be a pretty boring week as far as food goes.

This week we spent $9.76 on everything in the picture above (from Target and Kroger) - meaning that we came in under budget for the first week of the Eating From the Pantry challenge!

I know the whole point of this eating from the pantry challenge is to try to reduce the amount of food storage we have, I couldn't pass up the deals at Target this week... those waffles were only $.24 after coupons (which I am happy to pay that for wholesome healthy waffles that I didn't have to make :) - quick foods like waffles also come in handy when it comes time to move -- just heat and eat)

Ok, as promised here are the pictures of my pantry, fridge/freezer and deep freeze.
I also went through everything and took inventory of the entire stockpile. It's really hard to tell, but the pantry shelves are really deep, I can put my entire arm into the pantry and just barely touch the back. I don't really like having such a narrow and deep pantry, but I will only have to deal with it for 4 more months :)

By the way, we dont eat a ton of cereal -- what you see here will last us for about a year. Cereal goes on sale a lot, but just this past week it hit the rock bottom price so I stocked up as much as I could. (If you watch the sales, cereal usually goes on sale for the rock bottom price about once a year)

Here is where the inventory of all that food is

Between 2 transactions at Kroger all this stuff was only $22. Earlier in the day I had to go to Wal-Mart for work and picked up 2 cartons of strawberries for $1.97.


Total spending for yesterday was just under $24!

We are also going to start an Eating From the Pantry Challenge (like the one Money Saving Mom had awhile back) and hope to stick to it for about 6 - 8 weeks! That might sound really long, but we will be moving at the end of September (we are buying our first house!!!) and need to work through the stockpile I have going on. My love is completely up for this challenge and is very excited to be able to save quite a bit of extra money, especially since there are usually extra costs that come up with buying a house and moving.

During normal weeks, I allot $40 to the grocery budget. But during the challenge there will be a $10 per week allowance to buy milk, produce, a few random ingredients or to pick up the extrordinary sale items that I can fit into the budget.

If we can manage to stick to this challenge for all 8 weeks - we will have saved an extra $240!!

The next post will have the pictures of my pantry, fridge/freezer and deep freezer just so you can get an idea of what I am working with...