Eating from the Pantry in January and learning to cook gluten free


 Part of my goals for this new year was to eliminate excess in our house, buy less stuff, especially stuff that comes in a lot of packaging that will end up in the land-fil and of course to save money.

  So when I saw that Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom were hosting an eat from the pantry challenge for the month of Januarly, I decided that would be right up my alley.

 This really shouldn't be too hard as we are pretty well stocked up, we have potatoes, grains, jam, maple syrup (the real stuff) and beef to last us for the year and quite a lot of other stuff too. God has truly blessed us. Hopefully we can find ways to share with others too.

Anyway here are my goals for this month:

  • I will need to buy milk, eggs (some of the time my parents give them to us, so this will depend) and fresh produce. I get milk every Saturday at a Dairy (so I can get hormone free, raw milk) and I spend $12 a week on that. I am planning on allocating $100 for those expenses for the month.
  • We also decided to try having Megan go Gluten Free (more on this later!) in hopes that it might take care of some health problems and so I did end up spending $30 on stuff for that today. I think that should be sufficiant for the month combined with what I have on hand.
  • Also there are some loss leader sales that I have been waiting for (such as peanut butter!) and so if great sales come up during the month I am willing to use up to $75 so that I don't miss out and have to wait another 6 months. If there aren't great sales than I simply won't use that money.
  • No trips to Walmart. That seems to be the place where my cart suddenly becomes very full of food and I end up spending a bunch.
  • Other shopping excursions (other than to the dairy) will be limited to 4 times or less for the month.
  • Donate to the food shelf at some time this month.
This months cooking should be interesting, especially with cooking gluten free foods. I am sure I will be reporting regularly!