Money Saving Mom is doing a Eat From the Pantry Challenge that sounds very interesting. I kind of tried to do something similar in October trying to save money for our trip in November. I did save more than normal but was not very committed so it kind of got lost in the craziness of our life very quickly.

I have been going through my shelves and freezer and realize that I have A LOT of stuff! In December, our Bunco group got together here for our annual Christmas party and no one was allowed to leave without taking some cereal with them! I knew I had way too much for my family to go through without the cereal expiring. I gave away about 20 boxes and that wasn't even half of it! So, this made me think about really making an effort to use what we have on hand and only buy what we need and do the deals if it's something that will be free or super close to being free. I was just talking about this with my friend Cindy a few days ago and we both agreed that if we "had" to, we could do it but that we don't out of pure laziness. It does take effort on the part of mom - at least in my family - to make the menus. My family will eat whatever I make, for the most part. I do have a daughter that will only eat chicken and no other meat. So as long as I make her a chicken breast when I make any other kind of meat, she is happy.

I have been trying to jot down some New Years Resolutions - these are things that I usually break within a month of the new year so I only try to do one or two each year so that I do not disappoint myself too badly! :-) Anyway, one of the resolutions is to do more menu planning so that I know I have everything on hand each week. I find myself going to Jewel, doing a deal or two and then come home and realize that I didn't get any produce or something else we need because I was concentrating on the deal. Another one of my resolutions was inspired by my friend Cindy. She put it on her blog (The Perfect Plate - link is on the right of this page) today that she wants to use more of her cookbooks and will make a few new recipes each week. I have decided that I am going to try a new recipe out of my many cookbooks and many, many printed pages of recipes off the Internet each week. Another resolution is to make my oop (out of pocket) much less in 2010. So, I can combine these resolutions very easily and also save money. I don't think that I can do the challenge quite the way it's spelled out on Money Saving Mom but I thought I could try to do something very similar. I will keep checking on how she and her followers are doing and try to follow along as much as I can.

Here are the rules she is setting for her family:

1) Stop at the store a maximum of three times in January. -- for myself, I know that I will do more trips than this because I just can't not do a good deal! :-) I will try to get all of what we need for the week in one trip and then only return to do the free or close to free deals.

2) Only buy dairy (milk, eggs, cheese, etc.) and produce (fruits/vegetables). -- I do plan to stick to this other than the "deal" items and even those, I will do the minimum oop.

3) Spend a total of $75 or less on groceries during the month of January. -- I really have not ever figured out what our monthly spending for groceries is, I just know that it is super low. I am going to use this month to kind of keep track I guess. (hmmm.... another resolution maybe?)

4) Donate the extra $85 leftover (or more) that we would usually spend on groceries to Gleaning the Harvest. -- I will not be donating the extra cash. I will continue donating like I always do to the food pantry but the extra money we end up with has to go to Visa to pay for Amanda's church camp in January that we have signed her up for.

Doug and the kids gave me a wonderful Christmas gift - a 3 crock-pot buffet server type thing. I know that is not what it is called but I have no idea the actual name so that's what I call it. It has 3 separate crock pots that cook and keep food warm. I was able to make chicken in one pot and bbq pork chops (two things Amanda doesn't like - bbq and pork) in another and it all cooked at the same time! It was great. So, I plan to use this more - it will save time and I will have dinner going when I get home tired from work and not wanting to cook.

So, I think that with these goals, it is quite possible to make a dent in our pantry, our stock room and our freezers. I have also been playing around on www.supercook.com and that should be a huge help with recipes! If you would like to join me in this challenge - make a comment at the end of this post or email me at clippingwithcarol@gmail.com and we can do this together!