Nearly every January for the past 8 years or so, I have participated in a January Eat from the Pantry Challenge to save money to save up for a bulk purchase of a steer or a hog and a couple of lambs on alternating years.  We would either raise our own meat birds or buy off farms when we could, grocery store when we couldn't, but in bulk if possible, as well.  Of course, we would be saving up through the rest of the year, too, as a line item in the budget and any leftover grocery money we had each payday, but the biggest chunk came from the challenge and we bought almost nothing.

This year is different in both the challenge and the goal.  The goal is to save any money from the grocery budget we can to put in the Emergency Fund because it is non-existent right now and that really scares me.

The challenge is not to eat everything just from the pantry and freezers this year.  It's not to spend almost nothing.  It is just to be quite frugal.  We will plan our meals as much around what we already have with hopefully only the need to buy one, maybe two items for a meal.  None if we can do without is preferable.  For the last two night's dinners I only needed to buy leeks, celery, and carrots for the first meal, but there were enough carrots and celery for more than one meal. 

I made a soup after making broth with the ham bone leftover from Christmas that I'd thrown in the freezer, then I threw in all the veggie scraps I'd saved in the freezer, the last of my old carrots and old celery that had been hanging out in the veggie drawer, and onion that was starting to get soft, and some parsley from the garden as well as other herbs and seasonings.  We cooked that, then strained it, cooled it overnight, skimmed off the fat, and made the soup by putting in some broth, leeks and onions, cooked until soft and pureed, then cooked some carrots, more onions, potatoes, and some new celery in the soup with more broth and once that was done, we added the last of the ham diced up and just let it simmer until the ham was warm.  It was very good.

We had some leftover rolls from Christmas to go with it and bananas that were getting speckled.  So pretty economical, we spent under $10 for the vegetables and we ended up with 3 servings of soup to go in the freezer leftover as well as 6 servings to eat as the men had two servings each.  All servings are 3 cup servings because this was a full on meal, except mine, which was a 2 cup serving because that is all I can eat.

Last night I did not need to buy anything.  I had one last jar of Classico pasta sauce and one last jar of Prego pasta sauce.  I don't really like the type of Prego that we had, which was why it was the last jar on the shelf, but decided to make the best of it.  I mixed the two jars together after sauteeing an onion and 2 small zucchinis in a pan, then quickly adding garlic for thirty seconds, then adding the sauce in.  I added in fresh parsley, and oregano, basil, and thyme I'd dried from my garden, onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper.  It altered the taste enough that I didn't taste the Prego at all, just the fire roasted tomatoes of the Classico sauce and what I had added.

I cooked gluten free penné pasta that I have a ton of on the shelf in homemade chicken broth and a couple of pounds of meat seasoned with onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, a little salt, dried parsley, thyme, basil, and oregano (all from my garden).  This was all mixed together and then I added some Romano cheese and mixed it in as well.  We had a Caesar salad kit in the fridge so we opened that and at least my husband and I had some.  So no money spent on that meal.  We ended up with 1 serving leftover to put in the freezer.  However, I did have to throw out 2 zucchini that had gone bad.  I still have to clean out the kitchen fridge to see if anything else has.

My breakfasts have been 2 2 oz sausage patties.  I do intend to buy some cucumbers so I can have some slices to go with them.  I don't eat lunch and some days I don't eat breakfast, usually the day after I take my shot and the day after.  My son and husband are eating breakfast burritos from a big batch of freezer burritos we made.  My daughter doesn't eat breakfast and had smoothies for lunch.  We have lots of frozen fruit in the fridge right now and still have greens growing in the garden.  We have not had a freeze yet.  The closest it has gotten is 35 and kale and Swiss chard can handle that fine.  My son has some rice and chicken dishes we made up in a big batch and froze the day we made the breakfast burritos.  My husband has been eating chicken salad sandwiches using my home canned chicken, some red onion we had on hand, avocado mayonnaise, celery (see, that came into play again) and some potato bread.

Tonight DH did stop for hamburger buns and pickles.  And I went to a warehouse store and picked up 20 pounds of navel oranges.  The oranges should last us all month.  The hamburger buns are for dinner tonight.  We are using burger patties from our steer, cheese from a 2 pound multi-pack we got from Costco in December, an onion that we have on hand, air fried tater tots, salad, and oranges.  The guys usually only have one bun each, but double up on patties.

There will be almost a full jar of pickles left to carry on for months.  We will have four hamburger buns left, which may carry forward into a dinner meal, or my husband may just have over the weekend as sandwiches or more burgers.  I'll figure it out.  I need to make up a meal plan for the next nine days so I can buy what I need to fill in the gaps around what I have and stay out of the stores until the end of that time.  I don't want to be spending a little every day and being tempted by stuff we don't need, which usually happens if my husband picks up stuff after work.  It's really hard to save money that way.

I plan to shop at Winco, because it is the cheapest store in town.  It doesn't have as many options, but that is okay.  Other options are more expensive.