Last Major Grocery Shop Before We Start Our No-Spend Challenge

We're gearing up to start our no-spend challenge tomorrow. This means that we will not be doing any major grocery shops for several months. We will need to utilize what we have on hand. It will force me, eventually, to get quite creative in the kitchen.

Here is a quick walk through of most of what I have to work with. Not pictured are the storage cabinets under our dining nook. I'm not getting down on the floor to take pictures. I apologize for some of the blurry photos, as well. Bob wasn't too impressed that I wanted him to lift up the bed so I could simply take a picture. There were 2 cats lounging on there and Rose thought she needed to join the fun.

Here are my 3 deep freezers. We have 2 smaller chest freezerz and an upright.

A lot of stuff I have frozen is from recipes that I didn't cut in half. I made the full amount and I froze the leftovers. I like to do that with things like Calico or Charro Beans.

Some of the contents are some of the stuff we grew last year, like strawberries. I see some trout that I traded my sister for. They love to go fishing, crabbing and clam digging. I trade her garden produce. It works out well for both of us.

More leftovers that we didn't feel like eating right away and didn't want to waste.

Peas from the garden from last year.

Yes, I have a lot of butter. We don't use margarine in this household.

The other thing we use a lot of is ground beef. When Safeway had it on sale for $2.97 per pound, if you bought 3 pounds or more, we wound up buying a couple of cases of it.

Yep. My upright freezer is ridiculously full. That ham will be for Easter dinner. While I don't really celebrate holidays, Bob does. I cook for him. In the bottom of the new chest freezer, I have 2 whole turkeys and a turkey breast. I think I have a turkey breast in the other chest freezer, too.

This is our new chest freezer. It was Bob's idea to buy the pre-sweetened, sliced strawberries today. We've not been having the greatest luck with strawberries from the store. They taste pretty disgusting. I'm not going to use the strawberries that we grew because those are for jam.

The older chest freezer. I see some kielbasa, pork ribs, etc. in there.

We have things stashed here and there. This is our outdoor kitchen cabinet.

The beers are for either beer batter or beer cheese soup.

Our outside refrigerator. This is where we keep our pickled stuff, extra milk and half & half and stuff like that.

Bob's carrots for the wild rabbits and deer. I use these, too. We do not refrigerate these because it's plenty cold enough outside to keep them pretty fresh.

I apologize for the blur on this photo. This is our under the bed storage. This is where I put my home-canned goods and, when I buy cases of stuff, like tomatoes or beans, we put those under the bed, too. It's quite cool under there and it's dark. It is the perfect place to store stuff.

It's getting to be that time when I need to go through my cabinets again and organize things. The reality of the situation is that I have a working pantry and things happen and it ends up looking like this.

This side is much more organized.

The extra dining bench is where we store our potatoes, citrus fruits, etc. I also use it to put my KitchenAid stand mixer, crockpot, yogurt maker, etc. Those big white bags are oatmeal and dried beans. I have a food grade bucket, underneath, that holds some extra stuff in it.

So, today, we went to Winco for our last major grocery shop before we start this challenge. Here is my receipt.



We're all set to get this ball rolling. I'll be blogging about this as I go along and I'm expecting this project to last 4-6 months, at least. I'd love to go a year, but I'm not sure if that's going to be possible.

 This was Bob's last chance for candy. It was my last chance to pick up a couple of Russian kielbasas. Those are my favorite! Actually, kielbasa is one of my most favorite things, right behind razor clams. We picked up a couple of packs of bulk breakfast sausage and, since I plan on making Moussaka tonight, we picked up a couple of eggplant.
On this no spend challenge, we will be able to purchase fresh produce and fruit (until the garden starts producing), Bob's coffee creamer (I cannot find a recipe that he likes and he's not putting Irish cream into his coffee) and milk products (limited to milk, half & half and heavy cream). We will still buy my club soda and Bob will be able to buy his soda. Other than that, we either make it or we don't eat it.

Wish us luck!