challenge yourself

March 7, 2009 at 7:55 am | Posted in food | 2 Comments
Tags: food, grocery challenge, money, spending, stockpiling

this is me, in my past life.

i admit that i have a problem, squirreling things away. i like to stockpile and i feel better knowing that i’m not going to run out of anything, but i suspect it has reached an unreasonable extreme. i am fairly certain that if there were to be an apocalypse tomorrow, i’d be the last one alive, for a few more months.

this is my cold store. you can’t even see all of it, because it is a whole room and there is a lot of stuff on the floor (more squash, potatoes, the remainder of my last half bushel of apples, a 25kg bag of flour etc).

as you can see, i have nuts to feed a thousand squirrels for a season, a shelf of my own canning (a few jars of jam left, lots of apple sauce, more pear and apple butter than i know what to do with. hello pork tenderloin), tomato products, a variety of squash (i actually think i have to toss the ones on the shelf because they are past their happy time), campbell’s reduced sodium chicken stock to make at least 13 batches of soup, etc etc. i know. it’s ridiculous. i’m not even going to show you my kitchen pantry, the fridge/freezer or the nut/dried fruit cabinet in the kitchen for fear of ridicule.

i’m pretty good with money. i don’t spend a lot (almost never go out to eat, for example) and i am an extremely dilligent saver. putting money away (just like putting food away for the winter, i guess) makes me kind of giddy – i do it right when i get paid, instead of waiting till the end of the month and saving whatever is left over, which does not work.

in these difficult economic times, we all need to be more careful with our money. food is clearly where most of my spending goes and i am aware that this needs to be cut. my challenge for the next month (or two or three!) is to keep my grocery bills to a minimum of perishables (fruits and veg though even these i don’t need too much of since my freezer is stocked with raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, other wild berries and other frozen vegetables like peppers and corn, and dairy).

i don’t really know what is a reasonable amount for one person to spend weekly, since 1 is somehow more than half of what 2 would need. how much do you spend on groceries?? i’ve also noticed that prices of stuff are starting to go up here again (even though gas is down). i’m giving myself $30 a week, which i feel is pretty fair. it won’t result in deprivation (which i don’t need to resort to, clearly) but it will force me to eat what i’ve got a bit more creatively. if i find that 30 is too much and not getting any results, i’ll scale back.

so far this week, i’m at $29.30 i did buy a bunch of chocolate milk that was on sale and a few staples (like cans of coconut milk and some wheat germ). i still have a drawerful of citrus and carrots, so my fruit/veg purchases were limited to bananas, sweet potatoes, and kale.

since my sam’s club recently closed and i don’t have a car, driving around to different grocery stores to shop the sales isn’t very feasible. i guess i will just do what i can. i’ll let you know how things go.