Pantry Living Third Time Around

Summer time and the livin' is easy. I'm loving life and my pantry is bursting at the seams. So here's the deal:
My awesome hubby is a special ed middle school teacher. He teaches in a self-contained behavior classroom. He is amazing at his job and works so hard for 10 solid months to provide for our growing family. But he only receives his salary during those 10 tough months. Unfortunately, our family still needs to eat in the summer. My good hubby teaches a summer enrichment program in his district during the summer but it isn't quite the same financially. I am trying my best to be a great mom and great wife. I try to be fun and give my family lasting memories all year long. Summer holds lots of excitement here at the Jersey Shore and we love it. But I try really hard to make it possible for us to experience the fun without emptying our savings account. So two years ago I started "Pantry Living". It is a self-imposed project that helps us spend less but still eat well. I set guidelines for myself and report on our progress weekly. I document it with pics of the pantry and our garden.

Here are my rules:
-No grocery shopping or any shopping.
-Allowable purchases: fruits and veggies, bread, eggs, and dairy
-No credit cards except for allowable foods and gas.
-Cash only. If I want to treat us to ice cream I use my cash. If I want to buy a new skirt I use my cash. If I want to buy pizza for dinner I use my cash. My cash is saved up from doing odd sewing jobs for friends and teaching dance. I do not get cash from the bank. When I run out of cash for the summer, oh well.

Pantry Living begins on my hubby's last day of school in June and goes until his first day of school in Sept. This project helps me see what food we really eat. It helps me rotate my pantry. It helps me see if we could really sustain ourselves during a zombie apocalypse. I try to shop all year long as if my hubby's job was in jeopardy. I hope we'd be ok for about 3 months if we were in a financial tough spot.

 Here is the pic of the pantry on my hubby's last day of school.

Ready, Set, GO!

 My food has started to stretch to the other side of the pantry too. It sure looks like a lot of food but trust me when I say it will be gone in a flash.

Our garden was planted in May and has already flourished. I planted one zucchini plant, two grape tomato plants and three rows of green beans. Also one cilantro (which is already dead) and a small bucket strawberry plant. I love to mix marigolds all around. They help deter bugs and add lovely color to the space. 

Our garden when planted in May.

Last year I created an Inventory List. I kept track of how many of each item we started with and what was left at the end. A few went into the negatives because I had to cheat and buy extra flour and such. We have some goodies and chips and things but even those must last all summer.

A few beginning stats:
Unopened boxes of cereal: 54
Rolls of Toilet Paper: 72
Jars of Peanut Butter: 5
Bottles of Laundry Detergent: 11
Jars of Spaghetti Sauce: 13

I hope this will inspire you to test your preparedness and live financially savvy.

Happy Summer!