Pantry Living YEAR 7

WHAT?! I've been doing this for how long??? Crazy town. This is my seventh summer observing Pantry Living.
If you are new here- welcome and thank you! If you are back for more- I missed you!

So back in 2012 we moved into our beautiful home. Prior to that we lived with my awesome parents for 5 years while my hubby completed his teaching degree and started working. While living with my parents, we had our first two children. We were able to save loads of money because of their kindness and generosity. With that money we bought our home! We moved in August and had our third baby in November that year.
My dear husband is a Self-Contained Behavior Special Ed teacher for middle school. He has great patience and is a special breed of human to work with such complex youth. Teachers in NJ make decent money but only for 10 months of the year. And our children like to eat meals all 12 months. Fast forward to June 2013. He does a summer program at his school and I teach dance and choreograph plays and together we are trying to make up the difference but we are worried. So I did what every mother who wants there to be enough food does. I stopped grocery shopping.....wait. isn't that what you guys do?
In April  2013 I realized what would soon become our struggle so I took advantage of every sale at ShopRite. I checked all the bargain buys at every Sam's, Ollies, Target etc. I loaded my walk in pantry with cereal to feed an army, bags of flour and rice. I stocked my freezers with chicken and sausage. I planted a garden. And I made a plan. I have money in the accounts now. If I stock up and stop using my credit cards for July and August we can make it work without debt. I follow this plan every year and so far we are doing well!

 So here are my self imposed rules:

• Live off my pantry stores and my freezer
• No grocery shopping
• Allowable purchases with a credit card: Dairy, eggs, bread, produce, and gas
• Any other purchases must be made with cash (I have a small stash I squirreled away.)
• Start Date: David’s 1st day of summer vacation
• End Date: David’s 1st day of school in September (usually 10-12 weeks)

And here I am 6 years later embarking on our 7th Season of Pantry Living. It started last week and so be sure to check my next post for updates. If you followed previous years you'll notice a few changes this year. This winter I cleared away storage clutter from the side of my pantry so now the food stretches farther around and will require two pics of pantry. You'll notice the shortage of cereal. My children have slowed down their cereal consumption. They currently eat a lot of toast. Hope they don't change too much on me this summer.

A few stats to start us out: BEFORE WEEK 1
 Boxes of cereal: 40
Rolls of Toilet Paper: 99
Boxes of Mac and Cheese: 9
Bags of pretzels/chips:13
Flour: 5
Jars of Spaghetti Sauce: 6
Other items:
20 lbs of Basmati Rice
6 jars of Tikka Masala sauce
9 boxes of Lasagna
2 bottles of Veg oil
2 bottles of Olive Oil
7 boxes of crunchy taco shells/bowls

Pantry BEFORE Week 1

I did not do the full inventory of my pantry this summer. I just ran out of time. In years past I inventoried the entire pantry and freezer (didn't post it. just for my own ref) and at the end would inventory again to see where we were overstocked and where we were under stocked so I could prep for the next year. Every year toilet paper has been an issue......let's see if 99 can get us through.

Wish me luck! Leave a comment and let me know what ways you save, good recipes, thoughts. And maybe this will inspire you to live a few weeks off what you already own. Maybe this is make you hungry. Maybe this will have no impact at all. But for my family it has been a blessing and we have stayed out of debt.

Happy Summer and Happy Pantry Living!