Get this party started!!
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| My last grocery shopping trip! I included a big pink pool floaties. |
June 12th was my handsome hubby's last date of "teaching" for the school year. Way too much happened and yet very little happened during this pandemic. It has been hard to prep for pantry living because stores have not been fully stocked. Living solidly at home for three months has used a lot of our food storage. My stress baking has used a lot of flour. And my of for the past 3 months will make this summer especially difficult. But here we go ...
Basic rules of pantry living. 8 years ago was the first summer we were living on our own in our beautiful home with three children. My husband is a teacher and earns steady paychecks 10 months of the year. Usually in the summer we each have jobs but they do not equal the same salary from the other 10 months. So I decided to start what I call "pantry living" to help us use credit cards less and become more frugal but still eat well.
So my rules are
1. I do not shop from Dave's last day of teaching until Dave's first day of teaching in September.
2. allowable credit card purchases include gas and car repairs, fruits, veggies, bread, all dairy, and eggs.
3. all other purchases must use cash that I've tucked away.
4. If I use a credit card I refer to that as a cheat and hold myself accountable on here.
My five-year-old helped me inventory our pantry. During the last two weeks I've gone grocery shopping looking like a crazy person with my clipboard checking things off the list and comparing what I have in stock. But I think we're finally ready.
Brief recap of my inventory-
Cereals: 38
Toilet paper: approximately 100 rolls
Peanut butter: 3
Strawberry jam (store bought): 3 strawberry freezer jam: 7
Bags of flour: 13
Bags of sugar: 5
Pasta sauce: 10
Tuna fish: 9
Nutella: 3
Bags of tortilla chips: 7
Graham cracker: 4
Boxed drinks: 5
Hand soap: 7
Pickles: 5
Pasta :13
I forgot to inventory my freezers(I have three). So the meat for the summer will be a bit of a surprise. I know I have breakfast sausage, Italian sausage, chicken breast, chicken legs, hamburger patties, seafood, pork roast. How much of each remains to be seen.
In our freezer there's also my homemade freezer jam😋, ravioli, tater tots and hash browns, a large turkey and a large ham, popsicles, ice cream, frozen rolls and frozen veggies.
Our garden is growing like crazy!! Super excited to see the growth so far. Last year I only used one garden bed because the other had been depleted of all nutrients from over planting on my part. This year I cleared both out and gave them lots of vitamin rich soil. We are growing cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes, lunchbox peppers, and zucchini. Plus our raspberry bush might give us some fruit again!
I bought each plant from Home Depot. This is after one month in the ground 👀
So about every other week I'll post an update with info such as weekly cereal count, jars/cans opened, items I'm out of, cash purchases, allowable credit card purchases, gifts(my parents love to drop off boxes of cereal), garden harvest, cheats (if any), and screaming deals that I couldn't pass up. Cheats usually happen because I don't bring enough cash on an errand.
This summer will be hard. My children understand that money is tighter than ever. Neither of us have our usual summer employment and I've been out of work since March so our cash stash is significantly smaller. But God has never let us starve yet!! We can do this! So follow our pantry living journey and maybe you'll get motivated to build your own food storage and see how well you can survive.
Happy Summer and may the odds be ever in our favor!
