Weeks 1 & 2

Busy Busy Busy! In my head summer is chill. Summer is a time to sit on the beach and relax. 
In reality, I’m running all over creation, thanking Heaven for my A/C, and occasionally, making it
 to the beach. I am a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. I also assist with costumes, 
props and sets. Between January and the end of July I will have assisted/been a part of 8 
productions of one kind or another. I am spent. 

A few items seem to have slipped through the cracks before Pantry Living. I’ve been trying hard
 these last few weeks to only use cash to make up for my carelessness. And I should rename my 
produce drawer in my fridge the morgue because that is where fresh veggies go to die. We eat a 
lot of carrot sticks and fresh fruits on my counter lately but I’ve killed an awful lot of cucumbers, 
lettuce, and cilantro. 

Best part of my life lately is having family in town! My brother, Andy and his wife and their son came 
to visit. Plus my other sister in law and her daughter. Plus my sister and four of her kids. 
SO much fun! So much sun! So much food! My parents fed most of them so I actually got the
leftover food they couldn’t travel home with. Win Win!

Here are my stats: 

Week1:

Cereal after week 1: 35

Opened: spaghetti sauce, Italian dressing, chips, Oreos, bag of sugar, pasta, box of cheez-its, 

Allowable purchases: watermelon, gas

Cash purchases: candy and pretzels for gifts, Bocca (pizza place), flowers,  

Gift cards used: Starbucks (pink drink, lemon pound cake), visa gift card(two fancy dresses from JCP). 

Garden harvest: handful of raspberries everyday, one green pepper

Pantry After week 1

Pantry after week 1

Week 2

Cereal: 32

Opened: peanut butter, Nutella, Oreos, pasta, brownies, candy, pretzels, dog food, pepperoni, cool
 whip, tin foil, paper towels, Italian dressing, sodas, hot dogs, 

Allowable purchases: gas, oil change, costumes that I will be reimbursed for, milk, eggs(7.5 dozen), 
bread, English muffins, bananas

Gift cards used: Starbucks (pink drink, lemon loaf), Wawa(hoagies), ShopRite(diapers)

Cash purchases: ice cream at beach(technically I left beach and bought 25 ice cream bars at Dollar
 tree for my mini family reunion.) Costumes, 

Cheats: pizza for family dinner. My dad actually paid me back with cash but then I spent the cash on
 ice cream so it made it a cheat.

Gifts: cereal(sister brought a few boxes to share while she stayed with us.) A ShopRite gift card, a 
Wawa gift card, bag of little boy clothes from neighbor, hot dog and hamburger buns

Garden: a handful of raspberries

Holiday: I hosted July 4th but my parents supplied most of the food. All I supplied was some soda,
 paper products, a few burgers, cheese, brownies, onion, condiments, pasta salad and deviled eggs. 
My parents supplied hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, soda, ice cream, cake, potato salad, green salad, 
watermelon, chips, ice. They are awesome! We had 18 people and everyone left well fed! 

Pantry after week 2

Pantry after week 2

A few photos of our fun these last few weeks.

Plus Favorite beach treats: watermelon, pretzels and a cup of peanut butter, Oreos, honey roasted 
peanuts, snapple flavored lemonades.

And a few bonus photos of headpieces I made for our next show "Once on This Island Jr"

 Let me know if you've taken up the challenge. I would love to hear your experience!
 Happy Pantry Living!

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!

Pantry Living is complete!

Pantry Living was a success!!!
My documentation of pantry Living....not so much.
July was difficult because I was so consumed with work projects. August was spent on vacation.
For the record, I tried really hard to follow all of my rules while on vacation. I used mostly cash and only cheated with my credit card about 4 times. I actually saved all of my receipts with the intention of documenting it all. But after two weeks on vacation (Disneyland, family fun, mountain hikes, hot air balloon festival, lots of driving and visiting) I was so exhausted I put it off. And then I could never bring myself to actually type about it all.

All my receipts I saved.

My dear niece house sat for us and ate very little of our pantry. I told her she could but she is too kind and was trying to not inconvenience me and my pantry. Because of this we had way more food and stuff at the start of Sept than usual. Just for that I extended the Pantry Living and was doing a soft version. Once David returned to work I began buying food and using my credit card again but not for a full cart just small amounts, the essentials for school lunch and such. Thursday, Sept 27 was the first time since June that I spent over $100 on groceries. That is a huge win in my book.

Our first real grocery trip since June! It is amazing how little $100 buys.

We still have more food than usual in our pantry and honestly, I was disappointed with myself. I started thinking this year I must've made mistakes, not planned our meals well enough, not bought food our family wants, etc. But then the thought came to me....I felt very unprepared this summer but I have grown so accustomed to it all I was actually more prepared than ever before. I have learned how to do it effectively. I have actually been blessed with too much this summer. I wasn't a failure.

Pantry Living after Week 12

Pantry Living Before Week 1

Cereal before week 1 -60
Cereal after week 12- 14
Items we ran out of entirely- Parmesan cheese, canned corn, tuna, frosting, spaghetti
Items we nearly ran out of- Nutella, toilet paper and paper towels (in July we almost ran out but my in laws resupplied us), green beans, olive oil, cake mixes, marshmallows, flour
Items we have too much of- salad dressing, veg oil, Oreos(I delayed opening them and kinda forgot about them. No fear, we will eat them!), pasta sauce,
Regrets- not eating more Oreos, not documenting Aug and Sept better.

Lessons learned
-my children are becoming less about cereal. They enjoy bagels, toast, and oatmeal. And my oldest loves cooking eggs by herself. Next year I may decrease our start on cereal and see where it leaves me.
-Corn dogs are my kids obsession this summer.
- Lily hates corn and being told what to do, and loves cooking fried eggs.
-Max hates spinach and he eats standing up, but requires Tums every night before bed.
-Katy loves rice and hates corn dogs, and would eat ramen noodles and ravioli daily if I allowed it.
-Levi loves cereal and corn dogs, but hates all over meats especially ground beef.
- the hubs will eat everything I cook and his only complaint is I buy too many goodies and then he eats them.
-I don't eat much. I still hate bananas, but if you eat a spoonful of peanut butter first you can successfully swallow bites of banana without tasting it too much.

Garden lessons- next year my one garden bed will stay empty. It was a huge failure this year, it definitely needs a rest.
In the second bed- The peppers grew well but most rotted before being picked. Best guess is too much rain. My cucumbers were so bitter it wasn't worth it. But I know how to grow a cherry tomato like nobody's business. tomatoes were a huge success again!

Our family is happy and healthy and we survived our 6th year of Pantry Living. Many thanks to our parents and friends who brought us food, supplies and were so supportive of my experiment! Much love to you all and Happy Fall❤️

Pantry Living Weeks 3 & 4

My life was a whirlwind and the dust has finally settled. In the last three months I choreographed three plays, performed in a play, had a dance recital, worked as choreographer for a performing arts summer camp, choreographed and performed in the Ms Senior NJ Pageant for women over 60yrs old,  my in-laws visited, my sister and her family visited, my brother and his family visited.

I played Morticia in "Addams Family the Musical".

my costume for Ms Senior NJ pageant

Seussical Jr. choreographer, assistant director, and costumer

My incredible "Family"

My cute kiddos ready to perform

Stage Managing for Fiddler on the Roof Jr

Recital time

 In the past two days I scrubbed my kitchen floor, changed the sheets on beds, folded laundry, moved furniture, purged my wardrobe of those clothes I never wear but held on to for ages, weeded the garden, actually cooked dinner, went to the beach, swam with my kids in the pool, and watched a chick flick.

These last two weeks I've received so much food and household items as gifts. The Lord has truly blessed us with amazing friends and family who make sure we will never go hungry. My friend made me a "panrty living survival bucket"! She knew we were out of fruit roll ups and wax paper and included a million other awesome treats and cereals for my family. I love and adore her!

My parents seem to drop off food to me at least once a week.I don't think they can go a day without being amazing! This week they added 3 boxes of Life cereal to our pantry.

My dear in-laws came to town and took me to Sam's Club to replenish items I'm low on. They bought me chocolate chips, bisquik, toilet paper, paper towels, milk, grapes, peanut butter, Snapple, water bottles, lemonade and nutella.

Returning the pull ups!

BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK: Levi (my almost 4yr old) is officially night potty trained!!!! So he was potty trained at 2yrs old with little effort. It all just clicked for him during the day. My children have all figured out how to hold it at night all on their own. I don't do anything special at night. Once they keep their diaper dry for a week straight they get to wear underwear to bed. Well. about 3 months after he was potty trained he was night trained. 6 months later it all went downhill. we have no idea why. He just started wetting the bed regularly. I had to re-diaper him and I just kept hoping for a miracle. Well, about a month ago he said he wanted to wear underwear to sleep. of course he wet the bed and was very disappointed. We removed his sippy cups from his room and he was angry with us. well, last week we noticed he was keeping his diaper dry at night. He asked for underwear so we gave it a shot. And boom!!! It has been over a week with no incidents! So that package of pull ups I cheated and bought a few weeks ago were returned to the store. sigh. life is good.

My garden had as many weeds in it as plants. I finally got my hands dirty and got to work. I actually found 2 huge cucumbers hiding in the weeds. lol. This week I harvested 3 cucumbers, a large green pepper, a handful of cherry tomatoes and a handful of green beans, and 1 large zucchini and a small zucchini.  My tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are monsters! My green beans and zucchini plants are dwarfs and I'm disappointed. I was pretty sure that garden bed of the smaller ones was depleted last year so I added a bunch of new rich soil and fertilizer, but it hasn't helped much. I think next year I will not plant anything in that soil and give it a real rest. But the rain this past week has been good for the garden!

Pantry after Week 4

Cereal after week 2: 49
Cereal after week 4: 47 (5 gifts)
Cans, jars, bottles, boxes opened: alfredo sauce, pasta, dog food, ranch dressing, pickles, mayo, peanut butter, nutella, sugar, flour, tuna, onion powder, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, margarine, chips, pretzels, veggie straws, toilet paper, paper towels, glass cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, juice boxes, water bottles, juice, fruit roll ups, cookies, animal crackers, ziplock bags,
Allowable credit card purchases: gas, ice cream
Cash purchases: blueberries, blackberries, bananas, roses, potatoes, mushrooms, cilantro, lettuce, carrots, goggles, bobby pins, cumin, onion powder, chili powder, bread, cook book, nail polish remover, brush, water bottles, brown sugar, burger king, raspberry danish, cookies, challah(totally amazing fundraiser and the best challah!!), ice cream, french fries, mcdonald's,
Gift card purchases: lots of Wawa hoagies
Gifts: cereal, pantry living survival bucket (see above), Sam's trip with in-laws (see above), milk and pancakes, ice cream,
Trash: I had to throw away a freshly opened box of cereal this week because ants found it. funny how no one wants to eat cookie crisp with the added protein of ants.
Garden: 3 cucumbers, 1 pepper, tomatoes, green beans, 2 zucchini
Cheats: NONE ( I know I'm shocked too)

In other good news I won tickets to see School of Rock on Broadway! That was awesome! I was voted best dancer in a dancing contest at Broadway on the Boardwalk. They taught a simple combo and 9 of us performed it. I was chosen as the lucky winner. I had a slight advantage being many years younger than most competitors and probably the only one with formal training. But the audience was amazing and roared with approval when it was time to vote for me. I couldn't stop smiling for hours!

In the past 2 weeks I lost a small diamond in my anniversary band and my father was in the hospital. We have insurance on my ring so the diamond is being replaced and my father is finally home and he also has insurance so he's getting the care he needs. Many thanks to all who have been praying for him and lending a hand.

Kissing Pop after he made it home from the hospital!

My summer vacation is finally here. I have few obligations and am trying to say "yes" more to my kids and "no" more to everyone else who wants my time. My kids and I have yet to make a new "Tuesday Adventure" but I hope to pick that up in the next week. Last year we started a youtube channel and posted new episodes every Tuesday. I would read stories,we would sing songs, act, tell jokes, dance, and feature our dog, Molly. They were so fun and I am anxious to start them again.

Happy Summer and Happy Pantry Living!

Photo taken moments after they announced

 

 they will take us to Disneyland soon!

Pantry Living Week 2 (sort of)

Since I didn't really keep track of anything for the first few weeks I'm not really counting them. Pantry Living started on June 22, but I'm keeping track of the inventory from July 6.

For the past 2 weeks my awesome brother and his adorable family were in town. They have 7 beautiful children! My amazing parents hosted them but we sure were together a lot! We ate over there, we ate over here. We played on the beach, in the pool, in the basement, in the yard, had a bonfire, a sleepover, went to the boardwalk, watched fireworks, ate and ate and ate some more! They were sweet and tried hard not to use up my pantry but I plan on feeding others so I am happy to host. I even donate to food drives if they occur during pantry living. "Because I have been given much I too must give."  I cooked Sunday dinner and made Thanksgiving in July. We had a turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, green bean casserole, salad, and pie. Why is this a November tradition only? Uhmmm, this needs to be a regular occurrence because it was dang good! We hosted the BBQ on July 4th, hot dogs and hamburgers and everything you can imagine to go with it. My parents supplied all the meat for both big meals because they are fantastic humans who love me. My parents drop off a little extra after every trip to the grocery store. While typing this my father walked in and set a jar of peanut butter on my counter and walked out again, just cause he's nice.

Also I am still in the midst of my summer of theater. That all ends in one more week. My dear hubby has been awesome with cooking random things from the freezer. Between beach trips and rehearsal I keep forgetting to prep dinner. He doesn't even complain. He is dreamy.

 Here we go:

Unopened boxes of cereal at week 1: 59
Unopened boxes of cereal after week 2: 51(actually 49 but I bought 2 boxes of Honeycombs with cash) Somehow we ate 10 boxes of cereal this week!
Jars/cans/bottles/packages opened: green beans, cream of mushroom soup, chicken broth, peanut butter, jam, nutella, goldfish (family pack and they already finished it), toilet paper, toilet bowl cleaner, dog food, juice boxes, rice krispy packs, oreos, chips, cake mix, brownies, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, microwave popcorn, 3 different sizes of ziplock bags, soap, shampoo, alfredo sauce,
Items we ran out of: wax paper, fruit roll ups,
Cash purchases: bread, pencils, notebooks, paper, lemonade packets for individual water bottles, tums, blush, card, rash shirt for hubby(gift card), pizza family deal at Sam's (soda, pizza, bread sticks and cookies), ice cream, hot dog buns, hamburger buns, 4 jars of spaghetti sauce,
Yard sale finds(cash purchases): loads of books for my kids, shorts and pjs for my son, a baseball bat,
Gifts of food: peanut butter, box of cereal, milk, pancakes
Allowable credit card purchases: gas, milk, watermelon, bread strawberries, (I made 3 containers of strawberry freezer jam.)
Cheats: I ordered myself a swimsuit online and had no other way to pay for it, but it was on clearance.( I spent $30.), a pack of night diapers for my 3yr old who still struggles to stay dry at night. I didn't run out, but they were on clearance so I took the plunge($12). I didn't have enough cash on me or I would have paid cash.
Garden: 4 cucumbers, 3 cherry tomatoes, 1 green pepper ( I have one zucchini but I haven't picked it yet)

BONUS: received the official word my student loans are PAID IN FULL! I only graduated 12.5 yrs ago. Feels so good!

Bad news: The AC went out in my van and we haven't decided whether or not to repair it. My van has a 145,000 miles on it, a broken windshield, no AC, an array of christmas lights on the dash board(don't worry the mechanic said I wont die by ignoring them), and the suspension in the trunk door is shot. Basically, I worry about putting any money into it. we shall see.

Summer is hot and we are having fun! 

Happy Pantry Living!