Grocery Store Challenge: Dec 10-16

[HeatherFeather]

The Grocery Store Challenge is back after a short hiatus. Since this new forum opened up during the hiatus, I figured it made more sense to put the challenges in here.

Want to know what this is all about? Read the main challenge threadhere

For my challenge this week, I am going to work on cleaning out my fridge, freezer, and pantry some more before I go visit my mom for the holidays. I also am going to plan out my holiday food gifts that I will be bringing with me. I can't really afford to buy gifts for everyone, so I am hoping I can make some nice food items so everyone will still get something nice. I am hoping to use up many of my pantry items to cut down on the expense if I can.

What are your money saving challenges this week?

[HeatherFeather]

Ooops double post

[Roxanne]

Hi Heather, I am glad to see this thread again. Well my grandparents left last week Sunday so I spent the last week organizing the freezer, fridge and cupboards, making a list as I went along of everything I had on hand so I would not buy what I already have or find ways of incorporating certain items into meals or snacks.

My goal this week is to try using up things that have the best by date looming close
- crescent rolls (Dec 16th) - thinking of making ham and cheese pinwheels, nutella filled crescents, and whatever other recipes I see along the way.
- waffles cones (Dec 21st) I usually don't eat cones with my ice cream but got in a mood for it, bought a box and have some sitting there - thinking of doing homemade drumsticks with them.

Things I made and stored in the freezer -
- Waffles! I made waffles a while back and stored them in the freezer, I should really eat them up.
- Vanilla Pound Cake
- Chocolate Pound Cake

In my pantry -
Cinnabon cereal

That's the major things I want to see eaten or used up this week. Especially the freezer items. The cereal will last cause I reseal the bag to keep it fresh but since I bought it about a month back and only ate half it would be nice if I finally finished the box.

[HeatherFeather]

I have some dairy items I need to use up before the holidays, as well as all of my produce and some OJ. Every bit of cheese, milk, yogurt, etc needs to get used up as it will expire either soon or while I am at mom's.

My produce has been going faster now that I have been watching what I buy. I tend to overbuy produce - good intentions in the store when everything is neat and fresh and I am a real sucker at the farmer's market too. But lately I have gotten more careful about buying less to ensure that I will actually get it eaten. Very little waste on produce over the past few weeks, except for things that spoiled before they should have.

[invictus]

I menu planned out of my freezer this week to cut down on cost but I must say I didn't do that well at the grocery story. I made a few impulse purchases which I NEVER do. Ugh! Anyways the cost was about average for a small grocery week for me instead of a real savings. Still, I didn't buy any meat lol. I guess I should be happy about that.

[Roxanne]

Glad to hear you've been successful with the produce items. I hope you get all your items used up before leaving for the holidays and have a great time.

Glad to hear your grocery bill was average invictus.

I'm going to the store to buy some essentials tomorrow - cheddar cheese, milk, butter, dog food, dishwashing liquid, fresh herbs. I am going to resist buying any of those holiday goodies (which is so hard for a sweet tooth like myself, even though I bake and make stuff!) But I already have my pantry stocked for the holidays and want to avoid impulse buying too.

[Kchurchill5]

I don't even set a budget during the holidays because I know it won't work. I just try to cook ahead, and buy essentials. But parties come up, friends stop over, so it just isn't possible.

But the pantry and freezer is what I try to use. So, never worry about a few impulse buys this time of year. It does happen and I just try to watch it. I try to just continue eating at home vs out - that is why I try to stock up on soups and items for salads, sandwiches or quick meals.

This time of year is never easy.

[HeatherFeather]

I don't even set a budget during the holidays because I know it won't work. I just try to cook ahead, and buy essentials. But parties come up, friends stop over, so it just isn't possible.

But the pantry and freezer is what I try to use. So, never worry about a few impulse buys this time of year. It does happen and I just try to watch it. I try to just continue eating at home vs out - that is why I try to stock up on soups and items for salads, sandwiches or quick meals.

This time of year is never easy.

I just budget in 1 extra week's worth of grocery money for Thanksgiving food, and then again for Christmas food in December. I don't worry too much about it as a lot of the items I need are things I regularly stock anyway. If I don't end up using my budgeted funds, they just go into other bills or presents.

[Roxanne]

I was very tempted to pick up wafers and truffles in the store today (went in with one of my friends who had to pick up a couple items) but I held myself back because I had another type of wafer cookie in my cupboard already so I said to myself, "no, finish eating that first" and I plan on making my own truffles (have everything at home for it so no shopping necessary) It was pretty hard though, gosh, so many tempting things! I went to the market and bought mangoes, eddoes, tomatoes and fresh herbs to marinate fish and chicken. Only the things I needed. I do agree for the holidays we tend to spend more but I don't do a budget (or amount to spend per week) so I'm just going on not buying when I already have something similar in the cupboard, planned to make something and in this case, I don't want to have tons of leftovers cause it's just me and my dad on Christmas and New Years. Plus a friend invited me over for Christmas dinner - so Christmas lunch with dad and it'll have leftovers to eat the day after I'm sure.

Well let me see how I did this week

I wasn't able to use all the crescent roll dough before the 16th but I am assuming the leftover dough is still usable so I'm not tossing it yet and hope to use up the remainder this week.
The waffle cones - I did a test run of my homemade drumstick idea with only 2 cones and it's good so I will use the the remaining cones this week to do more. I also used some of the cones to make a waffle cone crust recipe I found on the net and I used up 1 c. of chocolate ice cream I had in the fridge in the waffle cone crust "pie" so that was like a 2 for 1 there .

Macadamia nuts - I had a jar of it sitting in my cupboard for a while so I decided to do macadamia nut brittle using Kit's recipe and then I broke it up really small and stirred it into a homemade ice cream base - was trying to re-create Haagen Daaz's macadamia nut brittle ice cream and it came out really yummy! I used that ice cream in the homemade drumsticks idea. In the ice cream base itself was a small carton of half and half. So another 2 for 1 bonus - macadamia nuts and half&half .

Waffles got eaten for breakfast but the cinnabon cereal and pound cakes haven't been touched yet.

I opened up a box of rice krispies cereal and ended up making 2 delicious recipes -tiger butter crunch and peanut butter balls and I'll be dipping into it again this week to make a praline chocolate crunch recipe. So I am glad about that getting used quickly although the best by date is in Feb 2012.

[HeatherFeather]

Oh the tiger butter brunch sounds really good! So does your ice cream!

I ate up all of the fruit and had to buy a bit more, it should get eaten up. I am still working on using up the rest of the dairy (only worried about things that will expire before I get back from mom's). All of the lunch meat is gone and I don't plan to buy any more this week (dd is on break now so no need for bag lunches). My veggie bin in getting very sparse now - just some salad fixings left. Looking good!