A pantry challenge basically means to go through your cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer, do a good clean out of anything that may not be usable anymore, and take inventory of everything else. Then, you make a meal plan based on that inventory. The goal is to buy as little as possible besides perishables during the course of a week to a month (depending on how full your cupboards are), as well as to empty out food products that may have been sitting there for a very long time.
I first heard about the pantry challenge two or three years ago. It seemed like a great idea, and we gave it a try and it worked fabulously. We saved quite a bit of money that month and used up some foods that we hadn’t known what to do with. We also tried a number of new recipes, many of which we still use today.
While we ate pretty well back then, we still had a number of processed or prepackaged foods as stand bys, so I’m not sure if we would do so well again now. We buy very little prepackaged or processed, and because we try to make meal plans and stick to them, we don’t have a lot of food that doesn’t get eaten. When I make my meal plans, I try to take into account any food we have in the house already. I’m going to give it a try though, as I may be surprised by what I find. We’re trying to come up with ways to save money before Christmas, and this seems like a good start. I’d like to start today if I get the time to go through all our cupboards. Otherwise, we’ll make a regular two-week meal plan this time and I’ll slowly do the inventory/organizing over the next two weeks and start then.
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