First, let me say HAPPY NEW YEAR! I can’t believe it’s 2010. That means new beginnings, new resolutions, and hopefully, an improving economy.

One of my resolutions (all of which I hope to outline in another post shortly) is to learn to live more frugally. This is in part out of necessity and in part out of a desire to begin teaching some frugality lessons to my children. So,  I’ve begun following some home economist bloggers, which led me to decide to join Money Saving Mom (a blogger I’m a growing to love more and more everyday!) and participate in an Eat from the Pantry Challenge. This challenge involves, well, eating from your pantry versus eating from a whole new load of groceries.

Of course, eating from the pantry will not completely eliminate the need to grocery shop. And for me, it won’t last as long as Money Saving Mom plans to make it last in her house.

So far, I’m not getting a ton of support from my family. When I told my husband about my intention to participate, he was lukewarm and I got a “GREAT! Just GREAT!” from my teen. Then, she said, “Will it work if you put something in the pantry just moments before dinner so you can SAY it came from the pantry?” She’s hoping I’ll buy a bunch of frozen pizzas and stick them in the pantry just before cooking them. Nice try, girlie!

I’m not discouraged! Here are my reasons for entering this challenge:

Money is tight

I spend around $250 a week in groceries — sometimes more, sometimes a little less. I shop at Shop N Save and Aldis, with occasional convenience trips to Dierberg’s, Schnucks and Walgreens for things we’ve depleted between grocery trips. Now, that is most of our dinners, and most of our lunches and all of our breakfasts. My husband and older kids pack their lunches most days, and we only eat out about once a week, if that. Still, I have GOT to reduce this grocery bill. In fact, my desire to cut costs is the reason I began following Money Saving Mom’s blog in the first place. (Did I mention that I think she’s brilliant?). One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to learn more from her by reading all of her “Start Here” posts.

Anyway, another blogger in the challenge, LifeAsMom, touts that she hopes to spend $400 or less in groceries in January (compared to her usual $600) to feed a family that includes four growing boys. I only have three kids, and only one of them is a boy and he hasn’t yet reached that “get your eat on” age, so if she can feed her family for $600 a month without the “Eat from the Pantry Challenge” then I’d like to try to feed my family for $600 or less WITH the Challenge.

Expenses are constantly increasing

My teen is a competitive swimmer and as she progresses in her sport, it gets more expensive (travel, competition suits, etc). She’s also less than two years from driving. I’d love for us to be able to provide her with a car, but that’s going to mean belt-tightening somewhere else. Plus, my tween is getting “more expensive” with his activities, and the toddler isn’t far from wanting an extra curricular.

Employment is never guaranteed

As so many Americans have learned, employment is blessing. My freelance work is steady, but not as busy as it has been, and my husband’s industry (television news) is shrinking. We need to save for a rainy day, for sure.

So, I’m trying to learn to cut corners were I can, and that lead me to this challenge. Last night I took an inventory of my pantry.  Here’s a look.

(It’s a mess. I know. That’s not the point.)

Here’s the result of my inventory: After basically emptying my pantry and also taking stock of my freezer (which hasn’t been restocked for some time), I discovered that I could make four complete dinners WITHOUT any grocery shopping, and an additional seven meals with some minimal grocery shopping. So, I made a list of the bare necessities to complete these meals and headed to the store today. Then I put the items for each meal (minus the stuff that has be refrigerated/frozen) into separate bags and made a list of the meals.

Now, I’ve got the fixings for:

• Spaghetti with Alfredo sauce and ground turkey; peas
• Chicken with stuffing; green beans
• Red beans & rice with ground turkey; green beans
• Tuna Casserole (the kids will hate this, so they’ll have Mac & Cheese), green beans
• Tacos, corn and salad
• Chili with cheese & onions
• Beef barley casserole
• Penne Pasta bake made with red sauce, mozarella and cottage cheese, carrots
• Chicken fried brown rice with peas and carrots
• Breakfast for dinner (pancakes, egss and sausage)

The grocery trip cost me $97.80, but it also included: the ingredients for me to take an appetizer and a salad to a New Year’s Eve party; three V-8 Fusion Juice bottles to satisfy my toddler’s addiction;  our week’s worth of milk; lunch meat and cheese for lunches since the kids and husband return to school and work next week; and two pounds of coffee.

After returning home, I remembered that I need to make a salad big enough to feed about 20 swimmers for a pasta party next week, so I’ll have to go back to the store on Monday for that. But aside from these “distractions,” I’m hoping that I can make these $97 worth of groceries plus the stuff in my pantry last until at least Jan. 9. If I do, that will be about a $150 savings in just one week!

I promise to keep you posted about my progress on this challenge, as well as my efforts to follow and learn from these other frugal mom bloggers. I’m filing all these posts under a new category, called Frugal Living, so you can easily find them.

Want to join the Challenge? If so, tell me about your plans/progress in the comment section below. And if you have a blog and post about it, be sure to link up over at Money Saving Mom!

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