April 18, 2012

the grocery shopping makeover

my great friend, melissa (who i have mentioned in cocktail tuesdays) has recently challenged me on how much i'm spending on groceries. she and her husband have decided to buckle down and spend only $50 a week, which totally blows my mind.

after a lot of conversing, prayer, and totally reworking our budget, to aggressively save/pay off/etc, we have decided to join them in this challenge.

oh. my. word.

i realise that this is around $7 a day, or $3.50 a day for each of us, individually. did you know that a large part of our world lives off less than $2 a day? unreal. but so real. this will be a huge re-do. a makeover. a total change.

we realise this is necessary to meet the financial goals we have set for ourselves, but we also desire to feel the cost of  what we are saving for. so that in those moments, where we don't want beans for the 8th time that week...we remember those who have less, and be truly greatful for the bounty we have been blessed with. and really? $50 is a lot. we have so much excess and waste so much fresh food that never gets eaten. every friday when i clean out our fridge, i cringe and lament over all the things that went bad, and were wasted. totally disgusting.

we use mint.com pretty religiously. when it resets may 1...it's on. i joked that i was going to spend the rest of april stockpiling, HA! but i'm not. but ask me about it may 1, k?

this is going to be a challenge for me personally, for several reasons.

first of all, because duh. i was spending upwards of $150 before this. i know. i'm horrible.

secondly, i love food. it's a huge idol for me. i crave something and i have the ability to go and get it instantly. i love america. here's a random sampling of pictures on my phone. THEY ARE ALL FOOD.

prosciutto pizza. so good. i love you, prosciutto pizza!

one of my weekly greenling local boxes.

butternut squash soup with sour cream and thyme. i love making this.

triple chocolate cookies we made for a cookie exchange last winter.


thirdly, i don't think i've ever properly learned how to grocery shop and meal plan. i mean, i do it, but i don't think i'm that great at it. i try to stick to my list, but i usually go shopping right after yoga, and i'm like 'oh i can totally buy all these chocolate bars! yay!' growing up, we didn't make lists. we could buy anything we wanted. we had no idea about the concept of wasting random crap we threw in our baskets and the effects it would have. this is freedom from that. from waste and excess. and i am looking forward to the discipline, this limitation will bring.

fourthly, i ridiculously love to cook. i love trying new recipes and making elaborate dishes. i can't do this every night because i work a full time job, regularly attend church and all it's activities, engage with my community, and try to make time for personal study, investing in my marriage....the list goes on. i have no idea how a child will fit into this in the future...really. so often times, convenience works. and wins. this is going to be a lot of work.


okay so may 1, look for some updations on this. i'll be tagging them under 'grocery challenge.'

keep me accountable, people!


thanks for reading.

6 comments:

  1. Woo Hoo...you can do it!!! I need to blog about what I'm doing to be able to do $50 dollars a month huh? Oh my, so much to blog about!

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    1. yes, you must blog!!!

      also, i fixed your link. that made me crazy lol when i read that it took you to sunflower! :) i had just given dan this speech about how i really need to just go there because they have such great specials and then i got all excited when i saw they had coupons online, too. HA!!!

      love.

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  2. oh and i clicked on my name and it brought me to sunflower farmers markets! ha!

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  3. So inspiring!! Can't wait to read all about it!

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    1. thanks, friend! i've been planning how to organize my bulk items and get ready for this change. i think half the battle is just knowing everything i have in my pantry, and doing some major cleaning out! :) i went through our entire freezer tonight. who knew we had 2 bags of sweet potato fries just waiting for me to devour them?!!

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  4. I could use some inspiration too. I'll be reading. Oh to have the time to organize every detail of our lives so that waste and excess did not occur. And to have grocery stores that tripled coupons...

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