Eat From The Pantry Challenge

I love Crystal's site: Money Saving Mom. It's where/how I get a lot of coupon and savings info and freebies. Who wouldn't love that?! For the month of January, she is hosting an Eat From The Pantry Challenge, which is just what it sounds like - you make meals using what you have, in order to A) save money and B) clean out the cupboards, fridge & freezer so food is not wasted.

Since we've had lots of people over for the holidays and I've done lots of cooking, I thought this would be a great thing for us to do! And it doesn't hurt to start the new year off with a bit of savings! We have a ton of leftovers that we'll eat first. They should last us at least 7 more days - lunch and dinner! And our refrigerator/freezer, chest freezer and pantry are busting and/or overflowing.

As per Crystal's suggestion, I've made a few rules and goals for myself during this challenge:

1. Only buy dairy and produce, with the exception of any items we regularly use that are truly the best price I've seen and/or if I'm getting the item for free. I'm going to set a general guideline of $50 for the entire month. (Hey, if I can do our normal grocery shopping on $20/week, $10-$15/week when we have a bounty at home should be a piece of cake!)
 
2. I'm hoping to be able to stick with this challenge the entire month, but if our food runs out before January is over, well...I'll have to grocery shop, won't I?! ;)
 
3. I'll "allow" us to eat out 3 times during the month. But, we rarely do this anyway - and we have a few freebie coupons to various food chains - so I'm guessing this will be less than $30 total.
 
4. Be creative with recipes. I love finding new ways to use pantry ingredients!

I'll update with a weekly report on what I've bought and how much I've spent, as well as share which recipes I've used!