However, I have decided to do a little challenge in the month of February.
A little background: My husband and I keep a budget for all of our expenditures. One of our categories is groceries. In our family, this consists of food we buy to bring home and prepare. So it doesn't include eating out (that usually comes out of our discretionary funds or our date night budget ;)). Well, our grocery budget started 2016 in the red. No bueno. This is mostly because we purchased 1/4 of a whole steer toward the end of last year, and that was quite a chunk of money. However, the idea is to have created a buffer so that we wouldn't go in the hole! Now I'm trying to fix that and get out of the hole...
Which is why I decided to do this challenge. There is another reason (possibly), but I'll talk about that later. For now, the budget one is reason enough.
So what's the challenge? Well, I'm going the whole month of February without going to the grocery store. Our family believes in being prepared for whatever life might throw our way. As such, we have worked hard to have a lot of food in our home for whatever emergency might arise. Well, what's the best way to find out if we're really on the right track? Well, testing it! So that's what February is going to do for me! My husband got paid this past weekend and will get paid again in 2 weeks. I did not go grocery shopping this past weekend, and I won't go again until after February 29. That means I am going to be using only my home store to come up with 3 meals a day for my family!
This won't all be THRIVE Life products, of course. We have a lot of other foods in our home store. And I think that is how it should be. But a lot of my ingredients will come from my THRIVE Life stuff, so I think this is a great place to document and share :).
A couple "disclaimers" (for lack of a better term): 1. I will still buy milk for my daughter. My husband and I drink nonfat powdered milk on a regular basis, and we're fine with it. But I will buy her regular milk, just because I love her ;). That's less than $5 for 2 gallons here. 2. Formula for the baby is not included in this experiment (though I do have a stock-pile of it). We purchase baby formula out of a different budget, because it is quite costly and would demolish our grocery budget. 3. My husband makes his own breakfast and lunch on work days. But it's always the same, and it always comes from our home store: peanut butter and jam sandwiches on his home-made bread. So even though there will not be pictures of that included with this, you can rest assured we didn't spend any extra money on his meals for work ;). 4. My THRIVE Life Q will still come. I like to earn my commission from THRIVE Life, so I keep my Q active. Plus, my commission pays for my Q, so I'm not technically using our grocery budget. Also, though I will be receiving some new THRIVE Life items, I am committing that I will not use those items in the month of February for the purposes of this challenge :).
So I am excited to see how this is going to go! I think it will be a good exercise for me -- and it will help me get my grocery budget back where it should be! So, without further ado, here are pictures from our first day of eating from our home store!
Breakfast: (for me and the 2 year old) Buttermilk pancakes with some THRIVE 9 Grain Cracked Cereal thrown in. (for the baby): applesauce with multi-grain cereal (and formula)
Lunch: Macaroni and cheese.
Dinner: Roast with carrots and mashed potatoes (the baby had squash with mashed potatoes and peas -- only he has come down with an upper respiratory bug, and he didn't eat much of it. Poor little guy has had a rough day.)
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