The October Challenge - Part 2

So far we have done fairly well. There was a bit of a misunderstanding of the goal - but that is still fine. My goals are always a lot higher than my ability to attain them. I had originally hoped to keep the whole month to a very low cost - but Dh thought the time frame was for a pay period (15 days). So we are already over what I had hoped we would spend -- but the good news is we are still saving a lot of money. We may continue through the first couple weeks of November - we will see when we get there.

The first two weeks were fairly easy - there was a lot on hand. We still have a lot of food, but it is not as "visible". In place of the boxes you go and grab, I have to actually make the food. The family sees flour and eggs and milk - not the good food it makes up into. And we all have to learn to see snacks as something more than a bucket of ice cream or a bag of chips.

We have lots of meat still in the freezer, and plenty of grains and beans. We have bought produce as needed, but do have a supply of frozen and canned vegetables. We have had:
*hamburgers, frozen corn on the cob (I had two partially used bags of this in the freezer and didn't realize it) and the rest of the frozen french fries.
*homemade beef, rice and vegetable soup with Jiffy corn muffins.
*spaghetti and meat sauce
*oven roasted sirloin steaks in stoneware with mashed potatoes, frozen corn, and canned green beans.
*for snacks I have made pineapple scones, bran muffins, a cake, cookies, fruit smoothies and brownies.

On the menu tomorrow is oatmeal for breakfast (I soak my rolled oats overnight and in the morning they cook up creamy and fast), leftover soup and/or grilled cheese for those home for lunch, and supper is the guys fixing up the last of the boxed stuff in the freezer since The Princess and I have a late night with music lessons and band practice. I will fix a snack for the guys before we leave the house - maybe some date bar cookies or chipless choclate chip cookies.

This has been fun and stretched my creativity in food preparation - and I am getting lots of space freed up and easy access to cleaning cupboards and the refridgerator.