January "Pantry Challenge" Review & My Long Term Food Storage Plan

As most of you know, I participated in an "Eat from the Pantry" Challenge during the month of January. I limited myself in number of shopping trips and overall grocery budget. I also challenged myself to buy only fresh produce and dairy items, in an effort to save money and use items I already had in my pantry. I had several intentions in mind when I decided to participate in the challenge and I feel they were all adequately accomplished. I managed to clear some space in my freezer and pantry and we put the money we would have spent on groceries towards a debt we're aggressively paying off.

During the entire month of January I shopped only twice and spent a grand total of $64.30. My original budget was $60 for the whole month, so although I did exceed that amount, I'm pretty happy having spent so little!

However, half way through the month, I admit I started thinking, Why on earth am I doing this?!

Not because it was particularly difficult. It's substantially more difficult when you have to eat out of your pantry!  For the most part we ate normally. The reason why I second guessed myself was because of how I normally grocery shop.  I use coupons to stock up on items at incredibly low prices. There were several deals that happened in January that I passed up on due to the challenge. If I passed up on deals during the challenge, would that require me to pay full price for items later on, when I needed them? That was the question I struggled with over the course of the month.

And well, towards the end I caved and did do a little couponing! I shared the details of my shopping trip on my Facebook page and received a response I thought was worth sharing here.

Rebecca wrote:

Don't feel bad about stopping the pantry challenge early. The whole point of that stuff is to see if you would be able to make it in an emergency. I am sure three weeks is long enough to get the answer. And the whole point of couponing is to save money and be prepared for emergencies, so I think it would be foolish to skip the awesome sales and coupons that can help you. That's kind of like starving yourself just to see if you can. Good to know, I guess, but what if a real emergency hits during the middle of the starve fest? Than you'd feel pretty silly for skipping lunch.

Overall, it was an interesting experience. You can see my weekly posts during the challenge here, here and here. It helped me realize just how much food I do already have on hand. I cleared a few things out of the freezer and on a couple shelves in my pantry, but even at the end of the month they both still looked full.

Would I do it again? I'm not sure. I think a more effective approach for me would be to limit my spending without any purchase restrictions. That way I can still coupon, I'd just have to be very selective!

Right now, my focus is to prepare my pantry for a more long term stint without grocery store access, which is one thing the challenge actually helped me with! Most of you know, I have a goal this year to increase my long term food storage. I've allotted $30 each month towards this goal, but haven't spent a penny...yet! To be honest, I wasn't really sure where to start. Participating in the challenge helped me focus in on where my pantry was lacking. The items my family missed the most when we were running low were milk and eggs. So the first items I'm going to stock up on are powdered eggs and milk. Both of these items can be used in cooking and baking so I'm looking forward to learning how to use these items that will soon be part of my pantry!

Those who participated in the Pantry Challenge along with me, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you feel it was a good thing to do? What did you struggle with? Would you do it again?