A Month Without Groceries

A few months ago, my future sister-in-law (*A*) suggested that we get together over the July 4th holiday.  She knew someone who had a townhome at a lake in the mountains.  We didn't discuss cost or anything, but we were thrilled to go.  *B* missed our river trip last week, and I thought this would be a very nice vacation for our family.

Well, in that time, our budget became very constrained.  *A* had already paid for everyone, and I couldn't leave her in a lurch.  There was no one to take our place.  We explained our situation, and gave her everything we could afford at the moment (1/3 of our cost).  Except for $20 worth of groceries purchased there, we brought all our food with us.  Gas was still expensive, and we were almost down to the light before we even left the lake.  While everyone else went to lunch today, we had to gracefully bow out of it so that we could afford gas.  And really it wasn't as hard to do that as I thought it would be.  Rather than getting a little gas and some fast food or gas station food, we slathered peanut butter and jelly on leftover hot dog rolls and gassed up as much as we could.

When *B* and I were driving home on that three hour trip, we talked about our financial situation. Rather than despairing, we saw it as an opportunity to do something great.  Another project, another experiment. 

So here it is:

We're going to avoid the grocery store for a whole month.  This project has an exception - we will visit the farmer's market every Wednesday (as we already do).  This will supply us with eggs, fruits, and vegetables that we don't already grow ourselves.  We have a fair amount of beans, rice, grains, and canned veggies stored in our pantry.  We also have a fair amount of frozen food like ham slices, turkey wings, thighs, and legs, kale, snap peas, soup, and commercial frozen veggies.

So today is day 1.  I'm happy to report that we've bought no groceries, have a menu plan for the week, and we're doing just fine.

 Click to see our weekly menu plan