That’s 8 easy lunches/dinners per person. Plus breakfasts. 4 days
Planned purchases
OTC meds (Tylenol, zinc, benilyn, Mucinex)
Coke
Chips
Keto meal service package
Corn tortillas
Low carb bread
More ready to eat soups
Delivery food.
Coke
So I think that I will plan a Walmart order for Monday and have family or Instacart do a drop off in the meantime. Thursday next week is our produce box and we can add easy stuff there too.
I like this list. It’s a very useful list. I might need a similar list.
Still torn between “eat down your food stash, you’re moving in 2 months” and “it is winter and covid is bad so you want to keep enough on hand so you can, y’know, eat in case of quarantine or blizzard.” Seems like a fine line.
I have a lot of dried beans. But not so many ingredients that go into bean dishes. Unless I want to eat a lot of chili. And I already have a lot of chili in my freezer to eat down. Black bean chocolate chili, white bean chili, pumpkin chili.
I could do burrito bowls except Boyfriend ate all the cheese.
I am in the same boat this week @Elle <3
I placed a grocery order since I can’t get to the store and it cost $108. I usually use instacart but I’ve not been happy with the last couple of orders. It was much more reliable in my last city! Here I keep having to contest charges because they don’t deliver everything but they still charge me. I always get a refund, but considering the markup and fees it seems silly. I tried amazon fresh for the first time today. I will report back on the quality level when it’s delivered. I’m not a fan of whole paycheck but I think it might be overall cheaper than instacart (for delivery groceries).
I’m also lucky to have past self who stocked up the freezer and pantry reasonably well, so I didn’t have to buy things like eggs or meat. This week will be:
Breakfast- Frittata/Rice
Lunch- Tortellini in pesto (even bought the pesto sauce! so just boiling here). I’m not confident I have enough for all week so I may have to pull a gallon bag of frozen homemade soup to finish the week.
Dinner #1- Nachos (canned refried beans, loads of bell peppers, avocado, sour cream, lime, cilantro, tomatoes, cheese, and fresh jalapeño peppers. I bought enough to have this for two nights, so it’s just chopping, assembling, and heating under the broiler. I’ll probably even line the pan so I don’t have to clean it.
Dinner #2 - Cheese pizza, frozen. I’ll add some pepperoni, artichokes, and olives which I already have (pepperoni for dh, artichokes and olives for my half) and serve it with a big salad (greens, peppers, tomatoes, avocado, croutons). I got two pizzas so we will have enough for two dinners, and I’ll use oil and vinegar for dressing.
Dinner #3 - Veggie dogs (already have in the freezer) + canned baked beans + big salad (the same salad as before). This should finish us off well.
I also bought a bunch of fruit because we eat a lot of fruit. I chose 5 lb. oranges and 5 lb. apples. I also have frozen blueberries already so that’s a freebie. If I am magically well and in the mood to do real cooking (a true concern for me!) I can amuse myself by making pasta or baking bread. If not I have all my meals done and it will be no more than 20 minutes work for each.
I ate down my food stash a few years ago, in preparation a 8 week deployment, which was to be followed directly by a move from Maine to Washington DC.
So, I was at nearly zero food when the ship was ordered back to the pier a few weeks early, due to this new virus everyone was talking about. It was NOT a fun feeling, and it changed my perception of food stores. They’re no longer something I build up, and eat down before moves. I now view having a stash of shelf stable stuff the same as an emergency fund. Not something I would use up, especially not right before a disruption like moving.
Just one opinion, in a world of them.
I am leaning toward this school of thought but Boyfriend thinks it’s insane to pack food and move it across the country. I too see it as an e-fund of sorts. And I just feel more secure when I have it.
I really don’t want to toss all of my precious home canned goods though.
That’s it, after this coming week which is too late to cancel, we are dumping Imperfect Foods. Their prices are currently offensive and ludicrous and I cannot/will not pay them any more. They’re now more expensive than Whole Foods, FFS, and Whole Foods is right down the street in case I suddenly crave bougie groceries again.
If you have to toss things…let me know when and where and I’ll be there with an empty bag or two. (But I hope you can keep what you don’t eat.)
For comparison, I currently have 9 items in my Imperfect Foods cart and the total is $45. (Granted, some of it’s meat and fish.) We just did a decent but not huge stockup at Aldi and the total was a little under $48.
Yes, we bought cheap staples mostly at Aldi but, like, Imperfect has $5 eggs and $8 milk so even their staples are out of control.
I very much want to shop for clothes because it’s been a difficult time for me and there are so many gorgeous things, but I am restraining myself! Even if it kills me, lol. Anyway, I got my first amazon fresh delivery today and my review is: pretty good! It’s definitely whole foods quality so smaller quantities than I usually get for the same price and a few things were a bit flavorless (oranges, cilantro, cheese) but the peppers were very nice and they brought everything I ordered. Also, the guy brought it right to my door, which is my favorite! I cancelled my Instacart subscription since we’re mostly doing other shopping (bulk, hmart) in person now. Plus if I want it again in the future I can always sign up again.
Bonus pic of my nacho dinner:
Back on the meal planning/spend forecast grind! Taking a break from alcohol til my sister’s wedding on 1/21.
Sunday: realistically we will do laundry all day, nap, and eat popcorn for dinner. Have to pay friends back for NYE Airbnb groceries and split gas. $80?
Monday: Vegetarian dinners week! Tamale casserole for dinner this night. Will be our grocery shop day. We have access to a car thank goodness because it’ll be 8 degrees. We can go to the cheaper grocery store and we’re not buying meat, so $90? But we are also out of some occasional necessities we get at Target, like dishwasher pods and laundry detergent. So probably $20 there. Total about $110.
Tuesday: Apple chickpea salad with horseradish dressing. Magazine zoom meeting in the evening. No spend day!
Wednesday: No plans, kinda time to lockdown a bit in preparation for the wedding. Weather’s finally turning so the desire to go out will be low anyway. Beet burgers for dinner! Got some frozen tots leftover from this weekend for the side, but maybe something green as well?
Thursday: Leftovers, no spend day
Friday: Been a while since fiancé made pizza! Not sure what kind yet. Maybe potato rosemary? We also have some random cheese nuggets left from NYE board. No spend day. Need to start looking at flights for a Miami wedding in March.
I need to know the cookbook you’re using for Mexican food pls. I want tamale casserole
This is definitely not authentic lol, but it is yet another recipe from Julia Turshen’s Simply Julia. We’ve loved everything we’ve made from it so far!!
I would start eating down the home canned/frozen stuff and replenishing the freezer stash with bulk-cooked replacements from the pantry/home canned stuff as you go.
So over the next couple of weeks you eat up the chili you have in the freezer and buy what you need to make another large batch with the dried beans/garden tomatoes and whatever else you need to use up.
What else do you have in the freezer/pantry? Maybe we can help you plan it out.
TLDR: Use up the stuff you personally produced before your move. You can decide closer to move date how much of the commercially available canned/dried stuff you want to have handy, and donate it if it isn’t cost effective to move.
Main concerns are: 3 jars of homemade frozen pesto (from garden basil), a LOT of homecanned tomatoes, and about a cup of very hot homegrown peppers (chopped and in freezer). I can only eat so much chili and I don’t enjoy very spicy food.
Also a big bag of frozen corn. I don’t like it plain.
I think the solution is just lots of chilis and soups and stews?
Other big concern is all this jam! How to use up without baking a lot, which I don’t want to do after the Xmas sugar orgy. I don’t eat bread often. I do stir a spoonful into oatmeal, and I’ve tried it in a breakfast smoothie, which, some kinds work fine and others don’t. Anything with cocoa in it doesn’t work and I have a bunch of chocolate cherry and chocolate strawberry jam. Honestly, I don’t think I’m going to get thru all of this.
Oh, and, I’ve got a bunch of (store bought) canned pumpkin too. Might make muffins once but I don’t want a ton of baked goods lying around.
Omg that rosemary white bean budget bytes soup? Would be SO good with some pesto stirred in!
You can eat jam plain with a cup of tea, as dessert. It’s not really my cup of tea (hah), but I bet those chocolate jams are like liquid candy. 
I mix jam in with plain yogurt. 
ETA jam and pumpkin purée both can be used for chia pudding!
Oh. Hmm. I might leave out the rosemary in that case, but that could work. (Do I even HAVE rosemary right now? Unsure!)
I do have a big thing of plain greek yogurt. I tend not to eat it in cold weather, prefer to use it in lieu of sour cream in chili/tacos, but that certainly would be a good way to use up both yogurt and jam.
I mean, I refer to them as “sex in a jar” but you’re not wrong! 
The chocolate strawberry is sweetened with coconut sugar so at least it’s not SUPER unhealthy?
