It’s the first monthly budget challenge of 2024!
This month we’re working on food costs for the fifth annual Snackuary
If thinking/talking about food isn’t a good fit for you right now, please check out our 24 in 2024 challenges Topics tagged 24-in-2024
If seeing food content isn’t good for you - You can click at the bottom to mute this thread you don’t see this category in the “latest posts”!
A note about content warnings
PLEASE put a spoiler over any content that mentions intentional weight loss or dieting for weight loss. And - please no negative commentary on other peoples’ bodies or food choices, that stuff never feels good! You can spoiler your comments using “hide details” under the little wheel. If you can’t figure out how to spoiler, just “flag” your own post and a mod can help you spoiler it.
Snackuary will run from January 1 to January 31.
The goal is to understand your food costs better. Many of us have a complicated relationship with food, and at the end of a day, it isn’t an expense we can make go away entirely because it’s fuel! For many households, it’s the 2nd highest expense in their overall budget (after housing).
I found that my food costs have gone up a lot for the past two years for inflation.
Your Snackuary goal could be as strict as a no-takeout-all-month ban or as simple as a goal as “track my food expenses this month”. Or making coffee at home or simply tracking what parts of your food budget went up since Snackuary last year.
Maybe your goal is to cook more - batch cook each week or bring a packed lunch to work (if you are going into work these days). Perhaps you want to focus on reducing food waste! Or maybe you want to set a cash weekly budget for groceries and not go over it. Maybe you just want to track your food costs for once.
Or maybe you want to go to the cheaper grocery store once during the month.
Whatever it is, make sure the goal is generally aimed towards understanding your food costs better.
Snackuary will have a special forum badge and even a STICKER for people that complete the whole month, that will (probably) be cat-themed.
Basic rules:
- You must establish your own rules about how you are going to lower or track your food costs this month. State them in the first few days of the month to get us kicked off in the right direction.
- Each weekend you will report how you did on your challenge for the week on this thread . You can report on where you’re at, and what your biggest challenge and victories of the week were. Then, you’ll put your predictions/goals down for the week ahead.
- If you want, build in a celebration meal (fancy cheese or a dinner out- covid-safe of course ) at the end of the month. It’s nice to have a reward!
Who This Challenge is For
Anyone who wants a little public accountability and discussion about reducing food costs. If you liked any of our previous challenges and want to keep it going, here we are!
This challenge pairs very well with Dry January and Uber Frugal January and maybe Veganuary.
What do you get out of participating?
- Lower food costs ideally!
- Lower environmental footprint than dining out and/or wasting food.
- (maybe) healthier food choices
- A community to support you as you resist getting takeaway for the 4th time this week
- A CUTE forum badge for participating in the weekly check-ins
- And if you do all 4 week check-ins, you get a STICKER mailed to you.
Resources
- Budgetbytes- Cheap recipes
- Meal Prep Reddit
- Supercook - lets you search for recipes by what you have
- whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com - exactly what it sounds like
- 6 Fun Ways to Lower Your Grocery Budget - Six Figures Under
- Resource for tracking grocery expenses - Leisure Guy
- USDA recommendations for “targets” for food costs https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-food-reports-monthly-reports
It’s also just getting so expensive when we eat out, $50-$60 each time since the girls eat full portions now too.