Snackuary 2024: Food Budget Challenge

I also didn’t get the sticker from the save 24% challenge (and I am sure I filled out the form, although a little later) - I didn’t do Snackuary though, so I can’t put a note in this one’s form. (Although obviously I lurked, lol.)

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I just checked and you filled it in 1/13- I hadn’t checked in with it since before then when i mailed out the last two batches- so you just haven’t had it mailed yet and I’ll mail yours out with the next batch of mailings!

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Final check in:
We were travelling for a wedding which threw the menu Plan out the window but greatly improved food waste. I’m calling the month 50:50 success. Looking forward to returning home to get back to my kitchen!

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I figured something like that. :slightly_smiling_face::+1:

Final Check-in (I was travelling for a loooong weekend)
Freezer one eaten down a bit so there is some space for fresh batch cooking next weekend
Defrosting the second freezer will happen some time in February
February will also see some fava bean dishes like ful mudames and a Turkish mung bean salad

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we have reached $1000 in spending for the year, so I thought it was a good time to go back to see the percentage breakdown:

produce - 24%
dairy - 21%
protein - 15%
carbs - 13%
beverage - 12%
condiments - 11%
splurge - 5%

I’m surprised by the level of our spend on dairy, beverages, and condiments.

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I’m late, but I’m also in on this, and also (like others) a bit flipping scared. I really appreciate the list of resources in the initial post.

Some of my 2024 goals are:

  • Tracking my food/groceries in separate categories (‘big’ monthly shop, popping to the shops, fancy coffee, food delivery, restaurants). This is so I can get an honest picture of my spending. I’d be interested to hear how anyone else breaks these categories down!

  • Reducing all of the above totals as much as possible via doing the cheapest and most sensible ‘big shop’ for food prep. (This includes ‘fun’ things as alternatives for super expensive take-out/deliveries.)

  • Trying really really hard to meal prep and take packed lunches to work on days I’m in the office. (I am awaiting a dyspraxia diagnosis and my executive dysfunction these days is brutal, but I’m curious about different tools to help me be organised and motivated, and trying to go easy on myself if I end up eating jam on toast for dinner).

My biggest goal is to be honest in tracking all this stuff and then having a gentle and non-judgmental curiosity about that, with a view to hopefully adopting better habits.

One of the joys I’ve rediscovered lately is prying open the sticky pages of all the cookbooks I once loved and used so often.

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I wanted to share a resource I found useful recently, which I hope is okay. I took my first kitchen inventory (pantry, fridge, freezer) and used that to meal plan. I don’t have a lot of storage or a particularly big fridge/freezer but I found it really useful to use what I already have and try to get my monthly ‘big’ grocery shop cost down.

This blogger/YTer is so aggressively productive it makes me feel exhausted and I can’t even imagine where all her energy and enthusiasm comes from, but I’ve found the printables fun and useful: kitchen inventory printables & meal planning printables.

I’m sure this’ll be an egg-sucking exercise for those of you who prep and meal plan consistently, but it’s pretty new to me so I thought I would share.

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