Snackuary 2025: Food Budget Challenge 🍜

[diapasoun]

Fridge assessment:

Threw out some VERY old stuff (like dates in November) - sour cream, cottage cheese, mascarpone, cranberry sauce, block of tofu, block of tempeh. All stuff we got before I got the prolapse diagnosis and thought I would be able to spend more time cooking than I have been. Also threw out some takeout sauces that the in-laws kept.

We are now at “fridge zero.”

[a_hardie]

check-in 1, commentary below

@a_hardie

• Cook dinner at least 3x/week and incorporate pantry/freezer inventory–not doing great on this because of various holidays and a kid’s birthday. I did make a bean dip with pantry ingredients.
• Don’t buy any booze for the home Also lol because of kid’s birthday, although none was consumed, so now we just have some random beers around
• Always grocery shop with a list and stick to it lol some impulse purchases have been made
• Overall goal: keep spending for groceries below $475 for the month if not counting the birthday, then we have spent less than $80 this month, which is on track

[Panda]

@Panda

Taking a more behavioral approach this time, rather than aiming for a random money goal:

• Absolutely no stocking up of any food/drinks. Only get what I need for the upcoming week.
• Related to that, eat down the pantry and freezer.
• Grocery shop no more than twice a week.

Success so far!! And making good progress especially on eating down food

[anomalily]

I can’t believe it but we’ve spent $0 on groceries this week - but we are overstocked from hosting a bike move and a birthday party on the 1st and 28th respectively.

So yes this was a very good challenge because we have a lot of tortillas and various other sundries to use up.

I do need to buy lettuce or spinach tomorrow and should probably stock up on soy milk, but we’re doing okay.

[Rhubarbsoda]

1. Did a regular grocery shop and a Costco run and totaled up the food purchases

Week 1 grocery totals

It’s kindof skewed because of the general nature of a Costco trip, whey protein was on super sale so got 4 bags which will last us at least 6 months, and we managed to run low on all the cooking oils (olive, avocado, and coconut) at the same time. But the gist is right - we do spend an inordinate amount of our food budget on snacks. Somehow it makes sense to me that cheese is separated out from other dairy

Category	Total
Supplements	195.96
Snacks	65.1
Fats	56.97
Condiments	44.94
Veggies	36.94
Beverages	26.48
Cheese	20.37
Fruit	9.99
Bread	9.88
Protein	6.98
Dairy	2.39

2. Reorganized the pantry. One side effect of moving recently was that there weren’t really any out-of-date things lurking deep in the cupboards
3. Tossed some rancid smelling grains during the pantry reorg. Cleaned out the fridge and tossed some moldy/stinky remains of sour cream and half and half from Thanksgiving cooking, the dregs of some leftover curry and most of a batch of pasta e ceci, both of which were moldy. We are not great at eating leftovers, and I am also not great at cooking just 1 meal’s worth of things like curry.
4. Didn’t make any of these.

[maggie_in_da_woods]

I guess I’m behind in joining again, but honestly I forgot it was January until I was finally getting my 2025 planner ready and saw my saved Snackuary stickers from last year!

But the good thing is that I actually already did a meal plan for the week! Meal planning and sticking to it each week will be my main goal, and to work toward healthier eating but I won’t write about that on here.

My grocery budget will be $300 (just for me, Husband and I split the grocery cost so our household budget will be $600 for the month).

My eating out budget will be $400 because one of my New Year’s resolutions is to go out with friends more for meals and coffee.

So far here’s my budget:
$66/300
$108/400 (which includes a fancy New Year’s dinner and a dinner out with a friend)

Today I made homemade soup! I froze some in case we catch any of the crap going around right now.

[MeadowLark]

I keep wanting to replace stuff as we eat it down, but I am resisting! Trying to convince myself not to buy frozen blueberries. But, but, but I need frozen blueberries in my freezer at all times! Who cares if I have froz mango, strawberries, banana and dragon fruit? I need them all!

I started making beef stew this morning and just… yuck. I think I’m moving towards vegetarianism again. Just not wanting meat. So I stuck it in the fridge and Daisy has offered to eat it for dinner.

[BiblioFeroz]

Week 1 check in! I am on target with my goal to eat beans at least once per week. We had split pea soup last night.

My boys don’t like it with ham so I cook it just with chicken broth and then add some chopped ham to the finished product for those of us that do like it.

I haven’t found a new beans recipe yet but I did bookmark on this morning.

[plainjane]

@plainjane

a month and a half of weekly butter chicken dinners

the contractor has given a tentative start date of first week of March (depending on the timing for the cabinet makers). So weekly butter chicken dinners for a month and a half turns out to be pretty accurate.

Plus side, they think we only need to move out for 4 months, not 6 (and we can camp with a mini fridge and a bbq/instant pot/toaster oven/kettle for the final 2)

[turtlegirl]

Where are you going for the 4 months? Are there short term rentals near you?

[plainjane]

short term rental. they exist, it’s just a question of finding location and price reasonableness.

(my parents are a backup, but not for the whole period for everyone’s health)

ETA: I think I’m in denial about it all happening

[jellaba]

Yesterday I ate half of a bag of shrimps which were at least 12 month in the freezer, it was delicious.

[MeadowLark]

Currently eating tamales out of the freezer that I had forgotten were there. Very tasty.

[anomalily]

@plainjane

ETA: I think I’m in denial about it all happening

In my very relevant experience you can even move into temporary lodging and still be in denial for years about construction.

[PinkTutu]

Supper tonight is pork roast dinners from the freezer. We still have three meals in the freezer.

Last night we caved and went out to eat at a Mediterranean restaurant. I fielded three long phone calls in the afternoon. We forgot to get supper out of the freezer. So we went out. It was a good break though. And the total cost was under $50 CAD.

The alfalfa sprouts finally did their thing and grew to a decent size. So I had some hm hot mustard sauce on rye rusks, topped with sprouts, then cured smoked salmon, and finally a dab more hot mustard sauce. Yummm! That was lunch.

We are still doing well with food costs. I am struggling more with getting healthy protein in every meal. Breakfast is my problem. I don’t normally eat a lot then, but I think I’m going to have to. I just make it up at the end of the day, by overeating at supper.

[plainjane]

Since I’m focused on eating down the freezer & pantry, I have less backup food around if the thing I was planning on us eating hasn’t defrosted enough for me to cook it at dinner.

I was able to adjust tonight, but I can see that getting more challenging later. So I need to remember to get things out sooner, check mid afternoon to make sure they can finish in fridge, and have a plan for if they don’t work rather than being put on the spot.

[diapasoun]

Ok so I haven’t been tracking protein for shit but I’ve vaguely tracked fiber the last few days and am doing very well there (over 25g per day without a ton of effort). So that’s good! Yay for Snackuary!

[anomalily]

I just switched after like a 2600+ day streak on my fitness pal to a new tracker app which I think is way better for tracking macros and pretty easy so possibly good for BF busy parent. I tried out like 10 different apps. If you want a rec let me know

[diapasoun]

Yes please, would love to know! Especially if it tracks fiber and/or vitamins too.

[anomalily]

So there are two:

Summary

One has an annoying name (I think) but it is Lose It and I think the interface is good. The library is good. Barcode scanning etc. can track fiber and vitamins

Here‘s the widget I display

You can do different little dashboards for different macros or fiber or whatever

I also like the display of the log

Another one is Macrofactor - a lot of people like this but I had tech issues with it that annoyed me.