Snackuary 2025: Food Budget Challenge 🍜

[frogger]

This weekend tuned into $5 for coffee, $10 for Burger King (and using their indoor playground for 2.5 hours because it’s -5 out), $3 for a snack at the store when we were out also spending $34 on lice treatment. Which wasn’t food related, but definitely lowered my resistance to errant food spending.

Tomorrow it’s going to be even colder, so I’m not leaving the house and will be doing infinite laundry.

[regular_things]

weekend check in:

• make a pantry and freezer inventory and plan 2 meals per week from those items: still haven’t done this and also did not eat two meals from the pantry. I’ve been skating by on snack meals this week because my fridge has been overwhelming me. so tomorrow is clean the fridge day and hopefully also inventory day and then hopefully I can eat some real meals this week.
• spend less than $100 at costco: spent $228 at Costco. this also included toilet paper, dishwasher pods and a pair of merino blend base layer tights, but it was still significantly higher than I expected. it’s all stuff I’ll eat eventually and makes more sense to get at Costco, but I’m still a bit annoyed at myself. overall grocery spend is at about $400.
• only 2 delivery meals: still at 2! very happy about this.

[LadyDuck]

I’m at 41 different plants for the month! Favourite this week was a half rockmelon I bought to eat all by myself.

I think I can get up to 50 with a bit of thought!

I haven’t done any planning of meals or writing up recipes. Might do that this week, might not if I’m just too exhausted from the heatwave

[Panda]

@Panda

• 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.

More success! Doing well especially at clearing out my tea stash and the freezer.

I did technically shop 3 times this week, but that 3rd one was really moved up just 1 day from my normal schedule because of incoming subzero temps and 6+ inches of snow.

[diapasoun]

Threw out 2 ancient bread heels.

[Economista]

Week 3 check in. I spent $49 bringing the monthly total to $662, and none of it was a special gluten free alternative!

[MeadowLark]

$9 at Kroger for brownie mix, pistachio instant pudding, and sesame oil.

That is what you are supposed to buy for a winter storm, right? Really I just went shopping bc I was bored and wanted to get out of the house one more time, in case this turned into the cold and boring snowmageddon of 2021.
Total groceries :$108.
Ignoring the eating out #’s for now.

[BiblioFeroz]

Week 3 check in: I am continuing to meet my goal of eating beans every week and I have 1 new recipe ready to go that is legit vegetarian and another one that I want to try soon as well.

[PinkTutu]

Our 20-something niece is visiting. We had cheesecake, at her request. She baked 6 dozen sugar cookies this morning! I controlled myself. I only ate 3. We decided not to ice them…yet.

We have decided to be accountable to each other in regards to exercise and walking. Every M - W - F we are doing Pilates/exercise routines (balance/flexibility/strengthening). We are going to text each other to make sure we’ve done them…or FaceTime each other and do them together. That, plus daily walking, should get us both back in shape.

[MeadowLark]

Okay, I actually did the math.
$108 groceries
$300 food eaten out.

I mean, I’ve done worse. And after the storm goes away and I can go out again, there will only be 7 more days to eat out this month. So that sounds good…

[jacqui_z]

Just updated both my Snacktuary food spending tracker and my all-categories tracker. I’m glad I got both of these updated at the same time, for once!

Total food spending: $364.58 of my $450 monthly limit. I really want take out today, but I need to make sure that I’ll have enough leftover budget to buy groceries for next week.

I’m realizing that I may need to get my hands on some sturdier tupperware and a few more bowls and plates if I’m going to cook at home more. There were a few times this week where I ate off of paper towel because all three of my plates were in the dishwasher. And there were some things that I didn’t cook because my four tupperware containers were all in-use.

[plainjane]

Good movement on the butter chicken sauce.
Also finished the sweet chili sauce, the 2 mustards, and a bottle of lime juice

Freezer check

Commercial bags
frozen blueberries x3
frozen mango x3 x2
frozen peaches x1
frozen mixed fruit x1

frozen kale (partial)
brussel sprouts (partial)
frozen corn (partial)
frozen cauliflower
frozen green beans x2 x1
frozen broccoli

Ziplocs
roasted peppers (small)
roasted cauliflower (medium)
roasted tomato (large)
melon pops (medium)
garlic chives (medium)

Meats
pork belly x6 x4
pork tenderloin pieces x3 x1
steak x1 / x2 (added) x1
bacon 1kg x2
bacon 375g x1
ground beef 1lb x3 x2
added: chicken thighs x4
4 pork chops
chicken breast strips
added: shrimp x2

2 cup meal prep
cauliflower coconut x3 x1
cauliflower coconut red lentil x2 x1
onion soup x2 x1
butter chicken sauce x2
carrot red lentil x1
curried tomato soup x1
added: beef stew x2

1 cup meal prep
shredded pork shoulder x4 x3
butter chicken sauce x3 x2
white beans x2 x1
beef curry x2
beef rendang x1
curried tomato soup x1

1 cup ingredients
stock x2
coconut milk x1
blood orange juice x1
roasted pears x1
added: stock x2

random ingredients
hot peppers
pomegranate seeds
chipotle paste
chopped celery
ginger
chopped lemongrass
tomato paste

[PinkTutu]

Week 4 check-in:

$38 dining out
$38 groceries

$76 total

Pantry/freezer looking emptier, but still a long way to go. Hopefully will last until spring.

Menu planning on hold. Company.

[LadyElizabeth]

Week 4 check-in!
Total groceries: 79,12$
Not gonna lie my veganuary is not doing so well. I didn’t really change my habits and stayed in my 80-20 ratio. I still want to do it though. I’ll do a vegruary lol.
Total groceries so far: 335,23$
One week left! I don’t like when it’s 5 grocery trips during the month instead of 4.

[krmit]

Week 4 already?!

$35 at new seasons. I shouldn’t need to shop any more this month

Fails this week: more food waste than normal because I got sick. The saddest being one of the containers of delicious local tofu I bought last week went bad because I didn’t have the wherewithal to cook or freeze it

Win this week: I made an ENORMOUS batch of chili on Monday, when I was still healthy, and it fed us for three days while I recovered.

Also sorted through the fridge and reorganized. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and now I (roughly) know where everything is!

[diapasoun]

Holding steady with fiber and water, protein tracking is just apparently too much these days.

Wizard threw out some grapes that got old, and I threw out a jar of jam from the fridge that was very in date but had gotten mold on top.

[jellaba]

@jellaba

Goal is max. 3 times eating out in January.
2nd goal: no chips, pretzels etc. and no bakery sweets. Allowed is home made sweet stuff
3rd goal: not buying meat or fish and using up what is already in the freezer

This week success on all three goals, no eating out beside the lunch party today which was a big success, everybody loved it.
Used some more meat from the freezer (chicken) and had no chips and baked good besides the pre party yesterday. I was the perfect cappuccino cream cake

[a_hardie]

Progress for 4th week:

Cook dinner 3x/week: Not accomplished; I think I did it twice, and once was a fail because it tasted horrible so we didn’t eat it. Then a cold struck our household and I’ve been doing a lot of “fend for yourself” dinners (cheese and crackers, etc).

Don’t buy booze for the home: Accomplished.

Always stick to the list: Did OK on this again.

Overall spending: $425.99. Under my limit by a little bit!

[MeadowLark]

I’m bowing down to the minimalism goddess that has 3 plates and 4 Tupperware. Wow.

[MeadowLark]

$318 eaten out.
$147 groceries.
Because unfortunately the dumpster goddess didn’t provide the soy milk, non-dairy ice cream and non-dairy chocolate I was looking for.