Snackuary 2026: Food Budget Challenge 🥙

[anomalily]

It’s the first monthly budget challenge of 2026!

This month we’re working on food costs for the seventh annual Snackuary

If thinking/talking about food isn’t a good fit for you right now, please check out the other challenges

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. If you want, build in a celebration meal 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 USDA Food Plans: Monthly Cost of Food Reports | Food and Nutrition Service

If you’re in to participate (or on the fence and need encouragement), comment below with your goals for Snackuary.

[anomalily]

I AM IN! We moved our kitchen yesterday and we have a SHOCKING amount of pantry food that was buried in a deep cabinet in our kitchen. So now we’re gonna go through it in

PANTRY SURVIVOR ISLAND (round 2).

Same rules as last year: no buying any shelf-stable grocery foods (cheese, soy milk, vegetables, tofu are our exceptions.)

Plus an extra rule on top of last year’s: all dinners must include a pantry food (to avoid just making stir fries with fresh veggies).

I will be traveling for work for a week and eating in a hotel/convention center, rules do not apply to me on work travel

[LadyElizabeth]

I’m in again! My goal is to NOT waste any food and use some of what’s in my pantry. Hopefully it’ll lower the grocery costs!

Edit: I am adding a new goal, using cheaper plant based proteins!

[Panda]

I’m in! This is probably my most-needed challenge every year, lol.

I’m hoping to reduce my food spending (…dramatically) in 2026, but I’m going to try to focus more on the specific behaviors that need to change than on an arbitrary goal number. My rules:

• Must use at least 1 older pantry item and 1 older freezer item every week.
• Any new pantry or freezer item must be purchased with a specific meal for that week in mind!!! No stocking up allowed.
• Bring my lunch to work every day I’m in the office.
• I can only go to a coffee shop if I’m going with friends or coworkers. No last-minute coffee shop stops before work because of lack of planning on my part.

[PinkTutu]

I’m in! I have to think about my goals.

• At least one will centre around using up our considerable pantry stash.
• I also want to review 2025 grocery expenses before setting a goal for 2026.
• definitely cooking more from scratch and meal planning on a more regular basis.

[jacqui_z]

I’m in! I want to minimize food waste, especially waste from unused CSA vegetables.

Goals:

• Meal prep on the days I get CSA deliveries
• Go through my pantry and use any close-to-expiration food
• Buy a new lunchbox (ideally secondhand and easy to clean!)

[kenner]

In, I made a pretty good dent in the pantry/freezer towards the end of last year, but I know there are some random odds and ends sitting around that need to get cleared out (one way or another…if I can’t identify it, it’s probably not getting eaten).

Will probably put some numbers around grocery store spending too, but that’ll wait until I’m home.

[noodle]

In. I am quitting my job in Jan! We need to do a pantry/freezer clean out, plan from what we have and what’s on sale, and rededicate ourselves to cooking at home as much as possible

[TrisPrior]

I should do this. I am appalled by food costs.

I wonder if it is realistic to shoot for $600 grocery spend for the month, exclusive of Mardi Gras related food and drink spending? (Because there will be parade potlucks and also king cakes are expensive.) We are usually north of $800. That’s obscene for 2 people and we still eat out a fair bit too.

Anyway, I would like to measurably reduce our food spend. When I total up December I will see what is realistic. I am also trying to increase protein so IDK.

Additional goal: cook all the dried beans and lentils in my house. This does not mean eat all of them in a month - but I want freezer meals made, particularly involving the bag of lentils that I keep ignoring.

Additional goal - ugh. Limit to 1 case of La Croix per week. I know this is adding up.

Stretch goal: shop only at Aldi unless they are out of/do not carry a true need. This is hard because it’s at least a 20-30 minute drive whereas I can get to the Winn Dixie in 5 minutes. Also Aldi closes at 8 which is hard.

[Dee]

I want to be in, but I’m going to give some more thought to my goal. I will be off work and the goal will definitely include cooking more, and may be more focused on improving my cooking skills than a more direct cost reduction plan.

I’ll be following some of the links provided - thanks for the resources, anomalily!

[LadyDuck]

I am IN!

The least amount we spent on food in a month was $2080 (includes groceries/ cafe/ lunches/ takeaway).

The least we spent on food-away-from-home was $905 (not the same month).

So those are my numbers goals.

The actual activities to do:

• go through freezer, eat down the non-regular items
• same with the pantry
• refresh our family meals lists and recipe display folder (all the most popular recipes go here for easy access).
• get the kids doing more of the cooking with us over the summer holidays.

[letired]

I am in! I need to think about what my goal(s) will be but some things I want to work on:

• Finish the freezer clean out. There’s still some stuff that has been in there for years at this point. It needs to be eaten or otherwise disposed of.
• Pantry inventory/clean out. I have a very full pantry for one person and a lot of it old.
• Freezer meals/meal prep. Having frozen single. Servings of rice + soup in the freezer is an amazing, easy dinner. I want to do some prep and take good notes so when I finish something, I can have a lower activation energy for replacing it.
• Meap prep/planning. I want to build out my rotation of meals/recipes so that when in doubt I can pick something easy from a list and add it to the week.
• Get a grip on current grocery/food expenses and decide what/if I’m going to change. I haven’t been tracking for over a year.

[plainjane]

I am in

I have a ton of cookbooks. Goal is to do menu planning that includes 12 actual recipes (3 scheduled per week) while keeping to the monthly food budget.

[Economista]

I’m in! I have 3 goals this year:

• Track spending by category
• Try to replicate oats overnight
• No food waste

[PinkTutu]

Okay…goals for Snackuary:

• do a pantry inventory - done. I know, it’s not January yet, but I needed to do it to set budget and goals.
• Create a list of possible menus from the pantry list - also done.
• update the above menu list weekly, according to what needs to be used.
• Review of 2025 grocery expenses with an eye to adjusting the budget for 2026 - did this today. In fact, we compared 2023, 2024 and 2025. There’s room for 2026 to be added to the chart. See below
• Budget set to $600 CAD per month for two seniors.
• I’m saving $145 per month for canning season and food preservation. I rolled over an excess $145 from 2025 to start the savings.
• Cook goodies from scratch, rather than buy them. We shouldn’t be eating them anyways.

[diapasoun]

I want to participate but need to figure out my parameters.

[noodle]

@PinkTutu

• do a pantry inventory - done. I know, it’s not January yet, but I needed to do it to set budget and goals.
• Create a list of possible menus from the pantry list - also done.

Thank you for these ideas

[Rhubarbsoda]

I am in!
Some random goals that may or may not result in decreases in food spending
*$30 outside the house snack budget
*Cook 4 new recipes from my physical cookbooks, not from library books or online recipes
*Pack an actual lunch everyday I am in office
*Cook 1 thing from the depths of the freezer
*Keep track of food waste both weight and description, no putting leftovers that won’t be eaten in the freezer to avoid them being counted as food waste

[regular_things]

I’m in! my freezer is exploding with food and I need to get it under control.

goals:

• freezer clean out and inventory in first week
• eat 2 meals per week from freezer/pantry
• only order 2 meal delivery weeks (this is usually about 3-4 dinner meals) - January 5 and 19
• only buy dairy/veg on non-meal delivery weeks

This might be edited/updated before January 1.

[Dee]

Update: Ok, I decided that I simply want to track “edibles for us” expenses (aka, food, groceries, beverages). As opposed to things that come from the grocery store but aren’t for eating (like cleaning products) and as opposed to anything edible I might buy as gifts/for other people. This will include restaurant spending, and I want to distinguish between groceries, take-out, and restaurant spending.

This is mostly meant for me to have a better picture of how much I am spending on groceries vs. other things I buy at stores like Giant Tiger and Shoppers Drug Mart where it’s a mix of groceries and other things.

Ideally, I’d also like to have an idea of how much what we actually eat costs because a lot of groceries are stock ups and not indicative of what we’ll be eating in the near future. For example, we’re currently low on peanut butter and when I find a sale on that, I’ll stock up. I’m not sure there’s any way to figure that out.

So I’ll start small and simply track how much I spend on groceries/food/beverages for us in January.