one final restaurant meal (industry peer gathering) and one large 2g2g prepared food bag (12.99!) because the shadowy one hadnāt taken anything out of the freezer when I reminded them they were responsible for their dinner prep. The prepared food bag ended up being 2 Italian subs, and a large tray of rice and chicken which we started eating today with freezer broccoli.
Speaking of the freezer, Iāve been taking advantage of too many meat specials, and weāre light on frozen fruit, veg and home prepared meals/meal components. I need to set up a better layout for what goes where, so rebalancing times are more obvious.
Create a list of possible menus from the pantry list - done.
update the above menu list weekly, according to what needs to be used. - done.
Review of 2025 grocery expenses with an eye to adjusting the budget for 2026 - done
Budget set to $600 CAD per month for two seniors. - done. $175 leftover. Transferred to canning (see below).
Iām saving $145 per month for canning season and food preservation. - I rolled over an excess $145 from 2025 to start the savings. Added $155 the end of January.
Cook goodies from scratch, rather than buy them. We shouldnāt be eating them anyways. - Mixed results. Hubby wasnāt in agreement with my make goodies at home approach. Apparently I donāt bake enough? He bought lemon loaf once, and double chocolate brownies twiceā¦all times without me present. I made 36 hazelnut cookies once. They were gone in 48 hours. He admitted they were better than store bought.
Final spending (according to YNAB):
$1,370 Groceries
$ 660 Takeaway/ Cafe
$2,030 Final
Under my target! Even though I also was sick or otherwise indisposed for 3/4 of the month. Probably helped by DH being away for 1.5 weeks so even though I was sick, the person who eats the most was away.
I reduced the amount of lingering food in the freezer and pantry, but they are still very well stocked and need a bit more space in them.
I didnt make time to review our recipes.
I did get Duckling making his own cheese toasties, now the only step he needs help with is reaching the sandwich press!
Groceries were $659 and eating out was $106. I also succeeded in keeping track of what we were buying by category and taking a look at what we were spending on GF alternatives to things that normally contain gluten. It wasnāt a good month for that though because we were so stocked up that we didnāt really buy much.
I know! And $80 of that was the overnight oats shipment that just shipped out yesterday. We honestly had a fully stocked freezer and pantry when the month started and I only buy things when we either run out or when itās on sale for a good price. Unfortunately there were not many good sales so there wasnāt much stocking up this month. Iām assuming the next few months will be higher to make up for such a low month
yeah. despite very little eating out, we ended at $727 for grocery (includes vitamins, toilet paper, cleaning supplies) and restaurants vs. our target of $700 or less.
And in Feb weāll be going out a couple of times for birthday meals, I have at least two friend meetups, with another 2 on the radar. So I think weāll need to keep the āno random times eating outā rule a bit longer.
I cleaned out the pantry last night! Only had to throw away a handful of items, and I found four cans of beans that have a āBest Byā date in 2026. I put everything that expires soon on the lowest shelf. I also did a bonus clean out of the medicine cabinet!
On a less fun note, I forgot I had sunchokes in the bottom drawer and they mightāve gone bad. Iām gonna attempt smashing them and seeing if theyāre still edible. I also let some oyster mushrooms and a brand of yogurt I donāt like languish in the fridge. Aw well, guess Iāll try again next week.
Final check in:
Finally! I can see empty spots in my fridge, itās not making me nervous anymore! Total spending for the month is 357$, not bad since I didnāt really pay attention to what I bought and usually I am over 400$!
Last check-in! My goal was to spend under $600. That turned out to be an easy goal because I forgot to factor in that weād be on a family trip for a week in which we were (mercifully) fed by others. I spent $279.74. Of that, $206.74 was groceries. Iāll add another $100 because my husband definitely shopped for us at least once. Even with that it was a crazy low month. The real challenge would be meeting the $600 goal in a more typical month.
Iām missing a receipt from late last week when he stopped for salad fixings. Unsure exactly how much, but a good estimate is $25 because he always finds something else. That would bring us to $360.44 in groceries for the month. Iāve declared I canāt track eating out already, so thatās my final report.
Please know any weird or extra stickers you donāt want on hand anymore, Latte was entranced by all of my last batch and put several on her water bottle.
We did buy a few more things but itās still a lot easier to see what we actually have.
My life got STUPID STUPID BUSY in January so I kinda fell off of all of this but letās see how I did:
