Final Update:
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Final check in: I did well! In addition to completing these tasks, I stayed slightly under both my groceries budget and my snacks/eating out budget.
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I’m hoping that Snackuary has kick started us to meal plan again. Final check in has our grocery at $236.8 / 400 (Not including supermarket gift card spending). We meal planned for the last 2 1/2 weeks and didn’t eat any convenience food from the shop apart from a can of baked beans 
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End of month check in:
This challenge was a resounding success! (unlike my GYST this month) I am amazed at my reduction in food waste (and associated reduction in food spending). But this took up an incredible amount of mental energy. Until this last week, when I slacked off a bit, I felt like I was thinking about food all.the.time.
This week I:
- Ate two apples, yay! (one as snack, one in oatmeal as @Gdogg recommended)
- Made more chicken gyros to use up meat/veggies
- Bought even more feta
- Finished a bag of spinach (in gyros and quesadillas). This may be the first time in history I’ve used a whole bag of spinach before even one leaf got mushy.
- Tossed my third and final food item of the month
Finished, end of month:
30. bag of spinach
31. cucumber
32. roma tomatoes
33. chicken breasts I’d defrosted week 4
Tossed:
16. cranberry sauce - it was already moldy by the time I got around to making muffins. Should have prioritized this or eaten it in oatmeal instead of having cereal for breakfasts.
Remaining (only the first three were on the original list, and I made progress on them):
9. 3 honeycrisp apples
10. 2 clementines
13. 1 sweet onion
24. 2/3 package of graham crackers
26. most of a bag of Aldi ginger cookies (1/4 bag left)
Previous weeks
Finished:
.1. a small amount of lemon pie filling. finished 1/3, ate on honey bread
4. a few slices of sharp cheddar cheese finished 1/2
8. one pear eaten 1/5
17. two eggs, best by 12/24 used 1/5
22. a small loaf of honey bread, gift from a neighbor finished 1/5
23. about half a head of broccoli, cut up eaten 1/4
25. half a box of triscuits - finished 1/6
6. prosciutto finished week 2
11. grape tomatoes finished 1/8
12. three ribs celery - used in lentil soup, week 2
20. about a pint of OJ, exp 12/31. week 2
21. bacon, exp 12/23/19 week 2
7. about 2 pounds of grapes, green and red. used the remaining red and half the green in pasta sauce, ate the rest of the green as snack week 3
14. most of a bag of baby carrots - put the rest in a lentil dish for potluck dinner week 3
18. a tub of feta cheese crumbles. finished, then had to buy more! week 3
19. a small block of smoked cheddar, from mid-November used in mac-n-cheese, with salami week 3
28. Lentil soup. ate some and froze the rest, as planned Week 3
2. an opened tub of sour cream. - week 4
5. half a package of hard salami. - week 4
15. two pounds of potatoes - week 4
27. dozen eggs, bought 1/5, best by 1/21 - week 4
29. feta crumbles (the new package, and I bought even more) - week 4
Wasted, week 1:
3. about 6 egg whites. decided not to risk it
unnumbered: a tub of hummus that I’d thought was unopened. It was partially eaten, and fuzzy.
Final January grocery spending: $88.69. This is quite a deviation from my $150 monthly average, though January does tend to be a lower spend month . (Last Jan I only spent $67 on groceries; the previous four Januaries ranged from $100-150.) I do think my attempts to not waste food helped in the spending, but maybe not as drastically as I first thought.
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Since last week I have further eaten down without replacement:
- ketchup
- homemade apple scrap vinegar
- box of red wine
- yellow split peas
- canned crushed pineapple
- homemade baba gannouj (freezer)
- lapsang souchong tea (I told myself I would finish this before buying any new puh erh)
This week I spent $15.32 on groceries, but the trip was a deviation from what I had initially intended so I only got eggs, milk, and goats milk at Whole Foods rather than all the other stuff at the much less expensive WinCo. The eggs are fancy eggs and Whole Foods actually has the best price for an 18-pack, and the milk was on sale for only $2, and Whole Foods is the only place that I know of currently where I can get non-ultra-pasteurized goats milk, which is necessary for cheese. So I am still in need of the other stuff from last week’s list, though I made it through the week just fine, so. I still have 3 potatoes (from the garden!), carrots, an onion, 1lb+ a bit more frozen long beans, 2/3 qt frozen peaches, and frozen zucchini and squash. Oh, and 2 lemons and a lime. I could maybe go one more week without buying any fresh veg, but it would really be pushing it I think, and since the frozen stuff is frozen no sense in pushing it. My crispers are a ghost town right now though. I am also currently about half way through the next jar of homemade jam.
The grand total spent on food for this month was $56.69, which is the lowest amount I have spent in 3 years of tracking, and quite likely the lowest amount in at least a decade, I am not kidding. 
I still need (from last week) lettuce, cabbage, dill, half & half, whole milk, AP flour, coconut milk, canned tuna, tahini, and fish/shrimp. I may also get maple syrup and possibly some other veg because the selection is running low. I should probably get some sort of fruit. I may get some more coffee soy milk if the price is right. I suspect there may be some things I’ll get tomorrow or Sunday that will be on sale because of the Super Bowl (like avocados).
I ate this week (among other things): seitan “ribs” with mashed potatoes, hon-tsuyu broth with shiso somen and carrots and onion, instant grits, pancakes with jam, doslot bibimbap with carrot, mushroom, onion, beans, and egg, freezer gingerbread cupcakes, remaining oranges and grapefruits, Caribbean-style yellow split pea soup, baba gannouj, stir fry of carrot, onion, and long beans, protein smoothies, zucchini and rice soup, eggless “eggs” (it’s made from nutritional yeast and chickpea flour primarily and it is not very good but I will eat it until it is gone because I will not waste it). Today I set up dough again to bake bread for tomorrow morning, and last night I cultured goats milk to make chevre, which I am draining today. I still have not made the dolmades, but maybe this week.
I don’t have a clear plan for this coming week for meals, but it may include: stir fry, curry, tuna sandwiches, spicy lentil wraps, some sort of soup, fish/shrimp tacos, frozen pasta, something with beans. Oh, and dolmades. And a whole bunch of goat cheese.
I will continue doing this next month (and recording it) because the goal is to continue to eat down the stores and not waste anything, and it has been a success for two months now of adding NO condiments or staples to the pantry (with the exception of chickpeas so that I can make a full batch of hummus). The big list of what I have crossed off the last 5 weeks is enormous. There are still items I can and will be eating down and several that are very close to being done within the next week or so, which is exciting. I’m still interested in seeing how far I can take it because it still does not seem like deprivation!
Full list of the items eaten down without replacement this month
- red lentils
- yellow split peas
- bread flour
- rye flour
- oatmeal
- crab apple jam (homemade)
- peach rosemary jam (homemade)
- raspberry jam
- unsweetened soy milk
- coffee soy milk
- cherry juice
- box of red wine
- tahini
- “bacon” bits (homemade)
- 2 pints marinara (homemade)
- package of fresh rice noodles
- herbal tea
- lapsang souchong tea
- 7/8 lb frozen long beans (2 of 4 bags in the freezer)
- 1 + 1/3 qt frozen peaches
- kimchi (homemade)
- sauerkraut (homemade)
- seasoned rice wine vinegar
- apple scrap vinegar (homemade)
- silken tofu
- capers
- pepperoncini
- chocolate sauce
- ketchup
- tin of roasted eel
- canned crab
- can of baby corn
- canned crushed pineapple
- baba gannouj (homemade)
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Final check in:
OK I did end up doing the amazon auto-order for staples (rice milk, popcorn kernels, honey, oatmeal, chia seeds, bulk jug of powdered cheese for mac n cheese 
)
I also got movie theater popcorn for the first time in forever
I also spent almost $20 on a Delicious work lunch – loaded deli cheese fries with lots of extras I ordered on top.
Tomorrow I will have to buy a gallon of milk to make more yogurt in my instant pot.
Final January totals:
Groceries $217.48; Junk Food $14.95; Coffee beans $24.43; Boba tea $3.78; work lunch $63.93.
Total consumables $324.57 (for one person)
I will not be spending this much in February but honestly none of this spending made me feel super guilty or ashamed. I know that I made specific choices to get “special” and “fun” food but I love food so it was well spent. I also now have pantry staples that should last me six months to supplement my future grocery shopping. An interesting experiment to see what happens when I “max out” the food spending. Like I could aim to spend under this, but if I want to budget realistically I’d probably set it at $280 ish? for future months
This is not extraordinarily high but more than I usually spend. The work lunch one is a real doozy, especially considering I took off one full week from my fulltime job lol. Edit: Ok, it is extraordinarily high because a “good” food spending month for me is like $180-200, so it really is almost double lol. Edit; i’m bad at this and want all the food.
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Yay for Snackuary! Well done, kiddos.
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Apples - when I have extra laying around I make into apple sauce with cinnamon and freeze. Can be used in baking instead of oil, or just to eat. I use it for baking. I put the peeled and cored apples in the slow cooker with cinnamon and all spice, and once really soft (4 hours) mash them, let cool, and then freeze.
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Final check-in: no bread bought and lots of bread and bread-like items made. I’m making more bread this weekend, so I think I’m more in the habit of doing so now; perhaps I will challenge myself to only have sandwiches for lunch if I’ve made my own bread for it.
We also have just under $30 left in our food budget, woo!
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Hey folks, I’m doing an OMD livestream (complete with the infamous vegan donuts) starting NOW
and we’re gonna talk about Snackuary and more
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Final Check In:
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I’m sort of prepping lunches for the work week, this will still require refining. Leftovers are a better option if I’m able to cook at home during the week, which is not always possible.
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I have dried mangos at work that I munch on here and there, bought an apple for this upcoming week, ate a bunch of snow peas (“used as a vegetable,” technically a fruit) in the final week. Having to be very intentional. Bought a bunch of blueberries, too.
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Sadly I feel that this goal isn’t entirely attainable with my living situation, so I’m going halfsies. Buying salad kits, veggie and fungal based alt meats, curry summer sauces, some pasta and pasta sauces. Ingredients to be cooked/assembled, not to unwrap
nuke eat. -
Forget this one, I’m too exhausted to try too hard here and it went out the window early on in the month.
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Week 3/4 Update/Final Update!
So work was crazy for the two of us and I managed to throw out my neck & shoulder, so I suck at replying and updating you all on weeks 3 and 4 
Week 3
Small Successes!
- Made smoothies most mornings or took a Kodiak Cakes power waffle with me to work.
- Ate our ordered SunBaskets
- Ate out once, as we had a board retreat with the non-profit I co-chair a young professionals board with (which included food/snacks/drinks, but did pay for the hotel room so…wash in
?) - Got the SO to get active and go to Pilates with me… under promise of Sushi (our one time eating out) and puppies.
- Continued to do testing at work, so lunch cost was greatly reduced/need to bring lunch was reduced (it’s expected that we participate
) - We did end up making a recipe that required us to make cashew cream. I wish we had used more broth (we used all of what we had in the pantry + dipped into the vegan better than bullion, but still that wasn’t enough )
Could have done better…
- Need to redo the fridge inventory! We also need to clean out the fridge of old greens while we’re doing so.
- Sign up for our CSA again this year. $900 isn’t a bad deal for 9 months of veggies. Hopefully that will save us in cost over the long run. We just have to be diligent in using the veggies we do get.
- Meal prepping when things get tough/busy.
Week 4 Update
Could’ve Done Better…
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Because of how busy work was this week, I ordered more salads for lunch. Evergreens does a prepay of $25 and you can eat down the money as you go. So it’s a nice backup.
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Because the SO and I both had deadlines, we ended up eating out or getting takeaway 3x this week. We did eat a SunBasket or two, but this was definitely more than we wanted to.
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We ended up spending more money than we had intended at the grocery store on ginger ale, mashed potatoes, and other bland foods, as both of us have been feeling crappy and these seem to help us at least keep something down when we’re sick.
Small Successes!
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I didn’t stop at a Starbucks or go to a coffee joint this week! I actually haven’t been in a few weeks, but thinking back on this, I’ve been trying to get through the tea that we already have in the house. I’ve also been utilizing loose leaf I have at work and our free coffee stand for more caffeinated beverages over going elsewhere to get more.
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I used up all of the blueberry muffin mix in the house to make blueberry citrus loafs and blueberry muffins. These and cashew vanilla yogurt will make excellent breakfasts (by far my hardest to actually meal prep) this week!
Goals for the First Week of February (because we want to keep going on this challenge)!
- Finish the last two SunBaskets from last week.
- Inventory and clean the fridge
- Eat at home most nights (meal prep to not go for takeaway or eating out in a pinch)
Sorry for the delayed post! It’s been fun to see everyone’s journey and what everyone’s created with their foods they’re wanting to get rid of!
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Final update: Shadowy One scored with 3x400g bricks of cheddar marked down to $2 each, best before Feb 7.
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REMINDER! I am shipping these stickers this week. Please fill in your info if you want one.
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Hey folks! The March Challenge is Live!
This challenge is focused on time tracking!
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