Hello all, so I tried to do a no spend month for the first time this year. You know how all the youtubers say hey I’m not going to spend anything on groceries for the month of January. Now don’t get me wrong there are some that give themselves a small amount to get fresh food or dairy. Let me tell you this was NOT easy for me.

So let me tell you I went into this month with the best of intentions. I have watched video after video on Youtube (Three Rivers Homestead – she started this challenge and many have followed) for years and I’m like I can do that. We have plenty of food that we probably need to go through, you know that package of hamburger at the bottom of you freezer that you forgot you had.

How did I prepare?

I was excited and prepared beforehand. What do I mean by that you ask, well I inventoried everything (using the pantry check app) in my fridge freezer and my deep freezer. Then I took a visual inventory of the fridge and cupboards. I wanted to make sure I knew what I had to use. That prepared my to start working out what meals I could make with what we had. I was on a roll and all set to go.

How did it go?

It started out great and we were doing amazing. It didn’t even feel like we were on a no spend month, but then half way through week 3 it occurred to me that I am not an adventurous chef. In our house we tend to be creatures of habit.

The first thing we ran out of was ground meat (hamburger or turkey), that’s okay we can do without it. Chicken fajitas, chicken quesadillas, chicken and dumplings, chicken stew … you can only eat so much chicken before you get tired of it. We are not big fish eaters (although I did learn from this that my kids LOVE fresh fish versus the frozen fish sticks). Homemade pizza was getting old and I honestly started running out of things that I wanted to make.

I also have to compete with the fact that my husband came from a family that always ate meat and potatoes meals. A chef salad or taco salad is not a full meal in his mind (sometimes I can get him to go with it, but not often). I try to make different things but I need to make sure that it feels like a substantial meal. Not only do I have my husband and I’s preference to work with, but I have 4 children at home that also have some food aversions. Don’t get me wrong I only cook one meal and if they don’t like what I make then they can make themselves something else. However with that said I would prefer to have us all eat the same meal.

Unfortunately I did not have a successful no spend month – I ended up back at the store on week 4 of the challenge. I still was able to save 3/4 of our normal grocery budget and I did learn some things from trying to do the no-spend month.

What did I learn????

Well I learned that we don’t like rice-a-roni, hamburger helper, and even boxed macaroni and cheese isn’t very good anymore. SO it seems that we will begin to transition out of the boxed processed items to more fresh item. I know I am behind on making this revelation, but sometimes I need convenience in my life. Convenient or not if it just sits in cupboard and we don’t ever eat it then that is a major waste. It’s a waste of food, money and my time to actually pick it up at the store.

Second thing I learned was I prefer fresh potatoes versus canned potatoes or bagged potato flakes. I used to open a can of whole potatoes; and cut them up and fry them up in butter with salt, pepper and other seasonings; and we would enjoy them, but not anymore. Same thing with the bagged potatoes, we used to love them, but again they just don’t taste good anymore. From now on I will be sure to keep red or yellow skin (our favorites) potatoes on hand in our house.

Junk food is not as important to us as I thought it was. We always have snacks (chips, crackers, cookies, etc) in the house at all times, except when we ran out of the junk it really wasn’t missed. And honestly I even found some of the junk food was even left because it’s not anyone’s “favorite”. No worries it will get eaten just slower than the rest. Now I know that I don’t need to have junk food on our grocery list very often.

Trying new recipes can be fun and yummy. I found a copy cat recipe for Qdoba chicken rice bowls. It was a hit with each and every one of our family. That is amazing! So I need to be more willing to try new things instead of settling with the quid pro quo. I know I can do this!!!

Lastly I have learned that I and my family really do prefer items that are made from scratch. Homemade bread, cookies, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, etc are actually asked for over the processed junk I can buy at the store. That means this summer the garden will have more: tomatoes (pizza sauce, salsa, tomato sauce, tomato juice, etc), spicy peppers (for salsa, cowboy candy, taco sauce, etc), pumpkins (pureed for bread, pie, etc), potatoes, carrots and who knows what else we will add.

With all that said and done I may not have made it through the no spend month “successfully” in some people’s opinion but I think it absolutely was a SUCCESS. Anything I can learn and grow from I count as a success. I definitely will try this again. Let me know have you ever tried a no spend month? What did you learn? Would you do it again?