Boost Your Budget Pantry Challenge – Week Five

 This is the last update for the Boost Your Budget Pantry Challenge series and I'm a little sad, but excited to tell you about our progress!!

I am joining Shopper Strategy, Pary Moppins, The Frugalista Chick, Matter of Cents, Coupon Pals, Thrifty Divas, Frugal Mom of Two, How About Free, TheItMom.com, All The World Is Art, Sweeping The USA, Mommies Point of View, Mama’s Money Tree, Crunchy Frugalista, Fab Find Foodie, Making Time For Mommy, Adventures in Coupons, Full Price? NEVER!, The Frugal Navy Wife, Generations of Savings and A Savings WOW! and we’d love it if you’d join us as well.

Here's the plan: 

During January we plan to challenge ourselves to eat from our pantries – to use up all that excess food sitting in the back of the cupboards, hiding in the refrigerator door, in the stockpile and from out of the freezer – and limit our shopping to as little as possible. This is not a “no spend” month, this is a “make do with what you have on hand and spend as little as possible” month. 

Everybody’s personal goals will be different and we can each set our own rules – the point is merely to challenge ourselves and start off the new year with a boost to our budgets! We’re also giving away a $25 Coupon Clutch gift certificate each week to one participant who either leaves a link to a challenge post or a comment about their challenge goals. Won’t you join us?

Last week's winner of the Coupon Clutch gift certificate was Danielle from The Frugal Navy Wife!!

I started with quite a different goal than most of my other cohosts as I had started January with no food in my pantry or fridge and have set a goal of only spending $400 (rather than $500) on groceries and attempting to build a stockpile this month and ongoing.

I am so super-stoked to tell you that we came in under budget!! I thought for sure that we had gone over, but I just did the figures (if I didn't miss anything) and we spent $395.30!!

I'm going to follow the advice over at Shopper Strategy and download Angela’s new updated version of the savings tracker spreadsheet so I can keep better track!! 

We still ate out at Outback Steakhouse on Thursday after our weigh-in ($25, cheaper this week!!) and that was our only dining out for the week. We were able to avoid Chuck E. Cheese this week, but had to buy a fish instead. This week, it's possible that the boy expects CEC though…

Of course, we ate dinner at my dad's on Sunday as usual, but didn't come home with anything this week. Oh yeah, do you guys remember that Tur-duc-hen from early on in the challenge? We finally ate it!! I liked most of it, but I think it was the duck that had a weird taste so I slipped my pieces to the dog. 

Hubby is excited to help plan the shopping trips this week because I get paid again on Wednesday (new ads with coupon match-ups ) and he's been saving us about 50% each trip!!

How are you doing on your pantry challenge goals this week?  Remember to leave a link to your post or comment below about your progress in the pantry challenge and you’ll be entered to win a $25 Coupon Clutch gift certificate. One participant who either leaves a link to a challenge post or a comment about their challenge progress will win each week!

(Bloggers: if you wish to join us, we'll have a linky each week where you can link to your challenge posts.  The linky will appear on the blogs of all of the co-hosts so your post will get quite a bit of exposure!)