Thursday, August 19, 2010



One of my favorite things about the stay-at-home mom job 
is the household management. 
I actually love budgeting our spending for each month:
looking for great deals, going to the grocery store,
finding kid-friendly activities that don't break the bank.

And in order to keep my job from feeling stale 
(although the way Landon's changing everyday I doubt it really could)
I enjoy giving myself new challenges.

Its kinda silly sometimes. 
But I like to keep things at home interesting, so I'll do activities like
"eat out the pantry for as long as we can" or 
"how many different breakfasts can I made this week", 
or "how fast can I clean the bathroom".  

Lately I've been really discouraged by our overconsumption of unnecessary grocery store items. I feel as though Landon has been eating more packaged foods than necessary, and not nearly as many veggies as he should. 
And our grocery bill has been outrageously high.

So I am embarking on a new challenge 
and inviting you all to follow (or join!) along.

While I would love to do as Barbara Kingsolver, 
and eat completely from our backyard, it just isn't feasible.
Instead our diet will be determined by the Farmer's Market.

Here's the plan:

Buy as much as I want at the Farmer's Market on fresh fruits, veggies, and a smattering of other goodies. 

Keep out grocery store list to ten items.
8 permanent items
and 2 rotating items that change per week.

(If you want to join along consider doing 3 rotating items so you can include more protein. We already have a freezer full of organic, grass-fed beef and fish so we don't need to buy as much.)


The Grocery Store List

1. Milk
2. Coffee
3. Yogurt
4. Butter
5. Cheese
6. Cheerios (Landon would shrivel up and die without them)
7. Sugar
8. Flour (& yeast. I bake a lot and yeast alone seems too little to take up an entire spot)
9. Open
10. Open

I know I am totally weird.

But I really want to give this a try.
I have no idea how realistic it is but I'll let you know.
I'm going to see how long I can last.
The most difficult part will be entertaining and not wanting to serve guests creamed corn with green salad and plums. 
At least I live in California where the markets are flush with produce. 

4 comments:

Jess Roy said...

Sounds like an awesome idea! Very inspiring...up here there's endless fruit, but come winter it's like all the produce goes into hiding...

We've been getting all of our veggies from a friend's amazing garden, and thankfully able to pick a bunch of fruit from the orchards...but after October...it's on to plan B. :)

By the way - Landon is HUGE! And cute as ever!

Unknown said...

I think this is a great idea! I think I may follow along with you!
~Alisa
www.alisasgarden.blogspot.com

Tim and Debra said...

I am currently working on the "eat everything out of the pantry before I buy anything else phase." All fine and good until I realized we had a can of sardines in the pantry. Where did those come from?!

Bethany said...

i think i am going to try a combination of the eat everything out of the pantry and 10 item grocery list. we have way too much food to keep buying so much more every week. this should be fun!

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