There's just too much to share here about the conference. You'll just have to check it out for yourself.
I'm here to share one challenge with you that we as a family have undertaken. It feels so right. Dani challenged the group in L.A. to look in their pantries and see all the food going stale and challenging people to eat from their pantries. The goal, of course, is to save money. We're all for that and all felt convicted about the wasteful way of our old habits.
My additional challenge, or criteria, if you will, was that I have joined Weightwatchers and am always concerned about the nutritional content of our meals. I'm down 14 pounds and don't want to lose ground just because we're being frugal.
About me ... I love to cook. I take great pleasure in planning elaborate Christmas dinners with all the trimmings, in different themes every Christmas. Making the grocery list, planning the decorations, setting a decorated theme table - I just love it! It sure isn't cheap though but Christmas is a time for special meals with family and friends, and time to make tender memories for the years to come. I usually start dreaming and planning Christmas in early November. It's a truly creative process and it takes time. I find cooking creative. I'm not sure about you.
The rest of the year I know we can do better at saving money and not living in excess. That's why I'm very excited about this challenge and what it will mean for our family, our health/diet and our finances.
Today was Day 2. I had the blog idea today...one day late. So, let me tell you about yesterday's meals.
Day 1 - February 1, 2011
Breakfast for my husband consisted of cereal in the pantry. Here's a picture of our pantry cupboard:
I confess that we have at least 3 boxes of prepackaged cereal in our kitchen pantry slowly going stale. His first commitment was to eat the cereal until it's gone. No more buying new cereal. For me, I take some dry oatmeal to work and add some 1% milk that I've stocked the fridge at work with. Cost out of pocket for breakfast: zero. What it could have cost? $10 easily if I had stopped for a specialty coffee at Starbucks and grabbed either a muffin or one of their yogurt parfaits. I gave up buying coffee en route to work over 2 years ago and I'm so much the richer for it. It's a small sacrifice to have that extra $200 a month in my purse.
Lunch cost me money because I wasn't prepared. I was in a hurry in the morning and forgot to grab my lunch out of the fridge. However for about $5.00 I enjoyed a healthy lo-fat Subway sandwich. It was a wiser choice than the $15.00 high calorie salad at my favourite restaurant.
For dinner I started the challenge in earnest. I had frozen chicken breasts in the freezer, soup mix (which I don't even remember buying) chicken stock in the pantry and some celery and onions and carrots in the fridge. Sounds like soup doesn't it? And that's exactly what I made I also had some lo-fat cheddar cheese in the fridge and whipped up some cheddar cheese scones which were amazing (not so humble eh?). The famiily were over the moon with this 'comfort food' meal and I felt satisfied that I hadn't spent a dime but just used what I had on hand. Day 1 ~ success and contentment.
Let's see how day 2 goes.
Mavis
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