$20 A Week Challenge
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Bryan and I are diligently trying to pay off student loan debt. As I was making my grocery list for the week I started thinking about all the frozen ingredients we have and the pantry full of food that we have from stuff I have stocked up on... and then the $20 challenge was born.
For the next six weeks, I am going to try stick to $20 in groceries for the week.
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I inventoried my pantry and freezer and have a list of 30 plus meals with all of the ingredients already in my home. There are things in my freezer that need to be eaten anyways. Weekly, I will need to go get fresh produce, milk and bread, but I think that it is totally attainable with $20.
I'm also going to go back to cloth diapering Rhett, which I really don't mind, but disposables are just so much more convenient. I'm also going to keep pureeing what we are eating for him to eat instead of buying expensive baby food. We are not going to eat out. We have two gift cards for meals out that we can use during this time and I have a $75 gift card to Amazon to help if we run out of paper goods, etc.
And at the end of the 6 weeks we are going to hopefully have $1000+ to throw at the student loans.
I'll be doing weekly updates about what I bought with my $20. I'll also be jotting down each time we want to buy something and don't so I can total that up in the end. If I can stick to the $20 a week, I will be saving over $100 a week in just groceries. I'll also be drinking my coffee at home and skipping my beloved Sonic trips, that will save at LEAST $15/wk.
Week 1 starts today and is already proving to be interesting, we are almost out of dog food but I am not going to let that destroy my plan! I am waiting for the new Aldi ad to come out to go grocery shopping on Wednesday to hopefully save on some produce so you can expect my first update then! I'll also be posting some "pantry" recipes of things you can make with ingredients most people have on hand.
Anyone want to join me in doing some spring cleaning and saving some money?
I am going to attempt this! I love reading your blog! My husband hunts so we have a ton of ground deer meat that we should use at home, but I tend to pick up things a lot bc we have a 5 mth old and it's just easier not to worry about dinner! Im gonna try to hopefully write down all of my expenditures and only use what we have on hand this week! I love all your money saving tips!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea! From time to time I inventory our freezer and pantry (and leave it out where I can see it). It helps things not die a slow and sad (and wasteful!) death in the pantry/freezer! I don't think we could do $20 a week at all (and that's with a freezer full of meals!) but I do need to be more mindful. I set our budget on our kitchen counter stapled to a ziploc bag where we keep our receipts. The visual is super helpful! (and gets put away when company comes over! ;)
ReplyDeleteVery impressive! I know here in Michigan it would be impossible for me to buy milk, bread and fresh produce that my family normally buys for $20 but I'll be excited to see how you do it. Good luck as in the end that's a huge amount of cash to knock down that loan-woot woot!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Very motivating. The cloth diapering thing shows you are serious!!
ReplyDeleteGood ideas! You should do a post on how you keep your pantry stocked.
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