December Challenge

I am getting SO excited for Christmas this year. For the first time in years, we're not traveling. We're not hosting family from out of town for two weeks. Everyone is happy and healthy and there's no anxiety about putting together a SUPER FUN, VERY EXCITING holiday. 
For the first time, It doesn't have to be a Christmas to make us forget who's missing, or a Christmas to help us forget how to be sad or twinged with bereavement.
It's like I've been given the gift of a holiday unmarred by anniversaries or time.

For the first time, this is just Christmas.

More on all of this later, but my reason for posting is to tell you about this thing that I'm doing. And I know it's halfway through December and I'm sharing it with you two weeks late, but I'm so pleased with how things are turning out I think I might do it for January too, mostly because I am a glutton for punishment but also because I could do a better job of tracking things and posting them (that's the idea, anyway).

Given the excesses in all areas of one's life around this time, I have decided to do a how-cheap-can-you-eat-for-a-month month. I thought it might be interesting to do it during a month where you seem to cook and bake for everyone, a time where mixers are pulled out of their nooks and things get really busy in the kitchen.

The goal is $150 per person for the whole month, so $300 for the two of us and whomever else we end up feeding. I've also thrown in an extra $10 for a bag of sugar and a stick of butter to account for holiday baking, but that's it. (This just made it easier to break down to a day-today since December has 31 days.)

So, the budget is $310 for all meals, snacks, potlucks, holiday baking and company. It works out to $5 per person, per day. We shop frugally, but have a lot of company and a taste for fancy cheeses and artisanal vinegars, so this is way more than half of our usual 'budget'.



Here are some more details about the parameters and full disclosures, and an update on how things are going:

1) We're both in kind of a cutting/maintaining phase. As a result, dinner has to be low carb and can't really involve boiling pasta and opening a can of sauce. Lots of vegetables and more expensive, lean proteins and less of cheap carbohydrates, unfortunately. (-)

2) We have a lot of stuff in the deep freeze, which is half the reason why I wanted to do this anyway. 4 or 5 roast chickens, some tamales, ground turkey, frozen vegetables, and chicken stock. Also our pantry is stocked with pasta, many kinds of flour, canned tomatoes ready for making sauce, trail mix and granola bars that i've stocked up on from back-to-school sales in august/september. This makes lunches a little cheaper since i'm not factoring in the cost of something i bought 2 months ago (+)

3) there's no costco over-supply of coffee, bacon, butter, olive oil or parmesan, which are my staples. When they run out, buying them will create an overage or supply for the following month even though i'm not splitting the cost in half to reflect that i'm only consuming half the product for the month (i've completely overthought this). This may not seem like a big deal, but if i bought just those 5 ingredients at costco, even though they are much cheaper to buy in bulk than run to the grocery store for smaller or individual versions, that still comes to about $70, which makes me wince. I figure that the couponing i do for everyday stuff kind of balances this out (-)


4) Because i've bought bulk herbs and spices from my favorite (and highest quality, in my opinion) online place, I am awash in great, fresh seasoning that i consider a bonus because i can make spice pastes and things for cheaper cuts of meat without making it feel like i'm eating poor people food.
I also have a reduced schedule for the rest of the month until we leave for winter break, so i've got extra time on my hands to do more involved recipes that save money but take longer. (+)

5) I have access to an international market that specializes in hispanic food (Winchester Farmer's Market) and a produce place (Easy-way) that has fresh produce staples as well as sells markdown produce that makes chicken stock (and subsequent soups) really cheap, bringing down the total for the month. (+)


It being almost the middle of the month, we're doing pretty good. We've spent just over $150 and have a pretty amazingly stocked fridge and only need to restock some basic items until the weekend. This extreme reduction month requires a LOT of planning and enough extra work to perhaps make it illogical to do every day for the entire year, but it's not SO much that you can't bring your monthly total down significantly once you get in the routine.

I'll take a picture this week of my menu planner with my item-by-item totals and maybe post a couple of recipes of cheap stuff we're eating. Yesterday was turkey burgers, carrot fries, and stuffed mushrooms and worked out to about $6.40 for both of us, including breakfast and lunch.