It's a Wrap!

It's hard to believe my 44-day experiment has come to an end. I apologize for being absent the last several days. Due to a rash of holiday parties and eating out, the year ended with my not having to cook a major meal for the past several days (and over budget by about $100 for the month).

I achieved my primary goal, which was to eat down the food in my pantry and refrigerators/freezers. The most visible difference is in my freezers. This is the outside freezer which, you may recall from Day 1, started this whole adventure.

The kitchen freezer is much more spacious and well-lit now that the lightbulb is not completely walled off. The photo doesn't really do it justice - I now have a single layer of food rather than stacks of plastic bags and containers.

Since everything in my pantry and garage is organized in plastic containers, you can't really tell that the quantities have been reduced so I am not posting pictures of those areas but quite a bit of food has been used up there as well.

What did I learn?
My most unexpected lesson was that buying groceries willy nilly really fed into my propensity to shop. When I stopped going to the grocery store everyday, it also curbed my desire to run to the store (any store) any time I felt like I wanted or "needed" something. From a household budgeting perspective, I finished out the month a few hundred dollars in the black, despite buying Christmas presents and being over my grocery allotment. WOO HOO!!

I did not realize how much I would love being able to see what all I have without having to dig through a ton of stuff. I am determined to keep my food stores at their current level, which means no more buying dozens of items simply because they are on sale. This also makes it easier to ensure we have completely consumed what we have on hand before buying more, a root cause of why I accumulated so much food in the first place.

Towards the end though, my restricted budget really dampened my enthusiasm for cooking. The last couple of weeks, I found myself thumbing longingly through my cookbooks, wishing I could try something new. I am looking forward to cooking again, starting with tonight's dinner. But, I am loathe to fall back into the habit of running to the grocery store everyday and so I will limit my trying of new recipes (and therefore the need to shop) to once or twice a week.

The most surprising food-discoveries were a giant bag of gourmet cheeses (emmenthal, gruyére, havarti, chevré etc) and numerous prime rib roasts. I had no idea I had purchased so many of these expensive food items and am looking forward to enjoying them over the next several weeks.

What's Next?
As I mentioned on Day 26, I've been eating a little TOO well these last several weeks and therefore have decided to focus my efforts on eating healthy. The Pantry Shopper will be back in a few days with a whole new plan and adventure!