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“We have no food in the house.”
“There is NOTHING to eat here”
“I don’t know what to make for dinner.”
You say as you stare into a cabinet full of random ingredients.
Do any of those sound familiar to you?
You have a full cabinet, fridge, and freezer but you have zero inspiration for meals, so you can’t see any food to eat.
We have all been there. If you are anything like me, you stare at the cabinet for so long that you decide to just order takeout because you can’t possibly figure out something to cook from the random bag of rice, some seasonings, and a can of soup in the cabinet.
When I first read the term “pantry challenge” from another blogger, I wasn’t totally convinced. I grew up in a household that always had ingredients but never had food. The cabinets were always full. There was always something, but in my mind, there were never things I could make in five minutes. And as I got older, that became the standard of “food in the house” for me.
I started doing pantry challenges to help pay off debt. It was one of the 15 things I did to pay off $15,000 in debt in a year! They also became a part of my no spend challenges! If they helped me, I knew they would be helpful to you too!
What Is a Pantry Challenge?
A pantry challenge is a focused time when you use up what you have before buying more food. A true pantry challenge would be not grocery shopping at all for a period of time and forcing yourself to use what you already have on hand. Pantry challenges are a great way to clear out groceries, save a little money, and use up what you have in your pantry before it expires. It allows you to get creative and try new recipes that you maybe wouldn’t try without it. Some of my favorite meals have come from getting creative to use up what I have on hand.
You can go for a week, two weeks, or a month. Most of the length of your challenge will depend on the size of your pantry and how many mouths you are feeding. You can also give yourself a limited budget every week to shop. This small budget for the pantry challenge is for things that expire quickly like fresh produce, milk, and eggs or things that you really can’t go without (coffee).
The Benefits of a Pantry Challenge:
Less food waste
When you take inventory of your kitchen, you may find items that are close to expiring. These can be items that are first on your list to use up before they expire. It also allows you to use up things that you have instead of going out to buy more! I have a blog post coming soon about why I love the idea of Zero Food Waste. It also challenges you to use those random ingredients that you bought for one meal or didn’t use.
Saving money
Because you don’t have to go buy more food, you are saving money because you are using things you already bought. You can challenge yourself to either spend none or very little money out of your grocery budget for the chosen amount of time. I always try to push myself to go at least 2 weeks for a good pantry challenge!
Try new recipes
I personally LOVE trying new recipes. I will search Pinterest for inspiration for new meals. This also allows me to try new ways of cooking things! I have my stovetop, oven, Crockpot, instant pot, and air fryer for kitchen appliances. So if I can find an easier way to make a favorite, you better believe I am going to try every recipe in each appliance. We recently started using E-Meals as well and they give us seven really great new recipes a week! If you sign up for E-Meals, you can get $10 off!
There are so many more benefits to doing a pantry challenge.
All of these really just depend on your household and your goals with the challenge. A great time to do a pantry challenge is right before vacation to use up anything that would expire while you are gone. I did a HUGE pantry challenge right before I moved last time and I still felt like I moved quite a bit of food. Recently, we did a three day getaway and spent our regular grocery budget on snacks and food for the hotel. When we got back, we decided to get creative until the next payday and use up what we had. It actually turned into a ton of fun!
Here is a step-by-step guide to a successful pantry challenge!
1) Set a goal for your pantry challenge.
I believe every challenge of any kind should start with a good goal or a “why” to it. If you were going to start a new fitness routine, you would start with a good goal, why not do this for your household?
A few questions to ask yourself can include some of the following. What do you want the outcome to be?
Here are a few great goal ideas:
- Spend XX amount on groceries this month
- Save money on groceries early in the month to be able to spend a little extra on a holiday
- Clean out the fridge before vacation/moving.
- Have less food in the fridge/freezer
- Make room in the pantry/fridge/freezer for other foods.
- Use up the last of XX amount of items in the house.
I usually set a goal to spend less than $10-25 a week. This forces me to really use what I have on hand! I suggest that if you are setting a money goal, then set a purpose for the rest of your grocery budget.
If your goal is to spend less than $100 and your normal grocery budget is $300, set a fun goal for the rest of the $200. This goal can be to go to debt or savings, but it can also be to go on a really nice dinner date. It could be a new kitchen appliance that you have been eyeing. It could be a fun family outing! When you set a reason for saving the money, you are more likely to remember that goal when you are tempted to overspend.
How long do you want to keep this challenge going? I have done them for a week with no grocery budget at all. Or one for two weeks with half of our regular grocery budget. I would say most pantry challenges can go up to a month before there needs to be major grocery shopping done! Obviously, this depends on the size of your family and your stockpile. If you are hunters or farmers/ranchers, you are likely to have more of a stockpile than most. If you have a deep freeze or an extra fridge, this may help you last longer in this challenge. Pick a time frame that will push you a little bit outside of your comfort zone! If you have never done one before, start with a week of no grocery shopping.
2) Take a FULL inventory of your food.
Go through absolutely everything and make a list. I recommend using a marker board that will hang on the side of the fridge, but a piece of paper works too! I separate everything by location. This can include a pantry, fridge, freezer, extra fridges/freezers.
I am not going to sugarcoat this. The first time you do this, it will be HARD and a little time consuming. I recommend setting aside at least half an hour for this. Now is the time to check expiration dates as well as quantity of the items in your pantry. The first time I actually wrote everything down with my last roommates, we were shocked at the amount of food that we had just sitting in the pantry.
The second time will not be as hard. By then, you will have a good idea of what you have on hand. On the fourth time, it will only take you 10-15 minutes to go through it. Now that I have been doing this for a while, I can just add and subtract things from my list. I always have a decent idea of what we have on hand. After doing it for a few months, I don’t have to rewrite my list every single time after doing this for months because I always keep a running list of what I have on hand. I talk more about taking inventory of your pantry, fridge, and freezer in my Marker Board Meal Plan blog post.
3) List every possible meal from your inventory.
This is seriously the key to this challenge. List out every possible combination of items that you can make. Brainstorm a list of meals that you eat regularly. I actually have a typed list of all of the meals that we eat regularly that I keep to do my meal planning. Using an app like Supercook can be extremely helpful to help you find ways to use those ingredients! You can use resources like Pinterest and Supercook to search for recipes for things you already have!
Another tip for this is to get the rest of the household around the table to help with this list. They might have some input on meals and it won’t feel as hard to get them on board with the meal plan! You can ask them what they want and try to work it into the plan. You don’t have to follow recipes perfectly. If a recipe calls for ricotta, you can google substitutes for ricotta and usually come up with good ideas.
I would challenge you to sit down two different times to look at the lists. Come up with as many ideas as you can without worrying if they sound good right now. There may be a few meals on your list that you just need one or two items for! Make a list of those meals too.
4) Meal Plan to use everything up
This does get a little tricky, but the goal is to create a meal plan that works for you and your family. This is the part that you really have to know your strengths and weaknesses. If you are on the go people or get home late, I would encourage you to stick to 5 ingredients or less or 30 minute or fewer recipes. Don’t try to make a Thanksgiving dinner every single night. If you are a stay-at-home or work-from-home household, you can choose meals that maybe take a bit longer or need to go into the CrockPot at lunchtime. Pick meals that you are excited about.
If you are anything like my household, you have some random ingredients that you needed for a recipe and didn’t need the whole jar. This is the time to get rid of things like that. For example, we made a wing sauce with brown mustard, but haven’t used it for anything since. I would search for a recipe to use that up because it isn’t an ingredient that I would replace once it is gone.
Plan for easy or crockpot meals on busier days if you can. I try to put certain meals on the calendar so I can see, in plain sight, that we have enough food. I recommend keeping your list up on the side of your fridge so you are reminded that there is food at home.
5) Decide which things you won’t go without.
I would encourage you to step outside your comfort zone with your “staples” and see how long you can go without some of your usual items. That being said, coffee is a staple that I will NOT “go without,” and I buy it once a month. It is in my pantry challenge budget. Fresh fruits and veggies are important so try to buy what your family will actually eat during this challenge. This
If you do shop, it should be with a very small list. There may be a few meals on your list that you just need one or two items for! These ingredients and your fresh ingredients should really be the only things on your list.
7) Don’t go to replace EVERYTHING
This is really the key to your pantry challenge being worth it. Don’t go spend double your normal grocery budget replacing everything. Use up those random ingredients that you don’t necessarily need to replace. Figure out exactly what you need for the next shopping period and stick to your budget. There are a lot of things that you can replace slowly after your challenge. Your cabinets should look pretty bare, but you don’t need to go buy every single item that you used up.
There are two adults and a baby in our house. This is what our kitchen looked like after a week of a pantry challenge recently. We probably could have gone a few more meals from what is pictured here, but we were starting to run low on basics breakfast foods. We could have gotten away with eating oatmeal, cereal, or toast for a few more days.
I have found that when there is a good sale on items I use regularly, I will buy one or two extras for the pantry or freezer. Keep an eye on your sales ads for the next few weeks to slowly rebuild a little bit of a stockpile. I have found that with sales and rebuilding my pantry, I can usually do a challenge every 3-4 months. Sometimes I have the best intentions of making a meal, and then I just never get it on my meal plan.
A Few Quick Tips For Success
- Don’t be afraid to step outside of your normal meals. Try something new!
- Give yourself some grace if not every meal tastes like 5-star dining
- Be creative and have fun.
- Get the family involved.
- Keep meals simple.
- Use up the ingredients that are close to expiring or have been in the pantry for a while
- Google substitutes for ingredients you don’t have for a recipe
If you need a few more grocery savings tips, here are a few other blog posts you might like:
- How Marker Board Meal Planning Saves Me a TON of Money
- 13 Things to Do To Avoid Fast Food
- 6 Foods To Keep at Home To Keep you From Eating Out
- How This Single Millennial Spends Less Than $200 on Food Per Month
- My #1 Grocery Money Savings Trick
- Ultimate Food Savings Guide
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