The 6-Month No Grocery Buying Self Challenge

A portion of my pantry on September 6th:

 There’s a lot you don’t see there including dried beans and grains stored in a different location, a closet full of store bought items stocked when they were on sale, 42 quarts of home-canned potatoes that are being stored in our bedroom closet, and of course the freezers.  We have a quarter of a local cow on order and it should be filling our freezer in the next couple of weeks, we also bought a case of local chickens and a five gallon bucket of chicken feet recently.  There will still be some more preserving in the coming weeks, too: most specifically apples, beets, onions, carrots, pumpkins, and tomatoes.   I’m guess I’m saying that I’ve taken my pantry stocking very seriously this year.  It’s a good feeling, I don’t mind saying.

I’ve been thinking about our pantry and my own cooking skills alot in the last few weeks and had decided that I wanted to really see what my pantry and I are made of, when Wednesday night Jeff mentioned the stocked pantry and our lack of need to buy anything else for a while.  I had been toying with a self-challenge of no grocery buying for six months, it was just an idea that would creep in an out of my brain with nothing concrete in mind.  However, when Jeff mentioned the stocked pantry, the idea and a concrete plan just came pouring forth.  When I was done chattering on about this idea, he was completely on board. 

So here’s what we’ve decided to do: From October 1st through March 31st we will not purchase any groceries beyond these exceptions: coffee, milk, eggs, and butter. 

• Coffee because I’m cranky without it and honestly I’m completely unwilling to give it up at this point in my life.  We will continue to buy whole bean, locally-roasted, fair trade coffee during the six-month challenge and beyond (like until the day the world goes mad and I just can’t possibly get it anymore).
• Milk – We don’t drink a ton of milk, but I like it in my coffee and for occasional baking and yogurt making.  I might start making cheese too (when the supply in the freezer vanishes, notice cheese isn’t on the exception list) so milk will be a necessary purchase.
• Eggs – I’m looking for someone locally to barter eggs with me, but I haven’t found anyone just yet.  I will continue to buy local free-range eggs until a barter opportunity presents itself. 
• Butter is a necessary thing in this baker’s house, so I’ll make an exception to buy butter if and when necessary.  I do have a fair amount of butter stored in the freezer – I always stock up when it goes on sale, but I don’t know that I’ll have enough for six-months that include the holiday baking months.

A note: We have ordered but not paid for our beef and Thanksgiving turkey, obviously we’ll be paying for those during the six-month challenge.  I’m not counting them as exceptions or purchases because they were ordered over a month ago.

Goals for this Self-Challenge:

1. To stretch my cooking skills and my ability to use it up and make do.  I think its time to see just how proficient I can be in using up what we have on hand and test my ability to be self-sufficient.  Notice that I’m not allowing myself any special purchases even for holiday baking, which should hopefully cause me to get creative in that department.  I do hope that I stretch my skills beyond making 14 different soups that I rotate throughout the six months – I’m sure I will but that’s a mild fear I’m facing.  
2. We also hope to save some serious money during this challenge, as I can be a little indulgent in the grocery purchases because we can “afford” it.  We’re having an additional garage / storage shed built here at Two Frog Home.  We priced it out and got a bid from a local contractor for cheaper than we can buy just the material ourselves (I don’t know how he can do it so cheap, but he has good references).  I can’t believe we need it but the space we originally used for a storage shed has been completely taken over by wood storage for our winter heating.  We have the money to pay cash but would like to build that back up quickly and also save money to have electricity and potentially water added to this new building next year.
3. I hope to build a little local food community through this challenge.  I will continue to look for bartering opportunities and see what happens.  I’m also toying with the idea of starting a little simplicity circle to tackle projects like this and others together – though in smaller chunks, like 1 month…

Staying Accountable:  I plan on reporting my progress here at Two Frog Home.  I hope to share moments of frustration (because I’m sure there will be some) as well as moments of success.  I will share recipes if and when and I come up with something worth sharing. 

One last note:  We don’t plan on doing any serious stocking up / purchasing of groceries in the next few weeks before the challenge “officially” starts, more than anything we just wanted to give ourselves a concrete time frame, hence the October 1st start date.