I rencently brought this book and have read most of it, we are a family of five, who has successfully done this?It all seems a bit daunting
gardie,
Jun 12, 6:27am
I've done it - and went two weeks spending less that $21.00.It was great and made me think really hard about what we were eating - trying lots of different things and also very aware of how much I would have spent to buy something that we need.Going through the pantry and freezer was a big job but I just crossed off things as I used them.We do have our own veggie garden which is a savings and I baked our own bread from store cupboard ingredients.If definately can be done and man - what an achievement.You will be so proud of yourself jwn1 once you do it and will challenge yourself to do it more often.
duckmoon,
Jun 12, 7:10am
te idea is that you eat out of the kitchen cupboards, rather than purchasing more stuff at the supermarket...
Start by looking in your pantry and your freezer and make meals from what you have there...
You get to choose whether or not bread and milk are included in the $21.
deus701,
Jun 12, 7:29am
$21 isn't much if you have nothing in the cupboards.
chchgurl,
Jun 12, 8:46am
One thing I will add to $21 challenge thing - it is a great idea...... BUT after living through an EQ and not being able to get to a shop for about 10 days, you are pretty thankful if you have a well stocked cupboard (aswell as emergency supplies - you get sick of baked beans and spagetti!!)
vintagekitty,
Jun 12, 9:05am
but then it costs hundreds and hundreds to restock?.
dec1066,
Jun 12, 11:31am
I really don't have a problem with the $21 dollar challenge. If you have a good look at the CHCH thread a number of people had their pantry doors fly open and a whole lot of broken glass, cans that split open and ruined food on the floor. I have moved around a lot and facing the effects of the gobal financial crisis overseas one of the first things I did was a stock take of our food. We had a very small kitchen so you actually couldn't see what you had, so it turned out that we bought the same stuff every week (I bet I'm not the only one). Anyway, we had 7 cans of creamed corn (my husband doesn't even eat it) and 7 kg of rice - OK we did have to buy more rice before we left 12 months later but we still left 2 cans of corn.
I think that looking at your spending habits is not a bad thing
ribzuba,
Jun 12, 12:44pm
i tried it, but i think it depends on whether or not you are a 'food hoarder'.my husband and i live mainly off fresh fruit and vege with our cupboard and dreezer only containing lentils, rice, canned tomatoes and frozen peas most of the time, so we couldnt it do it, but we do live of $40-50 pw anyway so we are not very wasteful as it is.i think the big problem would be if you do it is the restocking, because you may run out of everything and you would have to buy all that stuff again so it would be there so you could use it on demand...
gardie,
Jun 12, 6:42pm
I think that once you get used to being creative with what you have, and you enjoyed saving the money, you are more careful with the restocking too.
lythande1,
Jun 12, 8:01pm
How silly. The stuff in the pantry is free then? You have to restock the pantry.
More sensible to adjust your budget overall with food.
alewis,
Jun 12, 8:55pm
I think the concept of using what you have and making you think about food that you have sitting there not being used is a good one, we all try to save a buck and I know when I go into the supermarket the mentality is Im not spending money - I am if I am buying another pair of shoes lol. so to take stocktake of how you buy, consume and reuse is really a great idea. I havent done this yet but do know I used to get all the veggies out of the bin and throw it every two weeks and go and fill it again to throw most of it out in two weeks time, I now do that very rarely I top up but just with a couple of things like lettuce which doesnt last five minutes anyway - but I would think I save myself $30 a fortnight by not being so wasteful just in my veggie bin.
duckmoon,
Jun 13, 6:27am
I agree, it is a process designed for people who have stuff in the cupboards that get overlooked.
duckmoon,
Jun 13, 6:30am
if you have a good stock rotation in your pantry, then you don't need a $21 challenge... BUT if you have a bag of lentils at the back of the cupboard, that you don't use, then it will encourage you to use up that stuff - and now you know that you really don't want to restock lentils; so there isn't a cost.
Also, there are times when people have a cashflow problem... So, being able to spend very little on groceries for one or two weeks, gets them through the crisis - and then you can go back to the normal routine
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