The $250 challenge

I've been looking over my grocery spending over the last few months. For three years, I got by on $300 a month for food and household supplies (cleaning supplies, diapers/wipes, health and beauty, etc). A few mos. ago I asked the Music Man to increase my budget to $400, and the last two months, I've gone over that significantly. I know that part of it is that we eat a ridiculous amount of produce, and our little garden literally gave us one tomato this year. One.

On the other hand, I mist get back to our simpler way of eating. We love beans, peas, lentils. I adore those walnut oatmeal burgers from last week. And since it's getting to be winter fruit and veg season, I'm just as happy to use frozen as fresh. So for the month of October, my challenge to myself is to spend $250 on food. Given that we buy oragnic milk, yogurt and grains, Kashi cereal, and free-range and antibiotic-free eggs, this could be a problem. I picked $250 because it's about half what I've been spending.

Just this morning I made rice milk. My kids used to love it, but I stopped buying it about six months ago. I figured that I own a $400 blender, and it should be used for more than salad dressing, smoothies, ice cream, gazpacho, the occasional hummus...OK, so I guessi t gets a lot of use anyhow, but that's not my point. Why the heck not give it a try when the only expense is 1 cup cooked organic brown rice, 1 t. homemade vanilla extract, and 1 T. honey. What remains to be seen is what the kids think of it on their cereal tomorrow morning, but I imagine they'll like it.

In the interest of full disclosure, we'll be at Disney World Oct 22-26, and nothing we spend there will be included. This experiment is only Oct 1-21 and 27-31. :)

I'll keep you posted as to how it's going; I'm nervous but excited!