Tag Archives: pantry challenge

Frugal Challenges with Friends

Having a frugal challenge with online or offline friends can be a lot of fun and a great way to save money. You can cheer each other on, brag about your accomplishments and meet your goals together. Having a friendly community at hand really does make a different when it comes to being frugal Interested? Don’t have a community ready and available? Check out the Families.com forums, where there are plenty of new friends waiting to be part of a frugal challenge. Here are some frugal challenges that you can join or start. Pantry Challenge Cook only from your pantry … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Falling Off of the Wagon

How many individual packets of sugar does it take to make a half a cup? I’m proud, well, almost proud, to say I now know the answer. I officially ended our pantry challenge when I asked my husband to bring home a bag of sugar (and cold cuts and bread and milk and diapers). My moment of defeat came yesterday when I was faced with fact that it is already February, and we haven’t brought in the class snack for Andrew’s Kindergarten class. Not a problem, I thought, I’ll just make some sugar cookies. I got out the cookie cutters, … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: What You Can Do with A Box of Potatoes

From the back of the pantry, hiding from the warm yellow light of the kitchen sits a lone box of instant mashed potatoes. How this box of potatoes got there is a bit of a mystery. I always make mashed potatoes from scratch, since real potatoes are so inexpensively frugal, especially when they are on sale for buy one bag and get one free. It is not unusual for me to have two 5- or 10- pound bags of potatoes available. So where did the…gasp…instant potatoes come from? My best conclusion is to blame it on my husband. No, no, … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Campbell’s to The Rescue!

What do you do when you have a ton of canned soup? Visit the Campbell’s recipe site of course! Another day of my pantry challenge. We are still doing pretty well with using our stock. One of the things I forgot to mention is that we very rarely eat red meat in our house, so you will see a lot of chicken, bean, pasta and vegetables dishes. Although with not buying any produce, the vegetables are scarce. I may break down this week and get some fresh fruits and veggies, because of the health factor. For breakfast, we had some … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Baking Day

Today is turning out to be a baking day. I normally feel more comfortable baking than actually cooking things on the stove. Put it in a dish and stick it in the oven is my philosophy. But today seems to be a real baking theme in my pantry challenge. (What is a pantry challenge? Click here to learn all about it.) For breakfast I made some baked oatmeal, using up rolled oats and raw sugar from the pantry, as well as some milk and eggs. This is a treat whether eaten hot from the oven or cold from the refrigerator. … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: How Have I “Bean?”

What is a Pantry Challenge? Click here to find out. It is Sunday today. The pasta with tomato soup went over really well on Friday night. I’m going to put that recipe down as very easy to make and kid-friendly. For yesterday, there was nothing much to report. We did make breakfast from a pantry item. it was a box of Vermont organic pancake mix. I bought this mix on clearance for 50 percent off of $1.57. I used the mix to make a double batch of pancakes (leftover pancakes make great snacks, especially when you put peanut butter on … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Using Allrecipes.com

Brrr. It is absolutely freezing out today here in Pennsylvania. I am definitely not looking forward to taking the babies out for a walk to school to fetch Andrew. The theme of the day will have to be layers. Fortunately, since I am still in my pantry challenge, at least I won’t be going to the grocery store. If you are just starting to read the frugal blogs and want to know more about a pantry challenge, click here. Our cereal is running a bit low. I did stock up a couple of months ago when sales and coupons were … Continue reading →

Save on Paper: The Three Best Ways

Even in this electronic age, we all seem to use too much paper. Conserving paper means finding other ways to do things that don’t involve paper, stretching out the use of paper by using it more than once and finding new uses for paper that might otherwise be thrown out. Here are the three best ways that you can reduce your paper waste to save money and the environment. Unless you have a legitimate reason not to do so, always print on both sides of the paper or make two-sided copies. This effectively doubles the amount of paper you have … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Making My Own Boxed Bake

Today is day three of my self-imposed pantry challenge. I must use up items in my pantry, refrigerator and freezer for meals and not shop at the store for anything but milk. I might add eggs to my allowable list, but I haven’t caved, yet. To learn more about what a pantry challenge is, click here. Yesterday’s lasagna meal turned out wonderfully. My picky two-year-old ate four helpings. Yup four. Plus she finished her salad and had a serving of ice cream from the freezer. I don’t know where she put it all. Andrew left a little bit on his … Continue reading →

Pantry Challenge: Enchilada Helper

Well, we finally have a move date for our new home! It will be sometime in mid April. Buying and selling homes has really put a strain on our finances. Because of this strain and the fact that we will be moving, I decided that I really need to do a pantry challenge. A pantry challenge happens when you challenge yourself to use up items in your pantries for your meals. To learn more about having a pantry challenge, click here. For the start of my pantry challenge, I am going to be a little lenient. Honestly I have had … Continue reading →