Only two days ago I was in the food aisle at the Dollar Tree thinking " Hey, I could use some pasta sauce." Then I ran past it to grab Emma before she decided to get those 'terrible two' hands on something that could be permanently damaged. As my husband took the kids back to the car, I got in line with my four bags of candy and whatever it was I had gone there to get. Without the need to tell a child to stop touching something and the daydream of having a nanny that usually comes while waiting in line, I stared down the basket of the man standing in front of me. Frozen burritos, 3 cans of spam, some twice baked potatoes. I thought " Man, that must be awesome to be able to spend $25 on all of your food for the week." And then I became obsessed. " Why can't I do that? Sure we have 5 people to feed who are all some of the most picky eaters you will ever come across." And then I answered myself with a resounding " We can do this!" I continued to obsess over the logistics of feeding my family for a week on dollar tree food. What will my husband think of this plan?
As it turns out, he thinks I am nuts, and he doesn't want to eat anything from the dollar tree. Especially when he found out the day this plan started hatching, that his raise went through ( Hurray!!). But this was my challenge and I had already accepted it. ( And yes, I do realize that talking to myself, answering myself, and telling myself "Challenge Accepted" HIMYM style is completely insane.) Imagine his dismay when I come out of the room this morning and announce, "This is no longer a 1 week project. I am going to take this particular challenge and apply it to several stores. Dollar Tree, Walmart, Publix, Sams Club, and Winn Dixie."
In order to make this all fit together, I have decided to give myself $65 dollars a week. This will need to cover all food and drinks that I purchase for the week. Seeing as my pantry is fully stocked with seasonings, condiments, random bags of noodles, and about 40 cans of stuff, I am going to allow myself the use of pantry items that are not main ingredients to meals. I.e. I can not use boxes of hamburger helper without subtracting the cost from the weeks budget. However, I will not be including the cost of other purchases such as diapers, socks, baby shower decorations and the like. I will blog each evening about what we had for dinner and any odd snacks worth noting. Seeing as we are an active family, I don't think there will come a week when at least one day doesn't include a fast food run.
Day 1 begins Friday. Although I can tell you right now, I did my Dollar Tree shop today and I am pretty sure the cookies won't make it.
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