Happy New Year!

Well, I haven't posted in about 3 weeks, since I made the choice to start doing things different. I have spent them planning on how we would do this, since I seem to only function on a game plan with 5.8 kids. Today, 1/1/10 marks the start of our "nospend" month. In addition to that, we are taking part in a pantry challenge. What does this mean, you ask? Well, here are our rules and how we are incorporating it into our monthly goals!

The Master Plan:

1. Spend nothing extra for January.
2. $20 allowance a week for milk, fruit, veggies, bread (family of seven, 2 adults 5 kids)
3. Make all meals from what we have on hand in our pantry, freezer and deep freezer
4. Take all overage for the month and put it into an interest bearing savings account.
5. No trips to SBUX, the corner store, fast food, etc on our dime. (if the inlaws or friends bring over something that is not part of it , but we are not asking for anyone to bring us anything)
6. Cover all bills upfront for the month, and find more family centered activities for fun.
7. Have enough of a slush fund in case I go into labor (big possibility) this month so we can be prepared for hospital parking, etc...
8. Put aside enough for my parking expenses at the doc office each week. ($5-10 a week)


I will post here as often as I can with our meals for the day, what I used, challenges I am running into (there WILL be challenges) and hurdles I must overcome(there will be some of those also).

Ok. So, now onto the pantry. The pics you see up above are my freezer, deep freezer, pantry and chrome rack. WARNING: My stockpile is large. If we still have a large stockpile at the end of the month, we will continue this challenge starting 2/1/10.

Today's meals:

Today is and was lazy day in our home. We have a few sick kids, I am sick, Robert is sick. It just sucks. So, for breakfast, the kids had cereal (which we have a ton of) and milk with carnation instant breakfast. For lunch, they just had a sandwich thin with peanut butter and jelly. Easy enough. They had apple juice with it. Dinner is another story. I pan seared warm cabbage with vinegar and sugar and some salt / pepper, did crock pot black eyed peas with fresh cilantro and tomatoes, cornbread (gotta love jiffy) and I am about to make some Turkey pastrami flautas with white corn tortillas, a thin layer of cream cheese, a slice of turkey pastrami, pan baked instead of fried until crispy.

So here is the breakdown:

Breakfast: Cereal and Chocolate Milk

Lunch: Sandwich thin with PB & J, apple juice and carrots

Dinner: Cornbread, Cabbage, Black eye peas, turkey pastrami flautas

That is day one. We haven't left the house all day. We are packing up some stuff for purple heart and organizing gifts, finding them all a home.

See ya tomorrow! Happy 2010!