Taking Stock

I don’t know about other people but for me there is always some point in the year (if not all year) that you have more than your normal monthly expenditures. Our second half of the year is always like this. With all the birthdays in our family and holidays all taking place from July until December, the final six months of the year are always fun but yet stressful. Add both cars registration due and various other expenses and it’s a doozy to manage.
So I was mulling all this over, berating myself for once again not being as prepared for this as I vowed I would be last year, when I started to think about where and how to save some money. My first thought was to start with unnecessary expenditures, eating out being one of them. Which in spite of my business, we still eat out sometimes because we like to eat out and also sometimes out of convenience and schedule. But I also looked at my extra freezer and in my pantry and decided that with the shopping I had done at the start of August I had no real reason to do any large shopping for quite some time. So I issued a challenge to myself to see how I could make use of all the food I had in the house without going to the store. Or at least without replenishing a few items like milk and/or eggs. I don’t even have a real need for produce because I have a variety of frozen vegetables that I can go to after the produce I do have is gone.
So I took a pad and pen and stood in front of my freezer, my pantry and my refrigerator/freezer and took inventory and then I took that and typed it all in an Excel sheet so I could organize it by category and now I have a “shopping list” in which I can work from to create our meals. It sort of reminds me of that great Food Network show, "Door Knock Dinners". I wish they still had that on, it was fun to watch.
I took a few photos to start my challenge off. I guess like a little "before".
Stay tuned, I plan to update on my progress.

The fridge


The produce drawer


The freezer in the garage