$21 challenge

[violet]

There's been a terrific thread on a paid forum I belong to. It started when a member said to her husband that she needed some money for food. He gave her $20, which outraged her initially, but then she thought, "right, I'll show him". And she did! She fed the family from the pantry and freezer, buying only a few things totalling $21 for the week.

I haven't tried it, but the site asserts that it can be done with sufficient planning. They do not believe in well-stocked pantries, either.

Anyone else tried something like this?

[braided-rug]

When we were living near Melbourne I did have to do this sometimes, it was more likely $40, but then again I was doing fortnightly shops and AU dollars are different. Think lentils lol. Cookery the Australian Way Vegetable section was a great help with this.

[violet]

Oops, Br, you made a good point that I completely forgot. The $21 challenge is an Australian thing. It would probably be easier to do in the States.

It wasn't like starting from scratch, as she had plenty of dried milk, flour, a couple of chicken breasts, some veg - it sounded more like the week after pay day if you kwim, when stocks were running low but not depeleted.

Personally, I don't like an empty pantry, it makes me nervous! I'd love to spend only that amount in a week, but would hate to empty all food from the house.

[braided-rug]

I guess I do do that because my menus are sometimes only to Tuesday fortnight and I like stretching it to Thursday where possible when I do my big shop.

Would this be a pantry challenge? Or variation on a pantry challenge?

Was it something like this:

dido.savingadvice.com/2006/07/14/pantry-challenge_11348/

[violet]

Yes, like that! As I said, though, I get very odd when I look in the pantry and see not enough food to make a couple of pots of soup or a risotto or some pasta sauce. Perhaps I'm a little too hung up on eating....

[braided-rug]

I suppose it has been a few years. First I remember back at least five years being really stressed when asked what was for tea and not knowing what it was we were having and having to come up with recipes on short notice, I nearly passed out looking through them.

These days I have lots of good recipes for such occasions. I had some then too, just took longer to work it out. I guess now I have memorised a few things and know basically where they are even if I still have to locate the marbig in question. Maybe I should make a simple index for the front of each one.

When we lived near Melbourne, I guess the baby was asleep and I sat in my very country dining room in the peace and worked it all out very carefully. I was pretty pumped when I lived there, I guess I had to be with two houses to run etc.

We didn't have as much as that guy so it took little time to do an inventory, I don't think we had the range of dried things and sauces as we usually have on hand, or cans.

I have some bits of paper around from those days, might dig one up to give a better idea. I have one marbig with recipes collected during that time. I guess I collect recipes based on the need to do the challenges. At the moment I don't like half eaten bags of arugula/rocket, I wouldn't have bought it then.

We didn't have soup then either, probably because we were on the move so much.

[violet]

I think it's interesting to look at the meals we made 5 or even 10 years ago. Sometimes old favorites are rediscovered, as happens here from time to time.

Gotta say, I sure did less cooking and shopping when the kids were younger! Everything lasted so much longer!