I was very proud of how we stuck to the pantry challenge in January. We ended up spending only $218 on groceries for the month.  I also realized that we were beginning to finish up and need to restock some necessary items in February.  Things like toilet paper and bread flour that yes can be bought in a small quantity but the whole idea behind the challenge is to save money not increase your spending.

So, in order to purchase items at the best price for us we headed to Costco. I am proud to say that we pretty much stuck to the list except for a couple of items that we needed for our Junk Food Sunday this week.  Nothing will go to waste!  I ended up spending $349 at Costco. This did include a chicken that was used for 2 full meals and we also made 9 pints of chicken stock.  I grabbed 200 paper plates as well.

While in Winston, we also made a stop at Target. I needed to get some hair spray.  This is also a need not a want. While at Target, I found and purchased 4 boxes of pint canning jars. The jars end up costing around $1.00 including the ring and lid.  I have not been able to find jars for less on Marketplace or in the Goodwill stores. In fact, $1.00 a jar is less than most of the jars I have found on Facebook Marketplace.  This Target stop added an additional $80 to my grocery total.

This places my grocery spending at $450 for the month of February. I know that I will likely end up spending at least another $50 if not $100 in February. However, adding the two months together still places us less than our grocery budget for one month.  So I am going to revise my goal for the rest of February and March. I have budgeted $975 a month for groceries this year.  My goal for the months of January, February and March is to stay under that total. I am currently at $675 which leaves an additional $350 in the remaining two weeks of February and March. This will not include my trip to Costco prior to our Disney trip.   I honestly think this is a very doable goal and will in the long term save $1800 for the first quarter of the year.  We are going to continue to eat what we have and buying/ restocking only items we are completely out of.  I have a list of 20 meals that we will begin to repeat and use next week to help continue to use our items. I am running low on sausage and chicken but will hold off buying these unless absolutely necessary. The chicken have significantly increased their production of eggs so that we should not have to purchase any for quite a while!

In the long run this allows us to enjoy food and save money.  The goal for the second quarter of the year will be to restock and replenish will continuing to stay under our grocery budget each month! .