Eat From the Pantry Challenge - Week 2

Crystal asked everyone to post how they did last week with the challenge. (Check back here if you want to see my plan for Week 1.) I bought chicken, milk, formula, and $11 worth of other food because we had guests on Saturday night.

This week, I spent about $35. $31 was for us (mostly produce and dairy/cheese items we were out of) and the other $4 covers the meal I'm bringing to a friend. She had a baby a week before Christmas and I'm bringing her dinner tomorrow because I remember how awesome that was when people did that for me!

Here's the plan, Stan!

Monday - Homemade {Turkey} Bacon and Onion Pizza

Tuesday - Veggie Stir-Fry (this is the meal I'm doubling because my friend is a vegetarian and also breast-feeding. It's a hard combo to cook for, let me tell you!)

Wednesday - Chicken Parmesan (Rachael Ray's recipe - I don't use the thyme or rosemary)

Thursday - Burgers with Rachael Ray's Oven Fries (are you sensing a theme?!)

Friday/Saturday - Taco Soup (I couldn't make this last week because I forgot that I didn't have any crushed tomatoes; I made two crockpot meals instead)

Sunday - Any leftovers (we eat a big family dinner every Sunday afternoon)

Desserts:

Banana-Chocolate Chip muffins (those got subbed for berry crisp last week)

Berry Crisp (this will be doubled for my friend - can you tell I have a lot of frozen berries taking up space in my freezer? :)

I think this challenge has been great for us so far - we've definitely come in below our $75 weekly grocery budget both weeks. We've also only spent $16 of our $50 household budget (so $100 total) for the past two weeks. Since I'm not really shopping, I'm not picking up anything for the house while I'm in the store. Although we're definitely going to need diapers and toilet paper next week. :)

The biggest challenge so far is not buying a lot of my regular "diet" foods (they're SO expensive!) So far I have been steadily losing weight again, so maybe I'll realize I don't need them anyway!