November Challenge

Giving credit where it’s due, this is an idea I got from two different blogs. This morning I read this post on Emily's blog over at Eatventures and I remember reading about this challenge on Kath's blog last year. Read Kath's post here

The Thanksgiving Challenge is twofold – you limit your grocery spending for one month, flexing your economic muscles and you use the opportunity for reflection. What better month (Thanksgiving) to give thanks for what we have? I also love this idea because Andy and I have been meaning to cut back for awhile and a challenge like this is perfect. I need to save for Christmas!

The “challenge” is to limit your food budget to $100 for the month of November. We are a two-person household, you may want to move this number depending on the size of your own family.

Here are the rules Andy and I will be following -

1. Track your food purchases for 1 month, spending no more than $100
2. Non-food grocery items (toilet paper, shampoo, etc) do not count
3. You start with whatever you happen to have in the fridge/pantry
4. Birthday dinners with friends are not going to count but we are going to try to spend less on them. (In November we have 3 birthdays to celebrate including Andy's on the 21st. He'll be 27!)
5. Andy goes to Starbucks 2-3 times a week to write lesson plans and grade papers. He doesn't spend much on coffee since he prefers "just coffee" so we'll only count coffees that cost more than $3.

Andy and I spend about $500 a month on food currently. Which is totally disgusting and appalling to me. We go out to eat way too often and buy way too many groceries. Luckily we have quite a bit in the fridge, freezer and pantry and I am looking forward to eating that down. December we will start fresh! For us, this challenge is more about awareness and not about strict rules and starving to make the challenge work. And I love Top Ramen (guilty pleasure!) but I will not eat it nightly to save money. We'll still strive for healthy living!

I would love it if my readers, bloggers or not, would join me in this challenge. Are you game? Please leave a comment if you want to participate!