Clean Out The Cupboards Challenge

For all of my scratch cooking, frozen produce from last summer and other efforts, I have to admit. My pantry is a mess. Stocked with teas, cocoas and things I am not really sure why we bought them in the first place.
Admit it. Your pantry is no better. It's time to do something about it.

Welcome to the Clean Out the Cupboards Challenge, co-hosted by Laura at Frugal Follies, Denise at Shopper Strategy, Crystal at Mrs. Happy Homemaker, Rebecca Jean at Midnight Maniac and me.

This month, the five of us plan to challenge ourselves to eat from our pantries – to use up all that excess food sitting in the backs of the cupboards, the refrigerator door and the freezer – and limit our shopping to as little as possible.
And we want you to join us, too!

The rules are simple: Make up your own rules, based on what’s best for your family. But a few basic principles:

Eat! This is not a diet or eat as little as possible challenge. Prepare healthy foods for your family, even if it means doing more shopping than you expected.

Don’t load up this weekend with a month’s worth of groceries. Go ahead and do your regular shopping.

Don’t not buy groceries, but then eat at restaurants all month long. Of course, feel free to eat at restaurants if you normally do.

If you need to stop the challenge mid-month based on the needs of your family, do so.

As for the details of the challenge, it’s up to you!

• You might want to purchase dairy and produce throughout the month; others might try to stretch what they already have.
• You might want to limit your challenge to food items, or extend it to personal care items, paper goods and cleaning supplies.
• You might want to allow yourself to purchase great deals; others won’t.

On Monday, we’ll kick off the challenge by posting our goals. So figure out what your goals are – is it to save money? to have more room in your pantry? to stop wasting food and thus help the environment? Figure out why you want to participate in the challenge – I look forward to hearing what your goals are!

(Bloggers: if you wish to join us, we’ll have a linky each week where you can link to your challenge posts. The linky will appear at the blogs of all five co-hosts.)

Are you in?