Coming Soon: January Pantry Clean Out Challenge

Join Me in my 2019 January Pantry Clean Out Challenge! I am challenging myself to use what I have on hand to make budget friendly baking and dessert recipes for the blog.

So with the start of the New Year always come resolutions. Now I don’t know about you but I usually set myself some pretty big resolutions. And like most people, usually am giving up on them around January 2. So now usually my resolutions have always centered around getting in better shape, losing some weight..blah blah blah. But this year I am focusing on my finances. Even though my blog focuses on all things SUGAR I actually eat healthy 90% of the time and work out 5-6 days a week. So a healthy eating/losing weight resolution doesn’t really challenge myself.

However….

My finances? Oof let’s just say me and the Amazon guy are buddies. So this year I knew that if one thing had to do change it would be my spending habits. So I decided to kick off January with a No Spending challenge. If you have never heard or done one, you can totally google “no spend challenge” and tons of blogs will pop up.

Part of my No spending challenge will be to put myself on a very strict grocery budget. It’s just the two of us, and I can tell you I can spend quite a bit each week at the store. Because we eat pretty healthy and we take/make all meals I can easily spend over $150 a week. So I decided to see if I could cut that in half each week. *Gulp*

So what does that mean for the blog? Well…

Part of my No Spend Challenge this month is going to carry over into the blog into a Pantry Clean Out Challenge. Which means all the recipes I will be posting this month will be from ingredients I already have on hand. Now I know that my pantry is probably way more stocked than most. So yes, this might mean in the beginning of the month it might not seem much different, by the end of the month? Well, let’s just wait and see, shall we?

Why Do A Pantry Clean Out Challenge?

I honestly love challenging myself. And I know that I need to make some improvements when it comes to my spending. And let’s face it, after Christmas I think we all could spend less right? And I have goals to pay off my credit card and student loan debt. But in order to do that, I have to get my spending habits under control. So I thought why not a pantry clean out challenge for the blog?

So I am putting myself on a strict grocery budget for the month like I said which means there will be no extra spending on all the ingredients I get for all my baking.

Usually I will spend probably an extra $50 in extra baking supplies – butter, milk, heavy cream, chocolate, flour..you get the idea. So I thought if I am going to do a no spend challenge in  my life, then I couldn’t allow myself to spend how I wanted for all of my baking and the blog. It had to carry over. And I’ll be honest, I know I have lots of ingredients on hand in the pantry that will be fun to incorporate into the blog.

After all the baking for the past month as well I know I have ingredients in there that could be used up too.

And I’m guessing I am not the only one wanting to spending less. So why not challenge each other to focus on what we have in our pantries? Focus on homemade. Because I do believe that homemade is not only better tasting, but healthier (no weird preservatives and all that stuff you find in a cake mix) but it’s also way cheaper!

What To Expect:

Each week I’ll challenge myself to make 3 baking/dessert recipes from what is already in my pantry and use what’s already on hand. Now usually I plan my recipes and make weekly shopping trips to grab specialty ingredients and stock up on my pantry staples, such as flour and sugar.

This month I will limit myself to only use what is already in the cupboard and fridge. That means if I run out sugar. Well I run out of sugar. That’s that. It will be time to get creative.

I will post the recipes on the blog (I may not get every recipe posted that I made) but I will do a weekly recap in a weekly newsletter where I will share with you what I planned on making, what I actually made, ingredients used (what’s left), and how the challenge went overall.

If you don’t already follow me on the blog, then be sure to sign up so you can follow along with the challenge.

My Objectives:

• Use what I have in my pantry and fridge to make 3 recipes. I will not stock up before hand. This to me totally defeats the purpose. And if I run out I run out.
• Spend a whole lot less this month! On the blog and in the rest of my life. Let’s see what I can save by the end!
• Document this as I go. Accountability…aww what a beautiful thing am I right?
• Get creative! I have a tendency to just go and get what I want for the ingredients for my recipes. This means sometimes that container of buttermilk goes to waste. I grab extra ingredients just for photographs and then it never gets used. I have bits and pieces leftover from past recipes that are just sitting there. I have bags of fun flours – whole wheat, self rising, that I haven’t used. So time to see what I can do.

Join Me!

Like I said I plan to send out an update on my pantry clean out challenge and how it’s going via my weekly e-mail newsletter. So if you haven’t already subscribed, then you can join here.

Got questions? Well we can also chat in my Facebook Group. I approve all requests so please allow me up to 48 hours to respond. Join my FB tribe here.

So have you ever done a no spend or pantry clean out challenge? I’m curious! Let me know in the comment section how it went and if you have any words of advice for me as I move forward!