Boost Your Budget Pantry Challenge - Goal Week

For a few months now, I've been mulling over the idea of going through the stockpile and trying to give our monthly budget a boost.  I wanted to try to downsize the stockpile which would free up money spent on some household expenses.  This would allow us to build up a little cushion for any unexpected expenses that seem to pop up. Just how I was going to do this was the big question. So I was super excited when I saw post at the Shopper Strategy that will help me with this goal! 

During the month of January, I will be participating in the Boost Your Budget Pantry Challenge series! The Challenge is being co-hosted by myself, Shopper Strategy, Going Crazy Wanna Go?, The Frugalista Chick, Matter of Cents, Thrifty Divas, Frugal Mom of Two, How About Free, TheItMom.com, All The World Is Art, Sweeping The USA, Mommies Point of View, Mama's Money Tree, Crunchy Frugalista, Fab Find Foodie, Making Time For Mommy, Adventures in Coupons, Full Price? NEVER!, The Frugal Navy Wife, Generations of Savings, A Savings WOW!, and of course, Shopper Strategy, and we'd love it if you'd join us as well.

So here's the deal - this January we plan to challenge ourselves to eat from our pantries - to use up all that excess food sitting in the back of the cupboards, hiding in the refrigerator door, in the stockpile and from out of the freezer - and limit our shopping to as little as possible.  This is not a “no spend” month, this is a “make do with what you have on hand and spend as little as possible” month. Everybody’s personal goals will be different and we can each set our own rules – the point is merely to challenge ourselves and start off the new year with a boost to our budgets! 

My goal is to try not to spend over $150 for the month on grocery/household expenses.  I wanted to set the limit to $100 but I have family visiting from out of state for the first week.  Depending on how things go, I might still get to meet that but I didn't want to stress myself out if I didn't.  Wish me luck! :)  I'm going to think about my rules and run it by hubby today.  I'll post updates when I get those finalized.  

Each Monday during January all of us that are participating are going to post an update of our goals and how we're doing at meeting those goals through the linky below. Plus, we’re also going to be giving away a $25 Coupon Clutch gift certificate each week to one participant who either leaves a link to a challenge post or a comment about their challenge goals. Won’t you join us?