Thanksgiving Challenge
Giving credit where it’s due, this is an idea I got from Kath last year. 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?
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 Adam and I are following –
- Track your food purchases for 1 month, spending no more than $100
- Non-food grocery items (toilet paper, shampoo, etc) do not count
- You start with whatever you happen to have in the fridge/pantry
- We are not counting booze – we don’t drink much any way but I didn’t want to restrict the husband if his friends were going out
- We are not factoring in free items (Thanksgiving dinner at my grandma’s, what I get at the Foodbuzz festival, etc)
Also, just fyi, there is a dinner at a fancy restaurant we have had planned for months, using my last teacher pay check, that we are still planning on going to.
Some people choose to donate the money they saved to a charity. We are planning on volunteering at a soup kitchen Thanksgiving morning. If nothing else, it is very cathartic to eat down your pantry and fridge and start fresh in December.
I would love it if my readers, bloggers or not, would join me in this challenge. Are you game?
Eating Chalk 
I’m game! I will post about this on my blog too!
I think this is a great idea (sorry I didn’t respond to your earlier email) – we are planning to go “without eating in restaurants” for this month. We are in charge of a large portion of my family’s thanksgiving dinner – so I am not sure we could keep it under $100 when we need to feed over 25 people, BUT – we did want to sacrifice something – dining out. Thanks for the idea! 🙂
Good luck with the Challenge!!!!!
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I love this! Good luck!
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I was just thinking about this last night while on the treadmill!!!
We are a family of 6 and I’m going to shoot for $250 for the month. woot!
chasingblue – $250 for a family of six sounds tough, good luck!
I’m going to try this!
Just to clarify – I used a gift card to purchase groceries on Sunday, would I still count the $25 toward my total purchase or just the amount of cash spent?
Meghann – I would just do the amount of cash spent, a gift card is a present!
ahhhh i LOVE the idea of this challenge…the only prob is I spent $40 yesterday on groceries, and that is a HUGE chunk of money. hmmmm…maybe i can work on NOT eating out either…mama can’t be spending all that dough!
i am glad i caught back up on your blog again…when i switched servers, i lost a lot of the blogs i read.
have a fabulous day!
Holly – glad to have you back!
HI I just found your blog, I think the challenge is a great idea. I just stocked up big time last month so maybe that is cheating a little, but the kids and I are working on the “take your lunch everyday” challenge. I look forward to seeing how it goes.
Colleen – that is a good challenge too!
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I would love to do this. But we eat out so much over the next two months due to work things. I think I might do this in january though 🙂
I was thinking about doing this because I remembered Kath’s challenge last year, and this post gave me the final push. I’m game!
Sanja – glad you decided to go for it!
Love this idea, and will definitely be joining in!
Jess – glad to have you!
I am in posting about it tonight!
bobbi – thanks!
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The boyfriend and I are participating!
http://errign.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/thanksgiving-challenge-maybe/
Errign – Great!
oh my gosh! i want in too! (i’m a newbie around here…and a newbie food blogger)!
Pen – you’re in! 🙂
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I know we are 3 days into the month, but I would love to participate in the challenge..
that would be great!
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I am in! Just got here via Kath. I’m compulsive about keeping a full pantry and freezer, so I really think we could go all month without buying much. We’re a family of 4 so I’m setting our budget at 200.00, but I’ll have to exempt Thanksgiving dinner cuz we’ve got a crowd coming. Going to do the cash envelope plan for the visual aid. Glad I found your blog!
Glad you are joining in! The cash envelope idea is a good one.
My food budget for one person is $140-200/month (no eating out) and I find it very difficult to make do on less without buying milk and meat full of hormones and antibiotics, GMO flour, etc. I am curious how people on this thread approach these issues. I want to suggest that while it may be great to save money, buying the cheapest food available could also be harmful to animals and people whom the factory farming industry exploits.
Tania – you raise a very good point, I think it is always important to consider the impact of our choices. I for one plain on eating mostly grains, fresh veggies, and fruit (we don’t eat red meat ever) and not much meat. You only have to resort to “cheap” meat if you are eating meat, subbing in beans is a very cheap alternative.
Tania, I do what is even less harmful to animals: I don’t eat meat, dairy and eggs and as Emily already pointed out, beans can be very cheap.
And my point is to eat as much out of my pantry as possible, because I have a LOT of food (especially beans!) in there (of which a part is about to expire, and I don’t want to waste food). I have some sort of organic CSA box, so at least a big part of my fruits and veggies are organic.
Also, normally I don’t really have a budget, so it doesn’t matter much for/to me if in December, I have to buy quite a few staples which I have run out of during November. This is just a way for me to make sure I don’t waste the food I have previously bought.
I do think you raise an excellent point by the way, cheap is definitely not always better!
Emily and Sanja,
Thanks for answering my question! While I am not planning to become a vegetarian, I agree that plant-based proteins are wonderful for the body and budget. Nuts and seeds and high-protein whole grains are great in that way. And avocado is a wonderful source of fat. So are oils. Hm, you’ve got me thinking…
I still have trouble affording organic produce in the quantities I need, but I am finding that dry pantry items and other packaged organic ingredients are becoming more accessible as competition drives prices down and increases production. Whew!
I’m in, along with my family!
great!
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