This post is linked up at Frugal Friday on Life as Mom
I promised I’d share another New Year’s resolution today, so here it is: I’m on my 4th day of NO SHOPPING for 3 months! Yes, that’s right, THREE MONTHS! I mean no shopping whatsoever.
No:
- grocery shopping
- online shopping
- clothes shopping
- misc. shopping
- none. nada. zilch!
Admittedly, this took some careful planning (and a lot of freezer space 
), but I worked on this from November through December, and I have my plan down. I made a menu plan for 3 months, made my list of groceries I would need, and stocked up. I thought of all of the things we would use in the house: toilet paper, dishwashing detergent, etc. I may be short on laundry soap, but I have materials to make my own. And I just remembered today that I forgot about shower gel and I’m not sure I’ll make it through 3 months–but we have bars of soap and samples from hotel visits that we saved, so we’ll survive! 
Why am I doing this?
- We have a lot of meat in our freezer, we said, "we could live a long time on this," so I thought, "let’s try it out!"
- There’s not much growing these days, I figured, why not stock up on winter squash and apples, and frozen veggies and avoid buying anything "fresh" (shipped from other parts of the country or world for our convenience this time of year).
- I figure, every time we go shopping, we end up spending more than we actually need to spend. These 3 months will be a good breather for our budget! (Right as we rev up for Spring and Summer, when we will have many, many farm expenses!)
- I don’t like shopping. I am avoiding it for 3 months.
- I want our winter to be a quiet one of homeschooling and no errand running–just staying home.
If you’d like to join me, I’d love it! Try it for at least a week, or a month, or two months!
First, I made my menu. My dinner plan is like this:
Mondays, Chicken
Tuesdays, Soup (using the stock from Monday’s chicken)
Wednesdays, Crockpot
Thursdays, Seafood
Fridays, Lamb or Pork
Saturdays, Beef
Sundays, Sausages (from New Seasons), home canned applesauce, other leftover foods or carrot sticks or dried fruit (I like an easy Sunday evening dinner after a long day of church & fellowship!)
For breakfasts, I use this plan:
Mondays, Baked Eggs & Yogurt with Honey
Tuesdays, Fried Eggs & Fruit and Kale Smoothie
Wednesdays, Yogurt, Grain Free Granola & Breakfast Sausages (Applegate Farms Apple & Chicken)
Thursdays, Scrambled Eggs (variations) with Smoothie or Fruit
Fridays, Pumpkin Breakfast Cake or Banana Pancakes with Bacon or Sausage
Saturdays, Varies. Sometimes coconut flour crepes or waffles or pancakes, sometimes a salmon omelet or something like that.
Sundays, Sunday Breakfast Casserole with Orange Juice (I’ll share this recipe soon)
For lunches, I use this plan:
Mondays, Seed crackers with cream cheese spread (drained yogurt) and honey jello
Tuesdays, Cheese crackers with spinach artichoke dip with carrots (while we still have them) and dried fruit
Wednesdays, Homemade pepperoni sticks or Organic Prairie Summer Sausage with Cheddar Cheese and homemade granola bars
Thursdays, Varies (try new things)
Fridays, Sandwiches on homemade egg bread, applesauce
Saturdays, Soup
Sundays, Crockpot for church Shared Meal or for inviting people into our home
So, I made my menu, and then my big grocery list, making sure to cross of the things I already had in the house. I bought 25# bags of whatever I could, because it’s cheaper that way (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, beans, shredded coconut, etc.)
Note, if you’re going to join me, before you go buying 3 months’ worth of groceries, please talk to your husband about it! If he’s not in agreement, don’t fight it and don’t do it!
Make sure, also, that you have the freezer space for what you’re going to be storing up!
I’m excited about this! No shopping! Yay! I’ll share our progress as we go! This is a BIG New Year’s resolution, but a fun one, I think!
