The month of September is almost gone.  I spent $180 on Friday, divided rather evenly between Costco, WalMart, HEB (the other grocery store here in San Antonio) and the produce terminal.  That sounds like a lot, but our pantry is just as full as it was a week into this experiment so I think I’m still buying and keeping more than I really need to.  This brings our total for the month – including TP, pet food, diapers, children’s ibuprofen, etc. – to

drumroll…

are you ready?

11 people, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 2 rabbits, 1 tarantula, 1 snake, 3 praying mantids…

OK, the tarantula, snake and mantids eat free, but anyway, The Total:

$563.  I feel good about this number.  I could have kept it lower by skimping on Friday’s shopping, but I wanted to keep it real by shopping for the full week.  This doesn’t take into account our savings by not spending at gas stations, coffee shops and fast-food restaurants.  We don’t do those things often, but even the occasional small splurge can really add up over the course of a month!  It also doesn’t take into account that we are eating an enormous amount of fresh fruits and vegetables, a far healthier diet than we have ever had before.

Aside from produce (which will probably run out by next Friday) we have nearly enough food and non-food consumables to take us through 2 weeks, well into October.  Maybe I can talk hubby into 60 Days of Nothing…

God blessed my weekly trip downtown with some extra goodies from the produce terminal: tons of peaches (~25#) and oranges (40#), 16# of beautiful tomatoes, plus strawberries and asparagus – not to mention the standard plums (20#) and bananas (15#).  We have broccoli, carrots and orange bell peppers left from last week.  Good stuff, all of it!

We have cheese and 2 varieties of sausage plus pepperoni to make pizza for the next two Fridays; and enough meat to eat it every other day for nearly two weeks.

Speaking of pizza, Friday Night Pizza is back!  They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and since I have put off ordering the lower element for our oven we’ve invented a new way to cook our crusts.  I have to say we’re quite taken with the results.

mmmm…Pizza

We make our dough the same way, but then we roll pieces into personal size crusts and cook them on the griddle, flipping to brown on both sides.  We did it once on a dry griddle and once with it greased.  I hate to admit it, but they tasted better cooked on a greased griddle.

Then we top them with spaghetti sauce, sausage, pepperoni and cheese, and slide the under the broiler to heat the toppings and melt the cheese.  I like slices of fresh tomatoes on mine.    Kaitlyn emphatically does not.

This is a bit labor-intensive, but many hands make light labor and we can turn out plenty of pizza in less time than it used to take us to bake 5 big ones.  We think the results are much tastier – more like the kind you buy at a pizzeria.

Incidentally, I think the meat and cheese go further on individual pizzas.  Shhh!  Don’t tell.

So far our food expenses – which have been relentlessly creeping up toward $1,000/month – have totalled $300 for the month, including $100 at Walmart just yesterday.  I’ll probably spend another $100 today between Costco (just cheddar cheese, eggs and milk) and produce at the terminal downtown.  After that, we’ll be set for another week and will have just a few days left in the month!

Not bad for 11 people with no garden.  We’ve had meat nearly every night, and have eaten far more healthy foods than usual: beans, rice, chicken & ground beef, milk, cheese, eggs, and tons of fresh fruits and vegetables.  The only substantial changes have been no junk food, no eating out, and no unnecessary non-food purchases.

Of course “unnecessary” means different things to different people.  After a bit of discussion, hubby and I agreed that our experiment was not to make a radical change in our lifestyle for the month, but rather to control unplanned consumer spending.

For example, we did buy:

• toilet paper
• disposable diapers and wipes
• foil
• shampoo, conditioner and body wash
• cat litter
• laundry detergent
• 18 metal forks, at 6/$1.  We have more company than forks nearly every Tuesday, and simple courtesy required us to acquire more.  At this price, it made no sense at all to buy plastic.  Anyway, we like using real flatware. 
• a classified ad to sell our Yorkie pups (a preplanned business expense)
• a service call to repair our internet.  We were already paying for the monthly service, so it didn’t make sense to pay good money for nothing.  And we do earn more from our internet than we pay.

On the other hand, there were many things we normally would have bought but didn’t.  A few examples come immediately to mind:

• fabric and notions for new sewing projects
• a 3rd laundry bin
• paper napkins or paper towels – no longer necessary since I made 3 dozen (and already have the fabric to make more)
• new (newer) shoes to replace worn ones
• a $10 yard sale stroller that is exactly what I’ve been looking for
• new dish towels and dish cloths to replace my sadly worn rags.  I will buy these as soon as the month is up.
• a 6″ sub sandwich, free w/the purchase of a large drink
• bobby pins to try out new hairstyles in a book
• chocolate – except plain cocoa for cooking frugal desserts from scratch

I commented to hubby just yesterday that I love having the fridge, freezer, and pantry so neat and orderly – something that is only really possible when they have significant empty space.  This seems like a far more efficient and economic way to operate.  We don’t need a big freezer, we don’t have dry goods long enough to worry about weevils or pantry moths, and nothing is lost and rotting in the back of the fridge. We are wasting far less food than we ever have!

This feels like better stewardship than hoarding 3 months’ worth of food where we’ll never remember to use it in time.  I realize that keeping a store of emergency food is wise and can be done without waste, but that’s not what we were doing.  We were simply wasting both food and space.

I think we’ve learned something from this little experiment, something that will stick.  I wonder what else we’ll learn in the 11 days to come?