As promised, I will not post many personal stories – I will mainly just stick to recipes. But this, this is something I just had to take a moment to write about!
I would like to introduce you to Shelftember. Oh, you haven’t heard about it? Shelftember is a shelf cooking challenge for the month of September! It was coined by the fabulous money saver Jordan Page of funcheaporfree.com. The Shelftember challenge was officially started in September 2017 and I was one of the first adopters! Now, Jordan’s Facebook page, the Shelf Cooking Community, has over 33,000 members. I know, you’re probably asking, what the heck is it?! Well, here you go:
The Rules:
- Only spend $25 a week on groceries [groceries include only food items, NOT paper goods or toiletries]
- This dollar amount is for every single family size – yes, I’m serious!
- Only go to the grocery store ONCE per week
- Shop your pantry, freezer, and refrigerator for all other items
- Limit food waste, find ways to re-purpose instead of throw away
- Take this opportunity to clean out your stockpile of things that may be almost expired
We all have days where we look into our fridge or pantry and say “we’ve got nothing to eat” just like when we look into our closet and say “I’ve got nothing to wear!” Both of things, most of the time, aren’t true. Participating in Shelftember is a great way to save money, get creative, and clean out your stockpile of things that you didn’t even know you had!
My husband and I don’t really claim to have a stockpile but we DO have: a lot of pasta in the cupboard, an assortment of canned goods, condiments galore in the fridge door, and a freezer full of who knows what! We [really I] like to take the month of September to get creative and clean out all of these things. It is amazing what you can make with what you’ve already got stashed away in your freezer.
With this being our fourth year participating, I love seeing how creative I can get or how little money we can actually spend for the month! Last year, we only spent $75 FOR THE WHOLE MONTH! Seriously, it’s amazing what you can do.
I chronicle our daily #shelftember experience on my Instagram stories pretty heavily. I hope you’ll follow along there, @stephjwomack
Don’t worry, I will still be sharing recipes here and highlighting all of the things I used from our pantry. So, what do you think, will you join me in the Shelftember Challenge?!
Stephani's Kitchen 