Friday 4 January 2019

The First Challenge of a Brand New Year


Between the opening of The Sealed Pot and the end of the year we managed to neatly round up our savings from £386.96 to £400.  This we have decided will be used for any Challenges that we do during the coming year.

Hopefully this first one will not cost us much money at all as we have decided to ...

 'Eat the Stores'

To use up as much of the food that we already have in store as we can before we go shopping for any more.


As you can see from all these photos, we have a lot in store after the Christmas celebrations.  

I shopped more than I normally would have done, as we had a family day planned with both my sons coming round.  One with his girlfriend and the other for an overnight stay.  Now usually they would have eaten me out of house and home, but one is in love and the other is nursing a broken heart so I think appetites were affected and neither ate anywhere near as much as they normally would have.

We therefore have lots of food to get through!!


Jars of nuts, seeds etc


Baking supplies, crackers, lots of tea and coffee.


Lots of uneaten Christmas goodies, as well as oils and vinegars.


Out on the worktop I have rice waiting to go into my just washed large storage jar and some more nuts.  And there are eggs, we always have enough eggs to keep us happy.


On the shelves there are the jars of dried foods ... it's the rice jar that's missing from the top shelf at the moment.


The spice cupboard ... along with a multipack of my little dunking biscuits.  I doubt this cupboard will get any clearer as I use a lot of spices, but I do have a few new packets waiting to be decanted. 


Lastly there are the seasonings for cooking on the other shelf by the Aga ... another area that will most likely stay the same.

So we have lots in store.

 The first foods we are working our way through are those in the fridge as obviously these have the shortest lifespan.  Some are being eaten and some are being prepped to go into the freezer ... which as you can see above is already full.  Thank goodness for the large chest freezer in the workshop, which although pretty full already does still have some room for more things to be added.  I will get a photo of this when I can get in there ... it's a bit inaccessible at the moment.

My first job this week is to go through the cupboards one by one, emptying them, cleaning them out and then as I put things back checking exactly what we have.  Making things more logical by putting like with like and weeding out anything we will never eat.  For instance gifted Christmas puddings went to the local Foodbank before Christmas,  anything else that we wouldn't eat will go there once sorted.


🥘


16 comments:

  1. Looking forward to following your new challenge Sue, good luck xx

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    1. The first comment of 2019 😃

      Thank you.

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  2. This is brilliant and I really look forward to how it all goes.
    xx

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  3. yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,jour back.was looking every day.greeds from Wil (Holland)

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    1. Haha ... yes I am. I needed a break sorry 😄

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  4. Delighted to see that a new challenge is starting.
    I have already determined that I must do the same food clearout..
    Every year I vow not to buy extra for Christmas/Nwe Year but events, possible visits have to be catered for.
    I forget that my “boys” don't have the huge appetites they used to have.
    One thing I hadn't bargained for until I read your post, but which makes perfect sense, was clearing and cleaning my
    cupboards out listing the contents as I did so.
    As ever thanks Sue for a good and timely post.
    Hope you have found somewhere to have some quiet moments.
    Sue

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    1. Welcome to 2019 and a year of Challenges.

      Yes, I forgot that love and heartbreak can diminish even the most manly of appetites.

      Cleaning and checking over the cupboards is something I try to do every January, I'm absurdly lax for the rest of the year but this once yearly attack shines up my slightly tarnished halo nicely 😁🙃😁

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  5. Same here and boy have we got lots in the stores.

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    1. I am SO glad I'm not the only one 😃

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  6. I will certainly be joining you in this challenge as I have lots in store and not a lot of money to spend! :-)
    The only items I have on the list to purchase this week are milk, olive oil and frozen fruit (It's on special and I get loyalty points so a great time to buy as it is the one thing I'm low on).
    For the rest of the month it should only be a bit more milk (with which I'll make my own yogurt) and fresh veg for salads.
    My weakness is seeing bargains - I find it hard to resist. I know they come around again about every 6 weeks so trying to ignore them for January and February as there is no real NEED (as opposed to WANT).
    Looking forward to following you again.

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    1. The more the merrier, we can all spur each other on 🙂

      I am definitely being strict this month, all we should need to buy is milk for Alan's drinks and porridge and a couple of loaves of bread. I will be donning my 'bargain blinkers' and rushing past any temptation ... well I'll try my best, there seem to be yellow stickers everywhere I look at the moment!

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  7. Really looking forward to hearing about your challenge, especially as I'm intending to do a similar thing during January. Spent Thursday doing a thorough stock take and cleaning out the fridge, freezer and shelves at the same time! I definitely bought more food than we needed for the hordes that descended over Christmas, and would be good to use it up.

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    1. Happy New Year Faith.

      I can't clean out the freezer for a while as I can't even see the shelves let alone wipe them down!! The fridge however should be attackable by the end of the week 😆

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  8. So happy to see your posts, long time reader, first time I have commented. This looks like a great challenge and so happy to see you back

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