About 6 weeks ago, I challenged my husband to a grocery challenge. I told him that we had way to much food in the house; so much that if we bought anything new it wouldn’t fit on our shelves or in our freezer. Being the supportive husband that he is, he decided to support me in this endeavor.

I made it a rule to only buy dairy and fruit when we went to the store. Everything else we ate had to be created out of what we had in the house. Now, some of you might be wondering if we are just living off of oatmeal or something but I can assure you, our diet has been complete. We have a ton of produce and meat frozen as well as other homemade staples.

I am proud to say that in the last 8 weeks, we have spent just over $200 on groceries for the two of us. Now we live northern, so things like quality fruit aren’t cheap for us. Being hobby chefs, our grocery budget would normally run us approx $400+ a month but since starting this challenge, we have more than halved that.

Not only has this challenge helped us adjust our spending it has also been really fun. We have had to make a greater effort in choosing recipes that we have ingredients for and this has allowed us to try dishes we haven’t before.

It will be another month at least before we get our stored food to a reasonable amount. I am curious to see how much we will have saved in the end.

So, have you done a grocery challenge? How have you cut down on grocery costs?