Pantry & Freezer Spring Cleaning Event Update

After one and half weeks of doing my spring cleaning event, I am sure that many of you are wondering how I am doing in cleaning out those seemingly forgotten or in need of rotating out items that are in my freezer and pantry. 

So far in the month of April(11 days), I have spent $77.42 for food only for my family of seven!  Usually by this time of the month I will have spend closer to $150 for food only.  It looks like that might be all I spend for the month instead!

We have been eating more leftovers for lunches rather than the standby peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so I haven't thrown out any food because it has gone bad before we decided to eat it.

I made a chicken pot pie using the single cans of veggies that would not have been enough for a side for a meal.  Also for the pot pie, I used a container of frozen chicken gravy that needed to be used before it would have needed to be dumped from being in the freezer too long. 

We have not skipped out on the planned menu to order take out instead for meals so this has helped using up the food we have on hand. There was one exception when my parents treated the kids and I for lunch at Bob Evans. My mom had coupons for free kids meals and my meal ended up being free as well so she only had to pay for my dad's and her meal.  

My hubby had a lunch "pitch-in" potluck at work and he was able to take some of the banana bread that I had in the freezer to share with the lunch.  

I am getting low on chicken but still have LOTS of ground burger to use so in the next week there will be more beef on the menu rather than chicken.  I am hoping for a good sale on chicken next week or the following week so that I can get more in the house. 

I am going to put together a bag of groceries for my church's food pantry as we have about 12 families in our church that are unemployed. There are some items that I have in pantry that I bought thinking that I would use but have decided I will not be using them so before they get too close to the expiration date I will pass them on for someone else to be able to use.

That pretty much covers everything for the last 11 days.  

Looking forward to seeing the menus for this next week? They will be posted on Monday!