One Week Challenge - The summary.

What we would call our blog videos had we done one each day:

Day 0: This is exciting! 

Day 1: Isn’t this fun!

Day 2: Look at all the cool stuff we made!

Day 3: Wait.. What have we got left?

Day 4: Yep. We’re out of food. 

Day 5: Sick of pork (We’re effing hungry!)

Day 6: What am I supposed to do with just carrots?

Day 7: Hangry!/ Can we go to Mandarin tomorrow?

What we used from the “pantry staples”:

• A lot of flour
• Soy sauce, spices, ketchup, vegetable oil. All in small amounts 
• Sugar, baking powder, jam, vinegar.. again, not a lot
• Lemon juice, gravy sauce packet
• 4 servings of pasta
• Oatmeal (we figured you can get a box of 10 for $1.99), 6 packets
• 2 servings of white rice
• Couple teabags
• Cooking chocolate bar
• All of the free takeaway butters
• Vegetable broth (make your own free from veggie scraps - we keep a bag of scraps in the freezer and when it gets full enough you just boil it with water)
• 2 Popcorn bags (again figured 1.99 for a box) 

Some things that were free for us:

• Chicken noodle soup from grandma 
• Swiss chalet dinner and pop from grandma
• Free coffee and tea at our works
• Candy and mints at our works
• Free birthday cake
• Those little packets of butter and ketchup from restaurants 

So, what did we learn?

• Eating on a budget seems to make you eat less. Maybe this week has helped to shrink our stomachs/ portion sizes a little? Better for diets as basically no snacking
• You learn workarounds - I had one bottle of pop I made last 4 days. Makes me wonder whether I need to drink a whole one in one sitting next time
• Rice only and salad only is not filling
• We liked marinating meat, homemade bread, poor mans ice cream (smoothie in the freezer).. all new stuff that we tried
• Only one protein all week is too much. Need to break it up with at least another flavour
• We learned we can make some new things, and had some fun making a couple. When you make it yourself it seemed to taste better too
• Prepping makes all the difference. Going forward we need to grocery shop on a Friday and both prep and cook a week of meals on the weekend as we just cannot be bothered to cook through the week. Prepping and portioning the veggies and fruits made it easy to pack a healthier lunch in the morning too
• We learned we CAN only buy what we need if we grocery shop each week anyways (why buy 10lb of potatoes if you might end up throwing 1/4 bag out)
• Our $35 shop +pantry staples wasn’t enough for 42 meals. We think $50 a week would be doable though
• Eating on a budget and being hungry means you day revolves around food. Watching the clock until it’s an evceptable time for the next meal. I had moments at work where I was so hungry I couldn’t focus and went and raided the candy bowl again 
• Team effort and staying strong was important. The cravings and the temptations have been so awful at the end but together we kinda talk the other off the ledge
• We’re dreaming about cheese and pizza. We’re having terrible discussions and thoughts about blowing the remaining $ we would have spent on a fast food feast

Overall I’m happy we did the challenge, although I’m not sure James agrees. We didn’t have enough food, especially if we didn’t count the pantry staples in the beginning rules, but I’m happy we learned stuff and actually completed it without caving on the last day. We have some tips and tricks that will influence our future shops, including knowing we can basically half our previous normal grocery budget by simply stopping at two stores instead of just the high-priced Zehrs across the street. 

Let me know of any one week food challenges you’ve tried, or want us to try!