January Grocery Challenge: $60 or less

 The last few years I have been doing a $100 grocery challenge for January. I normally spend $400 for my family of 5 ( ages 15,13,9) and my husband and I. My husband and I both work full time, however due to the pandemic he is working 100% from home, and when I go back to work on January 21, I'll only be working 1 day in the office- the rest online. 

Not only is January going to be a low grocery month, but it's going to be a NO SPEND month in general. I didn't budget any fun money for any of us. ( Normally, we do $50 for my husband, $50 for me and $50 for the family). We are hoping to jumpstart our debt payoff with a bang come this new year. 

How can I keep our groceries so low?

We hunt.

My husband and oldest daughter and son more than me. But our family hunts. We have a freezer full of deer meat and some sausage as well. We have wild boars on the hunting lease we have and that makes some delicious sausage. So we have plenty of ground deer and sausage, as well as a few packages of deer steaks. One of our favorite ( warning, not healthy) meals is Tator Tot Casserole. 

We have chickens. 

We don't eat them. But we love their eggs. I guess we would eat them if it came down to it, but normally we just use their eggs. So we are getting about 6 eggs per day right now. So will have that this month. 

I can and freeze. 

A lot. I have 6 quarts of homemade veggie soup left, and one quart of that plus a pan of cornbread will be dinner for us. I have plenty of pickles, jams, jelly, relishes and such. I have a few quarts of green beans left from the garden, as well as frozen black-eyed peas and corn and about 5 quarts of frozen pesto. 

I can cook from scratch. 

I can make bread and soups and all kinds of goodies from scratch. And in November we did a pretty big Sam's trip with flour, sugar, yeast, rice etc. So we will be good for sure. 

We have quite a few fresh apples and oranges leftover from the holidays, and I have canned pineapple and other fruits. We also have lots of potatoes and sweet potatoes ( from our gardens) and onions and garlic and carrots ( not from our garden) but are fresh.  I plan on using the $60 for things for the kids lunches if we need it, and milk. I do have some boxed shelf stable milk, but keep that for a true emergency. If I don't spend all $60 I'll throw it at our debt. 

Are any of you planning on a no spend or low spend January?