Food Storage

One week ago I was given a challenge at church. I was asked to not go to the grocery store for one week and see if I could feed my family just out of what we already have. (then report on it) My husband and I thought this would be a great challenge since we collect food storage and try to be prepared "just in case." We also decided to take it a step further and not tell our kids and see if they noticed any difference this week. Well the good news is that the kids didn't even notice. We had good well balanced meals--I had to adapt some recipes because I was missing ingredients--but all in all it was a great experience. We keep our freezer loaded with meat and frozen vegetables and have a good sized pantry full of canned food. Some things we learned--(1) keep up on the garden. Our fall veggies aren't ready to harvest yet, so I learned that we need to put it in a little sooner. (2) Get chickens! Seriously, years ago my husband said he wanted a yard with chickens and I thought he was crazy. About a year ago I started warming up to the idea. This experience clinched it. I would like to get a house where we could have our own chickens and fresh eggs. (Our current home is zoned for chickens, but I wouldn't do that to our neighbors--we need more room.) (3) I need to be better at rotating my food. I did find some cans of food that had expired and was bummed to throw them away. I hate to waste.
The best part of this experience was that I took the money I saved from not buying groceries--and did some Christmas shopping! I think we might do this again before Christmas in order to help our budget.