I saved $340 in one week by doing a 'no spend challenge'

Last Tuesday I realized I had been buying lunch every single day for two months straight. That was like $12 a pop, maybe more on coffee runs. So I challenged myself to only eat from my fridge and pantry for a whole week. I made a big pot of chili on Sunday and packed leftovers every morning. By Friday I had saved $340 compared to my usual spending. Has anyone else tried something like this and actually stuck with it?

3 comments

3 Comments

anna49114d ago

My chili idea is smart but I gotta ask - how did you calculate that $340 number? Because if you're counting groceries you already bought, that's not really saving, that's just not spending extra. The real test is if you actually cleared out your fridge and ate stuff that would have gone bad otherwise. I tried this last month and I saved about $150 but only because I had a freezer full of chicken breasts I forgot about. Did you factor in the cost of that chili you made or was it all stuff you already owned?

cole_flores4413d ago

Eva's right though, you're overthinking this. That freezer chicken was already paid for, sure, but if you had let it go bad you'd be out that money AND buying more food. So using it is still saving the replacement cost. The $340 probably just adds up what those meals would've cost at a restaurant or takeout place, not what the ingredients originally cost. That's how these numbers usually work. And honestly, who cares about the math if you ate well and didn't waste food? The real win is not letting stuff go bad.

evahenderson14d ago

Wait, aren't we splitting hairs here though? If I spent $100 on groceries last week that would have rotted, and instead I cooked them into chili that fed me for the whole week, that $100 is still saved because I didn't go buy another $100 worth of takeout. The $340 number makes sense if you add up all the meals you didn't have to pay for, even if the ingredients were already sitting there. I mean, that freezer full of chicken breasts you found? That's still money saved man, you just forgot you had it until now.