Welcome to the oddest combination of blog masquerading as a television episode ever!
I’m a big fan of the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. She was recently recapping some things she learned during her no spend month in 2024 and mentioned that a listener had written in talking about how she and her husband often observe something they call “Survivor Pantry Island” each year.
This immediately felt like a good idea to me — and so I thought I’d catalog what I hope to be an annual event here on the blog. I am changing the name to survivor freezer island, as the issue in our home is that I overstock the freezers and then don’t cook from them regularly enough.
Here in “episode 1” I’ll explain the concept and the aims. In each weekly episode, I’ll share fun or funny moments, what I/we learned, and anything else I find interesting.
What is the aim of Survivor Freezer Island?
The aim is to eat from our existing food supplies (fridge, freezers, and pantry) as much as possible throughout all of February. Keep the grocery buying and eating out to a minimum.
Eating out is not much of an issue for us at all. We will have an occasional meal out with friends, but otherwise we’re not really restaurant goers that often.
Why take this on?
In the household division of duties, I am the head chef as well as chief supply officer. This prompts at least two reasons to take on this challenge:
First, limitations can inspire creativity. When I was inventorying the freezers and pantry over the weekend, my mind was buzzing with meal ideas. Also, talking about this with Gayle has also garnered a few “we haven’t had x in a while” notes, which are always helpful to getting me out of menu ruts as well as helpful to meal planning.
Second, is related to meal planning. I meal plan a week at a time. I’d like to get to a process where I meal plan and shop once a month rather than weekly or even bi-weekly. While I know we’d still need to stop once in a while for fresh produce and other highly perishable items, I do think it’s very plausible for us to get to once a month meal planning with adjustments done weekly.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is to reduce our food waste and consider how we might better help those who suffer under the weight of food insecurity. The following statistics are based on or taken from the Feeding America website as well as the USDA site on food waste:
20% of children in America deal with food insecurity. 14% of all Americans are classified as food insecure.
In 2010, about $161 billion of worth of food was lost at the retail and consumer level.
15% of Americans requested food assistance of some form in 2023. This might include food banks, food pantries, and other community organizations along with government nutrition programs.
Food insecurity impacts all communities, all races, and all ages. While systemic inequality is a root cause of food insecurity, food insecurity impacts all races and groups — not just those in poverty or people of color.
Regarding food waste, this is not an enormous problem for us. However, if I can reduce what we throw away even a bit, I’m doing my part. (That said, this is largely a retail and production issue more than it is an individual consumer issue. I’ll do my best to do my part, but this problem is far bigger than me.)
While we make a food donation to our local food pantry most months, if I can reduce our monthly grocery bill consistently, we could contribute more to the food pantry or assist in some other ways.
What are the “rules”?
The rules are pretty simple.
Use items from the fridge, freezers, or pantry for every meal.
Buy only items that are absolutely necessary from the grocery store throughout the month.
No spending on eating out this month.
What are the numbers?
I’m going to compare this to January of this year, since comparing my grocery bills to last year at this time just makes me sad.
In January, I spent $40.88 eating out. I didn’t ask Gayle what her spend was, but it was likely that much or less.
Our grocery spend for January was $260.91. I’ll qualify this a little with the fact that I started paying attention to this really closely around the middle of the month — knowing we’d be doing this. The next closest comparable month for this was November, in which our grocery spend was $335.82. It will be interesting to see what February and even March looks like after this experiment.
On Next Week’s Episode
I plan to check in weekly here on the blog to report on how we’re doing with this. We’re also kicking off a no spend month in February that we’re doing as a household. I’ll probably share that as well. Next week, I will have a meal plan for the full month done and will share the planning process with you.
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