Eat/Use it Up

Inspired by Elizabeth over at Adventures in Life, Love and Librarianship's quest to Eat All the Food!

I am embarking on a similar quest.  Before I moved into my apartment, back in June, I managed to do a pretty good job eating up as much of the food I already had before moving.  Sure, I wound up with some weird meals and ate English muffins every day for about two weeks, but I also had to move a lot less stuff.

Trouble is, I still have a lot of food and I've been doing pretty well with eating it up, but I could be doing better.  Since I get paid monthly at my new job, I still haven't gotten a full paycheck, and somehow I've managed to spend a lot on groceries this month.

Added to the fact that I have a lot of food hordes is the fact that I have a lot of stuff hordes.  I still just have a lot of items stockpiled from way back when--mostly bathroom stuff. I realized the other day that I have about six hotel soaps, four bottles of lotion and more stuff under the sink than I think I can deal with right now.  I made a trip to Target the other day with the intention of buying body wash, but then realized that I could actually just use up that damn hotel soap instead.  Yes, I realize soap is soap, but I always think of bar soap just for hands--no longer!

Presently, in my kitchen, I have a bunch of snacks in my snack drawer that I like, but don't love.  I brought them to work instead.  Since I sometimes get snacky midday, I'm much more inclined to reach for something I've already paid for rather than going to the cafe down the hall.  So I now have a stash of Bevita Breakfast Biscuits (I bought them with a coupon, and they're good, but I just never want to eat them); 100 calorie packs of microwave popcorn (I always burn them in my microwave at home, or want more popcorn than that); and Larabars (again, totally tasty, but more of an on-the-go snack than a couch snack).  I also have a bunch of split peas and various grains and soup mixes that are perfect for this time of year.  I have a glut of frozen vegetables, and a pile of veggie burgers.  Honestly, I have enough food and variety of food that not only will I be healthy, but I shouldn't get bored.

The plan is to eat up what I already have, and only go to the grocery store for fresh veg.  This should save me some cash, and clean out my cupboard.

In the bathroom, I plan to use up all the hotel soaps before going back to body wash; go through my bags of stuff and see what's actually in there (I keep small items in cosmetics bags and have a tendency to lose things at the bottom), use up all the shampoo and conditioner I have before buying more (I don't really like the stuff I currently have, but it still works fine); and use up all of my travel size items.  I have refillable bottles for body wash, shampoo and conditioner, I don't know why I hang onto all these travel size samples I've acquired.

Last night's dinner was most of a log of polenta (I'll use up the rest tonight) with oven roasted cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella plus a side salad.

Tonight, finish off the polenta with some kind of frozen vegetable and eat up the butternut squash bisque I bought a while back that's getting close to expired.

I can do this!!