A Perfectly Happy Saturday.

This morning I participated in the church garage sale, only it was different than some church garage sales. I donated $10 to a charity (through the organizers) and got a spot on the church parking lot. I got to keep all my own profits. I was surprised when I hauled all the stuff up from the basement, that it barely fit in the xterra. The church is a great location for a garage sale too...although it wasn't in a "garage". "yard sale"? "parking lot sale"? Whatever.

I drove home with only 3 1/2 boxes to bring to Goodwill, AND I made $130!!
At least $20 of it was hygiene items (like this)that I sold. (I told John it was my Garage sale shopping money to use for this summer...although we might just pay bills with it:)

In other news, I have decided to do my own "eating out of the pantry" challenge. I got the idea from Money Saving Mom's blog HERE.

Since I love shopping so much I tend to be very excited about the deals...and I keep stocking up. Now I don't really need anything except the occasional milk and eggs. I have avoided the grocery stores now for 1 week. (Ok...I went to Walmart, but all I bought was free after coupon items, my favorite cream cheese for bagels and ice cream-which I needed anyway)
I made chicken enchiladas, salads with hard-boiled eggs, free food using coupons from chick-fil-a, fajitas from a bag, and we ate a lot of leftovers. I was pretty proud of myself. This week I will need to get a few things for a dish I want to try (pesto chicken pasta stuff), but I'm going to limit myself to $10 or less in the grocery store. I think more than saving the money by not going to the store each week, I like the challenge of trying to use what I have. This may be kind of surprising because I don't like to cook that much. (I love to bake though.)
Anyone else want to try the challenge? I guess my rule will be...spend $10 or less at the grocery store each week, and try to be creative with meals to use stuff up. The hard part will be the produce but I can buy some produce with the $10 and rely on canned or frozen fruit/veggies I need to use up anyway. I will end my "eating out of the pantry" the week of Memorial Day -because they always have great stock-up sales then.