2025 Planning – Use It Up

A theme for 2025 seems to be popular for next year. I am usually not one for themes but I will play along. Use It Up will be one of my themes.

How many of you have food in your home that you have forgotten you have? Or food that you don’t know how to use it up? I know I do. People have gifted me food that I am not sure how to cook. But this year it will all get used. Waste not want not! I will use a recipe site like:

https://www.allrecipes.com/ingredients-a-z-6740416

Very little money will get spent on groceries until many food products that I have on hand are used up. We have already started this. I had stockpiled over 10 cases of Chunky, Progresso, Old El Paso, and Marie Callendar soups before the prices started inflating. Many I got for $ .89 – $ .99 each. Now they are $ 1.98 each or more. I make a lot of homemade soups but I had these in case of an emergency and for quick lunches or dinners in the winter time. It has been so cold that Hubby and I have been eating 2 cans week. We each like different soups. By doing this, we have saved a lot of money. Plus it is so easy to heat up a can of soup, add saltines with butter and call it a meal. That gives me a break because I am now taking care of everything because of Hubby’s meniscus tear. Add a kitten named Eloise to that and I fall into bed at night exhausted.

My freezers are jammed packed so we will be eating those up also. I have found 2 other stores where I can restock in bulk at great prices. Much better than the prices in the local supermarkets. They are the https://www.usfoods.com/why-us-foods/chef-store.html and https://www.sloansupermarket.com/ .

The rest of our food we will rotate so that nothing goes bad.

How many of you have tons of office supplies? I know we do and we are not going to buy any until they are all gone. We have lots of pens and pencils, notebooks, computer printer paper(about a case and 1/2), staples, rubber bands, markers, notepads, tape, etc. Just look at these notebooks. They will get put to good use this year.

The one on the left on the bottom row is a meal planner that barely got used. I will use it up this year to plan out my meals from my stockpile and write any groceries I need that week. The one on the right is a notebook with lined pages. I will be using it as a running list of errands, cleaning that needs to be done, etc. I will just cross things off as I do them and add things as I need to. This notebook will replace buying a planner. I have purchased planners from two different people over the years. This year they are majorly expensive around $ 59. and $ 68. I found this past year I barely used mine because of my online calendar. So buying one would be a huge waste of money. I will just use the notebook that I already own.

In the top picture is a money planner that did not get used. We keep everything online. But I will use it this year to track things I spend money on that are not fixed budget items. The other notepad I am going to use to track my frugal items that I do every day.

We have many more notebooks that will get used when we need them.

It is 1:37am and I am now tired and ready for bed. But I wanted to get this post done for you. I will continue it tomorrow.