Did I Reach My Goals for December?

December was a month of thoughtful decision making.  Now it's time to check in and see if I met my food goals.  Click on the links to go to the posts where I define these goals.

• To spend less than $200 a month on groceries and less than $100 a month on dining out for a total Food and Dining Budget of $300 a month.
• Buy simply produced and basic processed food that has traveled the least distance.
• Make homemade versions of the expensive prepared groceries I buy, be more resourceful with what I do have and starting each week with a food plan.
  
• Consciously reduce food waste by using up leftovers and food already in the pantry.
  

First let's start with the big one.  Did I keep our Food and Dining Budget under $300 in December?  Almost.  It was really close.  I had to rearrange the food and dining money towards the end of the month. The final count is:

$258 Groceries
$ 46 Restaurants
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$304 Total for Food and Dining in December

That's pretty exciting!  Compared to November we reduced our spending by 46%.  Not too shabby.  I feel like $300 for food and dining is reasonable so I'm going to keep the goal into next month.  We'll see if I can hit the nail on the head and stay under $300. 

Next up, I worked on my food mantra.  I wrote it up so it was more clearly defined.  I worked towards it by buying at least 75% of my food as basic ingredients.  I still have things I can work on.  I bought some processed food: cheese, yogurt, tea, flour and boxed stock. 

I would like to learn how to make cheese and yogurt.  Both of those are things I buy that I could cut down the distance traveled, and amount of purchased processed food if I made them myself.  And they are things I have always wanted to take a stab at.  I did a pretty decent job of buying local or organic when given the opportunity.  I'm just waiting for spring so I can get some local asparagus, greens and peas!  I made a ton of healthy, high fiber, low fat soups for lunches and dinners.  I feel like soup is a great option because it helps reduce food waste. 

Food waste is something I didn't really get into in December.  I didn't do a specific post about it.  I did start up composting again.  I hadn't really been doing it because we had been traveling and readjusting to The States.  But no more excuses.  Kitchen compost is very rich and has excellent nutrients for the garden.  It just didn't make sense to be throwing it into the municipal garbage. 

And my last goal was to make more food from scratch.  I did not buy a single loaf of bread!  I made all our bread which I feel pretty good about.  And all those soups I mentioned before were made from scratch a lot of beans and fresh veggies went into them.  I also had my first venture into making homemade pasta.  It was surprisingly easy and so much better than store bought.  I plan on adding fresh pasta into the regular rotation. 

I made some athletic strides in December; I'm clicking my heels with glee.  But I can't rest yet I've got a lot more to learn in finding healthy, responsible ways to feed my family (which at this point is Jeff, me and his mom).

Stay tuned in the next post where I'll define the goals for January which will include not just food, cooking and budget, but fitness and reducing fuel consumption.  Oh exciting!