40 Day Challenge

Hubby and I spent a couple of hours today making and freezing 10lbs of homemade whole wheat pasta. He comes from a very Italian family and he has always enjoyed homemade pasta. We had a couple dozen eggs that we needed to use, so we figured making pasta would be the best way to use them.

It was a great bonding activity and we discussed how we should make this a more permanent thing. And so, our 40 day challenge began.

What does the 40 day challenge entail?

• If it can be made, we will make it.
• We will only purchase items that we cannot make ourselves like eggs, milk, produce, flour, sugar, etc.
• We can only buy meats if we go through everything in our freezer (very unlikely).
• Fabric can be bought ONLY after the current supply has been looked through and there is no suitable option found (ex. I need brown fabric for Peter's Halloween costume and I don't have any). This fabric must be found on clearance.
• We will not purchase any clothing.
• If we run out of soaps, shampoos, or cleaning supplies, we will make our own.We can buy what we need to make these, but we must find the least expensive recipes to make them.

Why are we doing this?  

• It will be great to know exactly what is in everything we eat and use.
• We have a freezer and pantry full of food that really needs to be cycled through, this will force us to do so.
• We're really curious to see how long we can go without spending any money. How much will it really save us?
• We had so much fun just spending time together making pasta, this will be a great adventure for our marriage as we tackle this challenge together!