Focus on Shelf Cooking: Join the Shelftember Challenge
Time to shop from your pantries, fridges, and freezers for a whole month! The Shelftember challenge has begun… We’ve got some exciting things in store for those who participate!
Now that the kids are all back in school, at least in my area, it’s time to crack down and really start to get back on track with our budgets and our eating habits!
This summer has been just a little bit crazy, to say the least… But a nice home-cooked meal has always done the trick to make us feel better. Luckily, I can always dig through my pantry and freezer and whip up something healthy and surprisingly delicious in less than 30 minutes! Due to my habits in the kitchen, I can use shelf cooking to make this happen without fail.
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If you’ve been around for a while, you know that September is all about food around here! We host this #Shelftember challenge (you may have heard of it) that has been pretty big ’round these parts for the last 5 years! We’re kicking off the 6th year straight and we’re ready to rock it in the kitchen.
You in!?!
WHY SHELF COOKING?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. One of the greatest financial challenges I see on a daily basis is that people pay too much for groceries, but more importantly, they are not utilizing their food to the fullest potential. So much waste, too much stress and hassle, way too much eating out.
If you’re new around here, shelf cooking is a phrase I’ve coined to describe a frugal style of cooking that bases your meals primarily around ingredients you have on-hand and supplementing with ingredients from the store, rather than the other way around. Yes, you can cook delicious, homemade, down-home-cooked meals this way! Yes folks, you’ve heard it here first! Woo hoo! Such trendsetters we are!
After filming and posting my very first official shelf cooking video, you Freebs came up with a way better hashy so it’s now #Shelftember! Use it and love it, folks!
SHELF COOKING IS A BIG DEAL
First of all, you’ve got to check out our site that’s completely dedicated to Shelf Cooking – the art of cooking from your pantry to provide delicious, homemade meals all while sticking to a budget! We dive in and share some incredible recipes, inspirational ways to use your leftovers, creative ways to stick to your grocery budget, awesome kitchen hacks, and so much more.
We really felt like Shelf Cooking deserved its own platform as we’ve seen how it has transformed the lives of thousands in our Shelf Cooking Community. Have you joined yet?
Don’t be scared! You do NOT have to be a talented home chef to learn how to shelf cook… We’ll teach you all the things you need to know! But first, let’s talk #Shelftember challenge deets!
CHALLENGE YOURSELF
Head over to the Shelf Cooking™ blog for all the juicy details on this year’s Shelftember Challenge! Oh, and did I mention? We’re giving away a shiny new freezer to one lucky winner—yep, that could totally be YOU! 🎉
For the entire month of September, I’m challenging all of us to take the #Shelftember challenge. I’m pledging to feed my family on just $30/week in fresh groceries and consumables, and otherwise make our meals based around what I have on-hand!
I understand that $30 is very tight for some. I want this to be hard, but realistic. If you absolutely can’t do $30/week, feel free to go up to $50 – but to make it a challenge, you really can’t exceed $50/week. To keep to that amount, I recommend pulling out $30 cash from the bank every week to spend on supplemental groceries. Or use grocery pick-up and order online so you can watch your total and make sure it doesn’t go over the $30 limit.
SHELFTEMBER WEEKLY CHALLENGES
Let’s break it down real quick for ya! Every Saturday we suggest prepping breakfast for the whole week. Not sure how to do this? Check out this make-ahead breakfast ideas post that will walk you through how it’s done!
INVENTORY YOUR PANTRY
This is huge folks, you cannot shelf cook if you don’t know what food you have! Take the time to make an inventory. We have these updated handy dandy inventory sheets that will make your life a gazillion times easier. Print ’em, use ’em, and get ready to use up all that food! Inventory everything.
After you successfully inventory your fridge, freezer, and pantry – you can plan all your meals for the week. Need a meal planning sheet? HERE YOU GO!! Need some ideas of what to make for dinner? Check out this huge list of dinner ideas!
For our mini-challenge this week, establish a weekly leftover night that allows you to use up all those leftovers in the fridge!
DOUBLE AND FREEZE
In order to successfully decrease the amount of time you spend in the kitchen, be smart and use the time you ARE in the kitchen to get MORE done. Double your recipes and freeze half for later – here are some great freezer meals to get your wheels turning. Don’t forget to plan out all your meals to use up ingredients you have on hand before hitting up the grocery store.
Another helpful habit to start is making sandwiches in bulk to freeze for lunches. Kids (and adults) can just grab a sandwich in the morning and it will be thawed and ready to eat by lunchtime.
FAMILY DATE NIGHT
This weekend we encourage you to get the family involved in prepping next week’s meals together. Be creative, make it a fun challenge! Spending time with your family in the kitchen will help get everyone excited about shelf cooking! Make sure to share what you create on social media with the #Shelftember hashtag! We want to see your yummy creations!
UPDATE YOUR INVENTORY
By now you’ve probably used up a lot of the ingredients on your shelf. Time to do a big update of your inventory so you can plan out this week’s meals!
For our mini-challenge this week, repurpose some leftovers to create a brand new dinner! Turn chicken noodle soup into a casserole, use leftover rice to make ham fried rice, leftover tacos make a great taco salad, you get the idea!
FAMILY DATE NIGHT
Take this family date to the next level by using ingredients from your pantry to create a fun family dessert! Mmmmm. Make sure to share what you create on social media with the #Shelftember hashtag! We want to see your yummy creations!
DOUBLE AND FREEZE AGAIN
All I can say is that this is a pretty big deal with shelf cooking! Use that freezer! This week’s challenges are repetitive because shelf cooking is really about creating a new kitchen lifestyle. Think about food differently and you’ll see different results!
Hopefully after the challenge ends, you’ll continue the pattern!
TIPS FOR #SHELFTEMBER
Shelf cooking is extra challenging if you don’t have a freezer, so I highly recommend you get an extra one. Put it in your garage, basement, closet, guest room, get creative! Watch this video for TONS of ideas.
Keep tabs on this blog, my YouTube channel, Facebook, and especially Instagram. I will be sharing tips about how we are making this challenge manageable. And don’t forget about our site, ShelfCooking.com!
Join me by posting your pictures on FB or IG and tagging me so I can see your progress this month!
THE BEST TOOL FOR A SUCCESSFUL SHELFTEMBER
Ok, so maybe Shelftember sounds like a good idea, but it still feels a little intimidating? We’ve got you covered there, too! My team and I have put together the most amazing Shelf Cooking Subscription Meal Plan that does all the planning for you!
Not only that, we are releasing a new and improved meal plan that is so amazing it will knock your socks off! After months of work we’ve been able to create a customizable meal plan that allows you to enter in what ingredients YOU have on hand so you can select the recipes that work for you! Whaaaaat??! Game. Changer!
But wait, wouldn’t that amazingness be so expensive? NO WAY! You can try the meal plan for free for 21 days, friends! After that, you’ll pay less than $10 a month for this life changing tool that will make Shelftember so much easier than you imagined!
Check out these posts for more tips on getting started with your shelf cooking challenge:
- Learn how to inventory your freezer, pantry, and fridge!
- Get some great tips for how to meal plan.
- And don’t forget to check out ShelfCooking.com for tons of ideas, recipes, hacks, and more awesome content to help you be a boss in the kitchen!
Happy shelf cooking!
I wish I could purchase a planner with your block schedule for productivity and meal planning inventory and calendar in it already. I don’t have a printer and having everything all in one place would be amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas and tips, they have literally changed my life!!!
All I can say is keep an eye out!!! 🙂
I love doing shelftember! It is such a fun challenge
Jordan, I have been following you for forever now and I have got my mom on the #freebs train!!!! Our deep freezer recently broke while we were in some financial trouble… perfect timing, I know ?. So I would LOVE to win this freezer for my parents so they don’t have to worry about getting a new one. I know you can live without, but we do a lot of freezer meals and meat, so we can’t live without. Thank you for all you’ve done to help our family. Congrats on the babies. I was praying for twins ❤️❤️
That’s so fun to hear that you’ve gotten your mom onboard! I hate that your freezer broke, that’s the worst! Make sure that you follow the instructions in the post so that you can get entered to win in the freezer giveaway! Good luck! 🙂
I can’t wait to start shelf cooking.
I don’t know which one I’m excited about more… That it’s shelf cooking month, or that you started the shelf cooking web page!!
I know, I’m so excited about BOTH! Have fun this month! 🙂
Oh man girl, here I am thinking that $700 a month for all of our groceries and consumables would be a good stretch goal and now I see this!! ??? Years ago I had a little blog called real life food storage where I chronicled our adventures using up things like wheat and beans, canning applesauce and the like, so I definitely have some things I can tap into there, but we also spend $60/week on fresh produce alone!
And with total love and respect, I have to ask, can you really do this pregnant? I always say I have to bump up my grocery budget at the beginning of a pregnancy because I just need a little more convenience food!!!
I have to say, nearly every budgeting, money saving article I’ve read hasn’t been much help—we were already doing most everything three! That is until I found Jordyn! Now I’ve actually found some super helpful tips! Thanks girl!!
This month is alllll about using up what you have, so definitely try it out! If you can’t go without fresh produce, try only shopping for what’s on sale and in season and see if that helps you out! Doing this pregnant is definitely hard. It is definitely hard doing this pregnant, but I barely want to eat anything anyways because nothing sounds good, haha! I’m glad to hear that you’re loving all of my tips! I’ve definitely worked hard to make them work for everybody! 🙂
Sounds good, we’ll be giving it our best! And prayers for those twins, what a wild ride! ??
I’m so excited about this! This will be my first time joining the challenge! I’m ready to save money and waste less!
Laura
http://www.laurelandfern.com
Good luck!
Hi! I think there is supposed to be a link in there to a meal planning sheet, but it’s not clickable/showing up! 🙂 Thanks for all the tips!
Oh man, thanks for catching that! I’ve updated it in the post, but HERE it is for you! 🙂 Happy meal planning!
Hi i love this idea but i’m i doing it wrong. My doctor has told me due to my medical history until things improve i can only eat turkey chicken fish and veg no red meat no processed and most dairy so for myself ( not including hubby and teens) we roasted a large chicken and instead of making a 2nd meal from that then a 3rd from the 2nd. Meal 1 was roast chicken then using what was left it was divided up to make chicken tikka masala , a Sweet and Sour chicken and then chicken pasta salad. all using what i already had. P.s love this website and just joined your Facebook shelf cooking community following from UK
You’re not doing it wrong, you’re just doing it the way that it works best for YOU! The key to shelf cooking is to use up whatever food items that you have on hand. You did great by turning your roasted chicken into 3 different meals using things that you already had!
Hi!
The link for the fridge, freezer and pantry inventory checklist isn’t clickable. HELP, I really want to use these.
Thank you
I just fixed it! You can also find it HERE.
I pretty much shelf cook all the time whenever I go to the grocery store I see what’s in my pantry and fridge and use that as dinner inspo, So at the end of the week my pantry looks like Old Mother Hubbards’ LOL
Haha, I feel you on that! The only reason that mine doesn’t look bare all the time is because I stock up when things are on sale or when I have some room in my budget to get a few extra things 🙂
Since I didn’t really check out the “fun cheap or free” website until this month, I decided to try the shelf-cooking in October. Gotta start sometime, am I right? I have also been binge watching the Food Network GO lately, I think I may like this as I am trying to make different stuff I have never made before. Yesterday I made banana bread using bananas that I would have normally thrown out. Turned out well if I must say so myself. I also managed to stretch out two chicken breasts into 3+ meals: (we don’t eat much at any given time) Anyway, Meal 1: roasted chicken with Salad; Meal 2: Chicken Salad Sandwiches; Meal 3: Chicken Pot Pie (I made chicken pot pie pockets with the rest)…This was my first time making the pie crust from scratch! It turned out well my family liked both the banana bread and the pie crust. Thank you Food Network App! Now all I gotta do is keep it up,
That’s so great! I love to hear how you’re stretching meals and using things that you wouldn’t normally, that’s what shelf cooking is all about. Keep up the good work! 🙂
Hi!!
I have recently purchased BBC! And have been binge watching your videos! That being said, I am doing a Shelf-uary. Lol!
Coming to the end of my first week of January food budget and I have $5 left! I haven’t shopped, technically, since before Xmas! This week’s $150 was spent on a few things needed for a New Year’s Eve dinner party, that I accidentally thawed the wrong meat for!!
Thank you so much for everything you both (Bubba too!) do to help me and my family claw our way out of OUR “F.D” !!!
That is so great to hear!!! Shelf-uary sounds like the perfect way to spend this month to help you focus on your finances and put that money towards something else! Way to go!
If this is answered already and I missed it I apologize.. I know in your normal grocery budget you count anything you can buy at the grocery store (tp, paper towel, diapers, etc) so my question is, do you do the same during shelftember? Because cat food and pull ups eat up an entire week of budget 😮 haha
The $25 is for food only!
I followed the link in my e-mail to print the September Calendar and it leads me here, but I can’t find the link to print. Please help!
We’re sorry you’re having trouble finding the calendar! Please email us at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to help you out.
I love your concept of Shelf Cooking. When is your cookbook coming out?
It’s currently in production and we’re hoping that it’s ready soon!
What is this ham fried rice recipe?! Please share!
Take whatever veggies, leftover meat, eggs, and soy sauce you’ve got and call it dinner! You can’t really mess up fried rice. Here are some other ideas for leftover rice as well!
I love this blog! So so so helpful as a mom of two under two ✌️
Thank you! SO glad it’s been so helpful for you!
Do you still stock up when things are on sale (buy 1 for now, 2 for later) during Shelftember? And if so does that come from your weekly budget or what’s leftover since you’re spending less this month?
Generally during Shelftember we do not do our usual stock-up unless it fits with the weekly budget.
Love shelftember!
I love doing Shelftember. It’s my favorite time of the year to clean out my freezer and pantry. Jordan has made it so easy to follow along with her all month!
This challenge changed my life! Changed my whole way of thinking. And every post on Instagram where you simplify dinner and highlight using what needs to be used in the fridge – makes life so easy! Thank you!!
I should do this
I should do this!!!!! Good way to use before expiration dates
SHELF-TEMBER is a staple in our house every year now! Love it!
I love learning ways of how to stretch meals. And still being able to enjoy life by not spending all the money on food!
I love this thank you!