Welcome to the Clean Out the Cupboards Challenge, co-hosted by Laura at Frugal Follies, Denise at Shopper Strategy, Robbie at Going Green Mama, Crystal at Mrs. Happy Homemaker and me {Rebecca Jean} at Midnight Maniac.

This January, the five of us plan to challenge ourselves to eat from our pantries – to use up all that excess food sitting in the backs of the cupboards, the refrigerator door and the freezer – and limit our shopping to as little as possible.

And we want you to join us, too!

The rules are simple: Make up your own rules, based on what’s best for your family.  But a few basic rules:

• Eat!  This is not an eat as little as possible challenge.  Prepare healthy foods for your family, even if it means doing more shopping than you expected.
• Don’t load up this week with a month’s worth of groceries.  Go ahead and do your regular shopping.
• Don’t not buy groceries, but then eat at restaurants all month long.  Of course, feel free to eat at restaurants if you normally do.
• If you need to stop the challenge mid-month based on the needs of your family, do so.

As for the details of the challenge, it’s up to you!

• You might want to purchase dairy and produce throughout the month; others might try to stretch what they already have.
• You might want to limit your challenge to food items, or extend it to personal care items, paper goods and cleaning supplies.
• You might want to allow yourself to purchase great deals; others won’t.

Next week, we’ll kick off the challenge by posting our goals.  So figure out what your goals are – is it to save money?  to have more room in your pantry? to stop wasting food and thus help the environment?  Figure out why you want to participate in the challenge – I look forward to hearing what your goals are!

(Bloggers: if you wish to join us, we’ll have a linky each week where you can link to your challenge posts.  The linky will appear at the blogs of all five co-hosts!  CLICK HERE! for the latest link up.)

Good luck!