What's in the icebox?

So I'm trying to get myself to stop buying food.

No, madanthony isn't giving up eating, although given the couple pounds I've put on, lost, and then put back on in the last few months, it might not be a bad idea. But I have a bad habit of buying food, and not eating it, and then buying more food.

Part of this has to do with my method of grocery shopping, which consists of going to the store and randomly grabbing items and throwing them in my cart. I don't make lists, and I often don't check what I have before I go shopping - which means I end up with too much of some stuff and not enough of others.

So I've told myself that I can't buy anything until I've used up what I currently have. That is, of course, not an absolute - I can still buy things in categories where I need an item, stuff that turns over quickly (soda, milk, bread, propel) or stuff that I need to use up other stuff (rice, bread, veggies, ect). But I'm trying to use up some of the frozen stuff in my freezer as well as stuff in my pantry.

The purpose of this is twofold. First of all, I want to use stuff up before it goes bad, and I want to make more space and have less clutter in my already-tiny kitchen. But I also figure it's a good way to save money - I'm using food up that I've already paid for, instead of paying more money to buy food.

And it's interesting what I've found - food I forgot I purchased, half-empty packages of stuff I never remembered eating the other half of. I also discovered, in my freezer, an entire sealed bottle of Jagermeister, which I had purchased for a small get-together I had over the summer... and then remembered that, unlike my college days, my current crop of friends and acquaintances have enough common sense to not do shots of Jagermeister. I also still have food I took home from the 'rents when I visited at Christmastime, which I haven't used up mostly due to a lack of planning - I keep forgetting to take it out to defrost.

I'm getting closer, but I could still probably eat for a few weeks with what's in the freezer. Plus, I've eaten most of the stuff that I actually like, and am getting down to the "what was I thinking when I bought this" type stuff. But I can also actually access stuff in my pantry now, so that's a good sign. As long as I can resist the urge to fill it up again - although it's probably too late for that, since I jumped on this deal last week, and still have 23 tubes - 276 cookies - left.