The Great Pantry Experiment -- Day 10

We're 10 days into our Pantry Experiment (see the original post for details), and we've made our first trip to the grocery store.  Here are the groceries we bought:

One gallon of milk -- $1.99
Two green peppers -- $1.69
One bag o' salad -- $0.99
A bunch o' bananas -- $1.36
A dozen yogurts -- $4.80

Total -- $10.83

Now, to be fair, we did also buy two big bags o' cat litter, but as we don't eat cat litter, and the alternative is to have cat excrement scattered about our house, we won't count it here.

We now actually have enough fruit in the house to last us for the next two weeks, and enough yogurts to last us until the end of January.  I can't say that our pantry is any noticeably emptier, but there are spots here and there where I can see shelving I hadn't seen in a while. 

One of the unexpected byproducts of this experiment is how much faster our shopping went on Friday night.  My wife and I are usually very fast shoppers anyway, but this shopping trip (the milk, peppers, and salad from Aldi, the rest from Meijer) was especially fast.  Why?  We found ourselves bypassing ... well, everything, all because we knew it wasn't on the "approved" list of things to buy.  On any normal shopping trip, we'd wander the aisles, looking for good deals and loss leaders, either for eating in the coming week, or else to stock up.  Knowing that we weren't doing any of that -- weren't, in fact, buying anything except one of the Approved Items -- meant we went in, went straight to the areas we needed to visit, then paid and left.  No dalliances in the frozen food aisles, no visiting the canned soups or rice packets in case they might be on sale -- just in and out. 

We're also finding some really good and interesting recipes because we're tossing together a little of whatever we have on hand.  Tonight we're taking a tub of frozen chili and adding ... well, I'm not sure what my wife is adding to it, but it will bulk up the chili, and let it last for two or three days instead of just one.  Meanwhile, we're taking that money we would have otherwise spent on groceries and attacking our mortgage (another $428 or so going against it this week), which is what this whole 40-month experiment is all about.

Anyone else taking the Pantry Challenge?  If so, share your experiences in the comments section.