One of the tools that I use to try and keep my grocery costs down is simply having a decently stocked pantry. Now, when I say that, I don’t mean that I have a bottomless pantry. Experts advise having a stockpile of at least 3 months of food on hand in case of disaster or job loss. Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Three months!!? While I would love to have that kind of pantry, it just doesn’t happen here. And it never fails that when I do manage to seem to get close to a very nicely stocked pantry that a local food pantry announces a shortage, and then I do a purging and I’m back to where I started.
But having a simply stocked pantry is a huge money saver, and here’s why. I very seldom stock my pantry with items that I’ve paid full price for. I’m far from a bargain shopper, and while I try to use coupons, the coupon magic doesn’t seem to work for me often. But there are times where I am in need of something, let’s say dried chickpeas, and I’ll go to pick up a package and discover that a particular brand of dried beans is on sale. Instead of $1.29 per pound, they’re on sale for 99¢. So instead of buying just one package of the chickpeas that I needed, I might get two packages of chickpeas, a package of kidney beans and a package of brown lentils. I just stocked my pantry a little bit.
Another thing I’ll do is buy a larger size. Plain white rice is an excellent example of that. A 2 pound bag of store brand plain white rice at my store is $1.09. The five pound bag is $2.99. For just an extra few dollars, I can pick up the five pound bag and have a rather large stockpile of plain white rice on hand. My family likes rice- and there are dozens of ways that you can change it up so you’re not just having rice again.
In store sale prices and coupons can factor in as well. The store I shop at hardly ever advertises sales, so you don’t know what’s going to be offered at a discount until you’re actually there shopping. I shop at Woodman’s Markets for most of my grocery needs. If you have one near you, it’s well worth the time to explore. The benefit of the store not advertising is that it keeps the prices lower. The drawback is that I can’t plan this week’s shopping trip based on their advertised sales. But when I am shopping and I find a really good unadvertised priced, I’ll add an extra one or two of something to my cart. Not a whole case at a time- just one or two.
That’s really how I build my pantry. One or two extra items at a time. In this picture above you’ll see a monster package of canned tuna. That was something I scored at a different grocery store when they had an exceptional sale. A large package of eight cans of tuna was less than six dollars, so I picked one up. A few days later I was thinking about it and ran back and picked up a second one. Abigail and Andy are big fans of tuna sandwiches for lunches, so having that much on hand at once kind of supplied lunches for who knows how long. We haven’t touched the second pack yet, and there’s still one can left from the first pack. That I bought back in August!
Every once in a while I’ll also find a good coupon deal to use too. I’ll find a coupon in the paper for pasta sauce where you buy 3 and get a dollar off. I’ll tuck that into my purse, and when I find that pasta sauce on sale, normally $1.99, but on sale for $1.49, I’ll pick three up, get my dollar off, and it’s like buying two and getting a third free. Red Gold tomato products frequently have coupons floating around where you buy 3 and get a discount. When you buy the smaller sizes of their products, you end up getting one free with the coupon. But I don’t really use coupons that much. Maybe one or two per shopping trip- there’s just too many coupons out there for products we don’t use.
As far as storing these pantry goods, you can see a lot of them stay in their packages and go on a shelf. But I also have invested over the years in some wonderful Tupperware products.
When I first ordered a set, I think it was called The Tower of Power. These wonderful containers stack, are opaque so you can see through, and keep my ingredients fresh. I store dried beans, grains, and different flours in these containers. I’ve also taken the extra step and labeled each one with my label maker. I love these containers, and have added to them over the years. When I have a few extra dollars in my grocery budget, I’ll take a peek at my cabinets here and see if any containers are running low and need to be replenished. Abigail really enjoys helping me with this process- and she also really likes coming home from the grocery store and filling them up.
You know, every year when Andy is laid off, I dream of him going back to work, and then being able to take a rather large chunk of money and doing a really awesome pantry re-stock. Every year I plan to do just that. I plan to take a set amount of money and just go buy pantry staples, but then the moment comes, and I just find it difficult to go to the grocery store and spend a large chunk of money at one time on food that’s just going to sit on the shelf for a time. So I pretty much stick with doing it a little at a time. It seems to be working for us. Armed with this nicely stocked pantry, and a cupboard bursting at the seams with spices and seasonings, we could go for weeks if we really needed to. But I also use this pantry too. These things don’t just sit here in case of emergency, they get utilized and then replenished so that they don’t go bad just sitting on the shelf. I’ll frequently tour the pantry before making a weekly meal plan to see if I need to use something that’s been around for a while.
Anyway, I thought I’d share just a few basic tips for stocking the pantry without going to any kind of extremes. And by all means, make sure when you’re picking up that extra item or two, that they are extra items that you will actually use. Don’t buy a few cans of canned peas because they’re on sale for a really good deal. No one should eat those!