As people, we tend to be creatures of habit.
Our morning coffee.
The daily routine in the shower.
Our favorite pair of jeans that we always choose over every other pair, even when they’re dirty.
As a frugal foodie, that habit becomes a bit more pronounced. We snag an extra jar when peanut butter is on sale. We recognize a great price from the weekly circular and make it a point to finagle that store into our weekly errands.
But these frugal habits work to our benefit, we have good food readily available AND a grocery budget under control.
Of course, there are more benefits to having a well stocked frugal real food pantry other than that, so I thought I’d offer 7 reasons why WE have certain items almost always on hand – so you can see that your kitchen can actually help you on your real food journey.
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Stocking a Frugal Real Food Pantry To Save Time and Money
(1) There’s always something to eat.
We’ve all been there – we open the fridge, browse the shelves and find nothing that sounds appealing.
When you have real food stocked in the pantry, the odds of you truly running out of food are slim.
Dinner might not be glamorous. It might be a bowl of whole wheat pasta with a garlic butter sauce with random veggies from the fridge and freezer (a makeshift pasta primavera).
It could be what’s left of the CSA box, a can of diced tomatoes, rice and a the last few shavings of that wedge of Parmesan (which is how summer squash pasta was born).
The point of dinner isn’t to show off our culinary skills. The purpose of dinner is to fuel our bodies with good food. If you stock your pantry well, you’ll be able to do that at every meal.
(2) Last minute trips to the drive thru become less frequent.
There always seems to be one day of the week that is WAY busier than the others. Whether that’s planned or by accident, I think we can all agree that cooking dinner is the last thing we want to do come 5pm.
But here’s the thing: Knowing you have real food already in the pantry will help keep you from turning to the drive-thru on busy nights.
It’s a complete mind game.
You made a meal plan. You went shopping. You bought and paid for the food. You put it away in the pantry!
And now you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place:
Choosing to ignore the bought-and-paid-for food and spending MORE money by ordering take-out, or choosing to ignore that impulse to splurge, bringing a pot of water to a boil and chopping veggies.
It’s truly your choice, but having the food already in the kitchen means you’re a whole lot less likely to splurge and much more likely to spend 20 minutes inventing a new one-pot meal.
(3) Stocking up provides the opportunity to buy in bulk.
There are about 10-15 items I almost always have on hand. There’s usually a whole grain or two. A couple different oils and vinegars. Healthy cooking fats and few things crunchy.
The key is stocking up in an affordable manner is to not buy them all at the same time. By choosing to buy just few each month (or each grocery budget cycle), you reap the rewards of buying in bulk without breaking the bank.
Here are just a few examples of how we save by buying in bulk:
- Cashews are $5.99/lb when you buy them in bulk from Costco, compared to $7.99/lb from other places when you buy smaller portions at a time. Savings = $4.99.
- Bob’s Red Mill rolled oats are $10.48 from Amazon for a total of 128 ounces. You can get the same rolled oats from Walmart for $8.80, but you only get 64 ounces – half as much! Savings = $7.12
- Organic butter is $3.99 per pound at Costco when you buy 4 pounds at a time. My local grocery store has organic butter for $4.99/lb – a whole dollar more! Savings = $4
The total savings of buying just these three items in bulk is over $16 – I could buy a whole organic chicken with that savings!
(4) Your shopping list is shorter.
No one has storage space to buy their entire shopping list in bulk.
And if you do, can we trade kitchens?
With only so much space, and only so many funds, you don’t have the luxury of having every.single.thing.imagineable in your kitchen.
This is good! There’s a lot less to replenish and your shopping list is much, much shorter.
If we buy cashews, we skip almonds that month. If we buy oats, we snack-y stuff and make homemade granola bars instead. If we bought butter, coconut oil gets put hold until next month.
(5) Meal planning is easier.
You don’t have to decide between brown rice or white rice if you only have one kind of rice in the pantry… know what I mean?
Do you make hearty spaghetti sauce with ground turkey or ground beef? Whichever was on sale.
Find a great deal on whole chickens? Guess you’re having chicken for dinner!
When a full flat of strawberries is cheaper than any other fruit, take advantage! Let them be the go-to fruit for snacks, side dishes and dessert. Just be sure to freeze or dehydrate a batch so you have some when the sale or season is over!
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(6) Cooking is easier.
The last week of our grocery budget cycle is one of my favorite for cooking because my options of what to cook are limited. By default, there’s no guess work for dinner because there’s only so many ingredients left!
Similarly, it’s the same when you choose to buy in bulk. Homemade bread will have whole wheat and spelt. Not kamut or all-purpose because I don’t always have those.
We almost always buy carrots, onions and potatoes in bulk. When I’m cooking dinner, I know my vegetable options: carrots, onions and potatoes!
Vary the spices so dinner doesn’t get boring (these DIY spice blends immediately come to mind), and switch up loaves of bread with flat bread or rolls.
(7) Prep work is easier.
Building on point #6, if I know we’ll be having carrots, onions and potatoes a few nights this week, I can go ahead and dice, chunk, puree, roast or shred whatever amount I need without having to pull out a dozen different items from the crisper.
I think it’s safe to say that stocked a frugal real food pantry can save time, money and make the world of a difference in your real food journey and every day life!
My husband recently passed away, and I often find myself at the grocery, getting to the checklane with very little in my cart. Not that I don’t need anything, but that nothing.sounds. good. to.eat. I am often nauseated, which makes it difficult to choose what might sound good over the next week. I have (at least a few times) purchased a particular item that sounded good at the time, take it home and eat part of it for a meal, then not being interested in it at all, so the remainder goes in the garbage, because I ignored it until it was not edible. I do try to keep fresh fruits and vegetables in the frig, but they don’t do it for me, either.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
And, by the way, my doctor wants me to go gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, and walk 10 minutes on the treadmill after every meal. I told her that this would qualify as another major life event, but I would do my best to work on it.
Martha – have you considered shopping and cooking with someone else who is in a similar situation as you? Maybe the companionship a couple nights a week would help off-set the side effects of mourning. I know this is a tough time, and I will pray that God gives you peace!
Get a second opnion on that that is an expensive lifetlye change. Good luck.
You make great points here. I really don’t enjoy cooking very much, but I prefer it to eating lots of pricey (and usually not very healthy) take-out. Meal-planning and having lots of good food on-hand helps a lot with my motivation to get cooking!
Thanks Amy!
LOVE this post! I love eating whole foods, there’s just something about how yummy they look. God wasn’t stupid when He made our food. Can’t wait to practice your tips!
Thanks Lindsay!
Tiffany, I have been using your meal planning service, and I feel like I am getting better each month at eating out of my pantry. For April, I actually ventured down to my buckets of food that I’ve been avoiding for a couple of years, and pulled some from that pantry up to use this month. I don’t have any cannelini beans, but I have gobs of navy beans! So this month – navies. Thanks for all you do – you and your family are inspiring to mine!
You’re most welcome Jessica! Thanks for leaving this encouraging note! 🙂
This was a great post! I also read the links in the email this week on how to shop at various stores. I recently discovered the local dollar store, and was pretty amazed at the fresh produce I could get for very little money. An entire head of cauliflower for $1?? Yes please.
What a great find Marcia! So glad the weekly newsletter helped!
Do you happen to have some flexible meal planning ideas? I work 5 nights a week, so I cook on my nights off. BUT, I still would love if my husband could cook an easy wholesome dinner for himself and for my son. Any easy wholesome recipes that are “dad friendly”? I would love the help so I can accurately plan and fix up my shopping list! 🙂
Me to im now in the same boat:)
Caylee and Di – Off the top of my list, I think of my stand-by’s of salad, soup and sandwiches. My husband LOVES grilled sandwiches, and so long as we have bread (homemade), he can fend for himself. He usually pairs it with roasted potato wedges (homemade french fries essentially), but chili + baked potatoes are good too. I would suggest on your nights off making a double batch of something and freezing it for the men later, OR purposely making a slow-cooker meal on that night too, but delegate that to the freezer. Teach the husband to microwave a potato and thaw chili and you’re good to go!
PS – I’ll make a note to put this in a future blog post too. 🙂
I always have the usual suspects in the pantry (rice, pasta, potatoes, canned tomatoes…). For me, it’s the cashew butter (allergic to peanuts), butter, and bacon that I get as many as I can when on a great sale. I recently got 7 packages of all natural uncured bacon at half price. I bought all they had and put then in the freezer.
I second your note on butter and bacon! I once bought 6 packages and froze them… the only problem is not reaching in there to grab a pack every week!
Tiffany,
This is a great post! Wondering if you had a list somewhere of those real food “staple” items you always keep your pantry loaded with?
Thanks!
Sara
You know, I’m not sure I do Sara… but that would make for a great post!! I’m putting it on my calendar!