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4 Meals from the Pantry to Save Money

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Woman looking at her pantry shelves and grabbing a jar

If you’re like me, you may find it harder and harder to stay within the grocery budget as food costs skyrocket due to inflation. So I try to find nutritious recipes that aren’t expensive. In addition, to save money, I try to have one week where I don’t make a complete grocery shopping trip and instead only buy some fresh fruits and vegetables and make my meals from the pantry to save money. Doing this allows me to use up what I have and stretch my grocery dollars.

Our Favorite Meals from the Pantry to Save Money

These are the pantry meals we make during the weeks I skip grocery shopping:

Spaghetti

My kids don’t mind a pantry meal when the meal is spaghetti. So I buy pasta and pasta sauce when they’re on sale, and I purchase canned mushrooms at Costco. I mix them together for a quick, cheap meal.

We recently upped our spaghetti game by making Pizza in a Bowl (I left out the creamed soup and only used half the cheese.) I was amazed at how this meal stretched—we had it for two meals!

Breakfast for Dinner

Omelette with mushrooms

Another favorite is breakfast for dinner. We might have omelets with green peppers and cheese and a piece of toast. Or, if we have many bread heels in the freezer, we make French toast and eggs. Sometimes we make a breakfast sandwich with ham, egg, and cheese on toast or an English muffin. Another economical recipe is Ham, Broccoli & Cheddar Frittata. (If money is tight, I leave out the ham, and it still tastes good.)

Broccoli, Potato, & Cheese Soup

I recently found this delicious recipe for Broccoli, Cheddar & Potato Soup. I like it because I can use frozen broccoli. (This recipe and the broccoli frittata recipe are the only ways I enjoy eating frozen broccoli.) Like Pizza in a Bowl, this recipe stretches and easily feeds the four of us for two meals.

Fried Rice

Another frugal yet filling meal is Chicken Fried Rice. We use a rotisserie chicken from Costco and save the bones to make homemade chicken stock. Since rotisserie chicken at Costco is only $4.99, the meat is cheap, and we add rice, frozen vegetables, a few eggs, and seasoning.

How We’re Able to Keep Our Meals Frugal

For years, I’ve stocked up on items when they’re on sale, so I pay the lowest price for groceries. We have a pantry in our basement, two deep freezers, and two refrigerators so we can keep a full supply.

When ground beef is on sale, I may buy 20 or 25 pounds. We have food intolerances and can’t eat dairy, so when our favorite vegan cheese, Daiya, goes on sale, I may buy 20 bags. Then I won’t buy any more until it’s on sale again. If we run out before it goes on sale, we do without until the next sale.

Shopping this way makes having a pantry cooking week easy.

Final Thoughts

Keeping within our allotted grocery budget is getting more challenging every month. One way we rein in expenses is by making meals from the pantry to forego a weekly shopping trip once a month.

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What to Keep in Your Pantry?

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What to Keep in Your Pantry

Since the pandemic, many of us now realize that having a full pantry is a necessity. Of course, this is different than hoarding and having so many items in your pantry that you’ll never be able to use them. Instead, your pantry should have enough to be able to feed you and your family for a month to three months. How much you need depends on a variety of variables.


Why Keep a Fully Stocked Pantry?

Keeping a fully stocked pantry is necessary for a few reasons:

You May Get Sick

If you get sick, you may not want to or be able to go to the grocery store. In such a situation, you can find items in your pantry to prepare for meals.

You May Have a Weather Event

In many parts of the country, having a fully stocked pantry is essential because weather events may prevent you from getting to the store. You may have hurricanes in the South. In the Midwest and East Coast, blizzards may keep you from the store.

You Want to Save Money

If you build your pantry slowly, you can stock up on items when they go on sale. For instance, maybe canned beans are $1.29 a can, but you buy them on sale for $0.99 a can. If you buy 20 cans, you have saved $6.

In addition, if you have a fully stocked pantry, preparing meals is a snap because you likely have all of the ingredients you need. If you decide one night that you’d like to make chicken noodle soup, you probably have everything in the pantry, so you can easily make the meal. When everything is at your fingertips, cooking can be quicker than ordering take-out and waiting for the meal to arrive.

Supply Chains May Be Interrupted

In the United States, we are spoiled. Before the pandemic, most people never had experienced empty store shelves. If you, like me, thought that after 2020, empty store shelves were a thing of the past, you likely now know that thanks to supply chain issues, our days of items being unavailable are not over. We may be facing this situation through next year. If you keep a fully stocked pantry, you’ll be less affected by the market turmoil.

What to Keep in Your Pantry?

So, you’ve decided having a fully stocked pantry is necessary, but what does that mean exactly? What should you include in your pantry? Here are some ideas.

Baking & Cooking Supplies

You’ll want to include ingredients for basic baking and cooking recipes:

  • Baking soda,
  • Baking powder,
  • Flour,
  • Sugar,
  • Cocoa
  • Salt,
  • Pepper,
  • Onion,
  • Garlic,
  • Seasonings

Ingredients for Simple Meals

You’ll also want to include ingredients for simple meals you can make fully from the pantry. If you like spaghetti, include noodles and spaghetti sauce. If you like taco soup, make sure to have taco seasoning, beans, tomatoes, and nacho chips. You may also want to have some canned soups. Just open, heat, and eat.

Vegetables and Fruits

If you don’t mind eating canned vegetables and fruits, make sure to have those. If you’re without power due to a hurricane, for instance, you could always eat those without needing a stovetop.

Toiletries

Before 2020, I don’t think most of us realized just how much we take having toilet paper for granted! Toilet paper is just one of the toiletries you’ll want to have stocked in your pantry. You’ll also benefit from having the following:

  • Toothpaste,
  • Deodorant,
  • Dental floss,
  • Shampoo,
  • Soap,
  • Band-aids

What Should Be in the Freezer?

What to Keep in Your Pantry

If you can afford a freezer chest, I highly recommend buying one. My husband and I have had one for almost as long as we’ve been married, and it’s paid for itself over and over again. If you want to have a well-balanced diet even if you can’t get to the store, a freezer is essential. Consider stocking these items:

Meat

If you’re an omnivore, consider stocking a variety of meat. We usually have beef, pork, chicken, and a variety of fish. A deep freezer pays off if you can stock your freezer with meat you found on sale or if you can buy a quarter side of beef direct from the farmer.

Vegetables

Keep a variety of frozen vegetables. Once your fresh vegetables run out, you can turn to frozen for nutrition. You may want to include

  • Peas,
  • Corn,
  • Mixed vegetables,
  • Greens like spinach and kale,
  • Cauliflower,
  • Broccoli,
  • Lima beans

Fruit

You’ll also want to include frozen fruit for the same reason. We frequently make smoothies with our frozen fruit, but you can also eat it plain or mixed into items like yogurt. We keep the following in the freezer:

  • Blueberries,
  • Strawberries,
  • Mango,
  • Pineapple,
  • Bananas
  • Smoothie mixes (I bought a bag from Costco that has berries as well as some greens like spinach. The kids said it tasted less sweet than a regular smoothie, but they drank it down.)

How Should You Build a Pantry?

Most of us can’t afford to fully stock a pantry in one swoop. Instead, buy items little by little as they go on sale. For instance, spaghetti is a great pantry meal. Recently, there was a coupon for our preferred jars of spaghetti sauce. Instead of being $2.49 a jar, they were on sale for .99 a jar. I bought the maximum limit of 5. If you do this week after week, you’ll soon have a full pantry with items bought at a lower price than if you just went to the store weekly to pick up what you need.

How to Maintain a Pantry

Once your pantry is full, keep a running list of items that are low or that you’re out of. Then, buy those items again to refill your pantry.

Don’t forget to put the items that expire soonest at the front of the pantry so you’ll use them up first. Put the replenished items with a later expiration date in the back.

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t already, now is the time to create a fully stocked pantry. Hopefully, you now have some ideas of what to keep in your pantry and can start building it with items you find on sale each week at the grocery store. Even if you don’t have an emergency, you’ll be glad to have a fully stocked pantry because it makes meal prep so much easier!

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Think You Can’t Afford the Paleo Diet? Ways to Make It More Affordable

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The Paleo diet is gaining popularity, and it can be a good choice for people who have to avoid gluten whether because of a gluten intolerance or Celiac disease.

Sure, if you’re gluten free there are many great options available like gluten free pasta and breads, but those can be very pricy.  Sometimes it’s cheaper to just avoid those kinds of substitutes.

Long Term Savings from Following the Paleo Diet

If you’d like to follow a Paleo diet but think you can’t afford it, keep in mind a few things:

1.  A Paleo diet can lead to weight loss.

The savings here won’t be immediate, but over your lifetime, the savings is significant.  I began following a Paleo diet last September, and in the 9 months since, I’ve lost 75 pounds.  All of my numbers for cholesterol, blood pressure, and sugar count have improved.  I know I’ve saved myself on medical expenses in upcoming years than if I hadn’t taken the weight off.

As another point, I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars I spent on Weight Watchers over my lifetime.  With a Paleo diet, I eat until I’m full, and I don’t get hungry again for several more hours.  There’s no struggle, so weight loss is easy, and I don’t have to count calories or points or pay for the latest weight loss fad.

Making the Paleo Diet more affordable2. You’ll save hundreds by not eating out.

Of course, you can eat out on the Paleo diet, but we just don’t eat out as much.  We’re easily saving at least $200 a month on meals out.  Now we go out to eat only when we’re traveling or for birthdays.

3. You won’t spend money on processed foods.

You might think chips and candy and other processed foods are cheap, but when you buy them in quantities that most Americans do, they add up quickly.

So, keep in mind these initial savings once you switch over to a Paleo diet.

How to Save Money When Buying Paleo Groceries

If you do decide to follow a Paleo diet, here are some ways you can cut costs on groceries:

1.  Buy your meat directly from the farmer.

Ideally, you’ll want to buy grass fed and pastured meat.  We buy 1/2 side of grass fed beef from my cousin’s husband.  We get ground beef, steaks, roasts, etc.  The meat averages about $5 a pound.  There are also several grass fed and pastured suppliers near us, and we stock up whenever they have meat on sale.  We have a deep freezer to keep all the meat.

2.  Subscribe to a CSA.

A CSA (community supported agriculture) allows you to buy organic produce straight from the farmer.  This year, for $850 we subscribed to one that gives us 1 and 1/9 bushel of vegetables a week for 19 weeks.  There are enough vegetables each week to feed our family of 5 copious amounts of vegetables and some extra for us to freeze and use in the winter.

3.  Grow a garden.

I like to grow things that are expensive to buy in the winter like collard greens and kale.  We blanch them and freeze them to add to soups in the winter for an extra nutritional punch.  However, grow anything you like to eat that grows well in your area.

4.  Buy produce on sale and stock up.

If you live near a farm, consider going to the farm and picking the produce yourself.  Last year we bought 50 pounds of organic blueberries.  We froze 30 pounds and made jam and jelly with the other 20 pounds.  It only cost us $130.  However, within 8 months we ran out, so this year we plan to buy about 80 pounds to last us through the year.

Likewise, Whole Foods recently had organic grapes on sale for .99 a pound.  I bought 25 pounds and froze them so we’ll have grapes and grape smoothies in the winter.

Initially, buying Paleo food can seem more expensive.  However, there are many future costs you are eliminating by eating a healthier diet.  In addition, there are ways to save, especially if you’re willing to buy in bulk and preserve your food.

If you’re following a Paleo diet, how do you save money on groceries?